Eric Berger asks his users to be his assignment editor

The SciGuy Eric Beger is asking his users what kinds of science stories would they like him to report on.

Ever had a really good idea for a science news story, but lacked the time or resources to pursue it?

Hire me.

There’s no cost to you, happily. But the opportunity is real.

During the next week I’m going to solicit story ideas from readers for untold science-related stories.

Berger is going to collect the ideas that people leave in the comments section of his post, select several of them and then conduct a reader poll. They’ll also throw in a few ideas from his editors.

Berger will then look at the stories that users have voted on, and the discussion about each idea from fellow users, and then decide which stories to pursue.

This is an innovative way to get users involved. We’ll be interested in seeing how many science story ideas his users come up with. It’s also a good way to serve readers.

Berger was inspired by David Cohn’s crowd-funded project Spot.Us.

Dispelling FUD on news Web sites and blogs

Easily one of the biggest negatives of comments on blogs and Web sites is the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) that is spouted off by users that is intended to confuse or deceive fellow users.

FUD is not always malicious, but it is usually spread by people who are strongly for or against something. For instance, Kent Fischer gets FUD on his blog from people who are against the Dallas Independent School District and vice versa.

FUD can be caused by passing along information that a person believes to be correct, but actually is false. Most often, however, FUD is a deliberate attempt to spread misinformation.

Virtually any Web site or blog that gets enough users will have at least some amount of FUD. The best beat bloggers, however, don’t allow FUD to take hold on their blogs. Those beat bloggers take ownership over the comments and community that forms on their beat blogs.

If one person posts FUD, it’s more than likely that others have the same beliefs. So rather than delete offending posts, many beat bloggers choose to directly respond to those posting FUD to correct them and sometimes admonish them. The SciGuy Eric Berger is very good at dispelling FUD.

Let’s look at a benign example. Recently Berger made a post about how most foreign students who come to America for science and engineering PhDs stick around after they graduate. Here is an an exchange from his blog

One user wrote about why he believes some people being educated in the U.S. are looking to move to other countries:

The trend is reversing because this country is not funding
enough research. Taiwan is. Korea is. China is. Canada is. I will have
exceptional mobility once I have my PhD. I am going to go where the
science is being done. Whether that is a city in the US or Seoul is
largely irrelevant to me. Any modern country with reasonable freedoms
will do. I you want me here, you’d better cough up the money.

Berger responded with:

While some of this might be true, the U.S. still funds about 40 percent of the world’s science R&D.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/2008/RAND_RB9347.pdf

Has the country made some poor choices and has the budget tightening
of the last several years hurt? Unquestionably. But in many (though not
certainly all, such as superconductors) fields your best bet for
cutting edge research is right here.

So, while it may be true that the U.S. has cut down on R&D spending recently, it still spends a lot on R&D compared to the rest of the world. In fact, Berger’s post, Do most Chinese students come here to steal secrets? was an attempt to dispel FUD perpetrated by a U.S. Congressman.:

In any case, this fear was probably most bluntly articulated by U.S. Rep. John Culberson,
whom I heard speak on this issue a few years ago at a science luncheon
in Houston. Many professors from local universities were there. During
a Q&A, the Congressman was asked about the problem with
foreign-born students obtaining visas after 9/11. He responded:

“A concern that I continue to see is that a lot of those
scientists from communist China, my impression is, and correct me if I
am wrong, come here and learn as much as they can, and then leave. And
I’m not really all that much into helping the communists figure out how
to better target their intercontinental ballistic missles at the United
States. They basically steal our technology for military applications.
And they are red China, let’s not forget.”

The answer is a strong no. Berger points out that the five-year stay rate of students from China is 92 percent. That’s higher than India, Taiwan and South Korea. The majority of foreign doctoral students in the sciences come from those four countries.

Berger does not allow disinformation to be spread from his blog. He actively engages his users and takes ownership over the conversation on his blog.

Is it irresponsible for news organizations to allow FUD to go unchallenged? Is this another reason why beat reporters and bloggers need to take responsibility for the comments on their own stories and posts?

Using a survey to take the conversation to the next level

Eric Berger, the SciGuy, has a thriving community on his blog, with regular users, but he is always looking for ways to build a stronger community.

