The Phantom jumps to a conclusion!

Here's a fun little article on the question, "why does science journalism suck so badly?"  Here's the author's take:

Why? Because papers think you won't understand the "science bit", all stories involving science must be dumbed down, leaving pieces without enough content to stimulate the only people who are actually going to read them - that is, the people who know a bit about science. Compare this with the book review section, in any newspaper. The more obscure references to Russian novelists and French philosophers you can bang in, the better writer everyone thinks you are. Nobody dumbs down the finance pages. Imagine the fuss if I tried to stick the word "biophoton" on a science page without explaining what it meant. I can tell you, it would never get past the subs or the section editor. But use it on a complementary medicine page, incorrectly, and it sails through.

Here's the conclusion I jumped to instantly.  They dumb it down because they think we're idiots, obviously.  But they think we are idiots because they are Liberals.  The dark core of Liberalism (modern definition of course) is the assumption that people are STUPID.  Need their hands held, y'know.  Can't be expected to figure out the relative risk section in the scientific paper on chocolate consumption, so let's just skip it.

Besides, they think it sells better.  I must be backwards to the rest of humanity then, because I STOPPED buying Scientific American when they made it a clone of Discovery.  Well, and started in pushing the Greenie bandwagon full time.  Quite a loss, it used to be my favorite magazine.

The Scientific Phantom