Science journalism and jargon

The India media's expertise is primarily on politics, cricket, entertainment, and business. Their forte is not on science, unlike other well-known publications like The Guardian or the New York Times.

When I read the headline, Mandya's lake man to build 15th pond with award money, I was not all surprised. I was sure that normal readers may not find the words, Lake and Pond, that intriguing. A discerning reader or someone who have studied Ecology will notice that there is something wrong here.

A lake and a pond are not the same thing strictly from an ecological science point of view. Of course, they are static water bodies of varying sizes. But there are obvious ecological differences. One is there are man-made lakes and there are lakes borne out of natural phenomenon such as volcanic eruptions, retreat of ice sheets and earthquakes. Technically, there are differences in the structure, energy flows, ecological stratification, flora and fauna, and so on.

There is an interesting page by the well-known science journal, Nature, describing the aquatic ecology of lakes. The page says that "...Ponds are generally <2 hectares in size, shallow (<3 m),...". The news story is all about one man's mission to create and conserve ponds, and definitely not lakes.

My point is 26 years after the historical Earth Summit at Rio, the Indian media lacks specialist ecology or science writers. They are not serious about covering science minus the jargon, and with the right context and nuances in mind.

It is this assumption that readers don't care about these technical differences that needs to change. It is all about setting some standards in reporting. But who cares about standards in this free for all world?