Inaccuracy in reporting astronomy and science Options

[As old as Voyage...]

I have just watched the BBC's report on the newly created 3D map of dark matter using Hubble data; and it made my heart sink.

I applaud the BBC for giving airtime to such discoveries, but for such a respected organisation their research was awful.

It's no wonder the vast majority of people are either bewildered or disinterested the the universe as a whole when the facts they are given are completely wrong.

It's a shame that tonight 60 million or so people in the UK and many other people around the world were told Hubble shone a beam of light out into the depths of the universe and studied how it was bent by the gravity of dark matter billions of light years away!

And this was a report from the BBCs science correspondant!

I remain downhearted that perhaps the most important story of the week was reported in such a shoddy manner.

Does anyone else feel space is being let down by TV coverage?

[nprev]

Wow. I have to say that as an American I'm probably even more appalled when hearing this. The BBC is considered the gold standard of English-language broadcast journalism by many of us (we're pretty accustomed to extreme scientific ignorance in our own media ) Well, there goes another fond illusion...

[climber]

Wow. I have to say that as an American I'm probably even more appalled when hearing this. The BBC is considered the gold standard of English-language broadcast journalism by many of us (we're pretty accustomed to extreme scientific ignorance in our own media ) Well, there goes another fond illusion...

We've got the same feeling in France too and I stongly back Bob and Ted when they say that, as I see how bad they report on what I know, it has to be the same for all subjects.
I just finish "Moondust" which is about how the Moonwalkers "felt down" to Earth and all the meaning of the Apollo program (highly recommendable). To give an exemple of how bad the general puublic understand "space" there is an exemple of somebody telling Denis Tito after he completed his flight to the ISS : so, you went to the Moon?!!!
I can hardly stand such ignorence.
I'll never thank Doug enough to have created UMSF.

[Tesheiner]

We've got the same feeling in France too and I stongly back Bob and Ted when they say that, as I see how bad they report on what I know, it has to be the same for all subjects.

Same here, and I'm pretty much convinced it's worldwide and not limited to TV but general media (read newspapers). When I do the every morning scan thru my bookmarks, I always start by UMSF and space related stuff and finish with the local spanish newspapers. Their coverage of space news is simply s*** and I have the feeling that in case I was on the medical business, for instance, I would say the same about med news coverage.