N – Researchers embrace journalists

More than half of researchers questioned rated their contact with journalists as mostly good, and four out of 10 found media coverage beneficial to their career, a survey reported in Science has found (2008;321:204-5). More than two thirds of researchers had contact with the media during a period of three years, and researchers in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the United States had similar numbers of interactions with journalists and were similarly content. The survey dispels the idea that scientists avoid journalists and are disappointed with the way that they communicate science to the public.