Berger, a beat reporter for the Houston Chronicle, often asks for users’ input and uses his blog to build a community around his beat. I wrote a week ago that not every blog post needs to be about news. Some are about starting conversations, and that’s what building a community is all about.

“It makes them feel apart of the community,” Berger said about interacting with readers by using his blog to drive discussion and by responding to users’ comments. “It’s a sort of give
and take as a conversation as opposed to a one-way street, which was
the old model for news.”

Berger found another way to take the discussion on his blog to a new level by using an online survey. When Pew released the results of its survey on religious beliefs in America, Berger saw an opportunity to compare the results of that national survey with what his readers believed. Not only are Berger’s readers fans of science, but they are also Texans, which, according to Pew, are more devout than average Americans.

So, Berger made his own online survey for his readers to take using Survey Monkey. Hundreds did and the results are fascinating. Eric set out to answer this question:

If you’re here, chances are you’re interested in science. That would predispose most to accept evolution, I think. But what about the controversial notion that science leads one away from God?

The answer from his (non-scientific) survey is yes, science tends to lead people away from God. According to Pew, 71 percent of Americans are “absolutely certain” of their belief in God or a universal spirit, while 77 percent of Texans are absolutely certain. But just 47.8 percent of Berger’s readers are absolutely certain.

Just five percent of people nationally “don’t believe in God,” while 24.4 percent of Berger’s readers don’t. The thing is, the results might not be quite what they seem to outsiders.

Berger says that many science blogs are outwardly anti-religion. What Berger sees from these results are that many of readers are religious — probably more so than the typical science blog.

“It’s a little bit different from a lot of national science blogs, which often take a pretty strong anti-religious approach,” Berger said about the results from the survey. “I certainly wouldn’t want to do that because I’d alienate a lot of readers.”

Both posts (the original announcing the Pew results and the second announcing Berger’s results) generated a lot of comments from readers. Berger used this opportunity to build a strong community and to introduce more interactivity into his blog.

What Berger did is the kind of thing a beat reporter couldn’t do in print. With online tools like Survey Monkey, Berger can try new ways of communicating with readers. Most of these tools are pretty easy to use and often free (Survey Monkey is free for the first 100 responses).

Building a strong community of regular users is a great way to hone in on two important Web metrics: Time spent on a Web site and repeat traffic. Repeat visitors will drive up both page views and visits, which your business staff will love. Creating a survey doesn’t take a lot of time, but it can have a monster effect on your traffic, especially repeat traffic as people discuss the survey results.

“The idea was basically another way to bring people in to feel connected, apart of the community, because the idea is that you want to build a base of regular readers — people who come to your site every day,” Berger said. “This was just another way for them to feel apart of the community.”

Taking science to the people. Help wanted.

Sometimes it’s better to just let the beat blogger say it for themselves.

Check out what Eric Berger is doing at the Houston Chronicle.

This is no small feat. Eric is recruiting local science experts to create and maintain blogs covering their specific fields of interest. As “science” is a huge study ranging from meterology, biology and all kinds of ‘ologies’ – Eric could theoretically create a vast blog network.

But conditions on the ground suggest that Berger should take it slow – one blog at a time. The first blog, Atmo.Sphere, looks like a great start. It’s described as “climate conversation with John Nielsen-Gammon and Barry Lefer.”

What does this development mean?

Eric is building a network. “The goal of these changes is to provide a neutral space for scientists
and the general public to meet and speak on the issues of the day.
There are blogs by scientists for scientists, and there are blogs aimed
at the general public. I’m aiming for a hybrid site where people can
get their questions answered by real, live scientists, where scientists
can get feedback, and everyone can find a bit of daily zen.”

The hard part is yet to come. Eric will have to keep the bloggers motivated and make them feel like part of his posse. A follow up post may talk with people at the Chron to find out what technology is driving this, but as always, technology is second to people power. The real effort was Eric finding a science blogger to dedicate themselves towards this project.

Read more from Eric to find out what he is looking for and what he hopes to get out of the experiment.
(yes, I really want you to click that link, because it’s a fantastic pitch to get the public involved in journalism)