Nieman Lab.
Predictions for
Journalism, 2025.
There are pivotal, life-altering moments when access to trusted information and expert analysis is critical. Cast your mind back to 2020, when news of a deadly coronavirus was all-consuming, and we needed to know: Am I safe? Are my loved ones safe? Why did this happen? How long will this last?
Almost overnight, it seemed that every reporter, no matter their beat, was deputized as a health and science reporter, their minds suddenly occupied with concepts like virus transmission, PCR testing, social distancing, and vaccine development. During those frightening early days, weeks, and months, society turned to journalists to cut through confusion and misinformation and to cover stories that might save lives.
The pandemic only highlighted what has always been true: Science journalism is an essential public service, informing communities about society’s most important issues, from climate to reproductive health to the explosion of AI. Yet we’ve created a world in which many reporters or editors think of “science journalism” as a distant relative of their own work.
For too long, science journalism has been treated as something distinct, something extra — the domain of specialists writing for audiences who are already deeply interested in and informed about science. This is bad. It’s bad for journalism, and it’s bad for the audiences we serve.
There was a time, a few decades ago, that some remember fondly as a science journalism heyday. Scores of newspapers had dedicated science, health, and environment desks. They featured weekly science sections. Magazines with “science” in their title peppered newsstands. The science beat (as well as employment and revenues) was thriving.
But that period also perpetuated and deepened the perceived gulf between science journalism and the rest of journalism. It reinforced the inaccurate sense that covering science is and must always be the purview only of those journalists who made it their full-time calling, one that requires a deep background in biology, or astrophysics, or statistics. Distinctly, our industry viewed science coverage as not the purview of local journalists covering the city council, school board, or state legislature.
It doesn’t have to be that way. We cannot afford to let it stay that way.
Science journalism is a way of thinking, a journalistic practice rooted in evidence: how it is gathered, how it is verified, how it bumps up against communities’ realities. Science journalism means reporting on whether the city’s plan for remediating PFAS contamination in local waterways is likely to work or not.
It means debunking misinformation about vaccines by explaining the methods behind vaccine trials and shining light on the devastation caused by vaccine-preventable diseases. It means exploring the connection between urban heat islands and increased crime rates and interrogating efforts to put cooling solutions in place. It means connecting public health and policy by examining the opioid crisis through both the science of addiction and investigative reporting into pharmaceutical companies’ marketing of addictive painkillers.
In these ways and countless others, science is relevant to every aspect of journalism. It underpins nearly every story we care about. Climate change is not only a science story — it’s a story about infrastructure, migration, equity, and policy. AI is not just a technology story — it’s about labor, environmental resources, and governance. Public health isn’t just about disease outbreaks — it’s about housing, ecosystem decline, education, and systemic inequities.
Siloing science journalism is dangerous because it leaves the public vulnerable to misinformation. It undermines journalism’s ability to put global crises into context and make them meaningful at the local level. It deprives people of the opportunity to appreciate the evidence surrounding the issues they care about. And it allows powerful actors — from corporations to politicians — to manipulate public understanding by filling the void left by a lack of evidence-based reporting.
The newsrooms that succeed will be the ones embracing science as a thread that runs through every beat. This shift will require systemic changes. Less than 3% of reporters and editors in the U.S. — and even fewer elsewhere in the world — have formal training in covering science, health, or climate. But incorporating scientific evidence and perspectives into reporting is a learnable skill, one within the reach of any capable reporter. Managers will need to invest in giving their reporters that training. Reporters will need to build stronger connections to the scientific community, developing relationships with researchers who can offer insight and context. And editors will need to reframe how stories are assigned, ensuring that science isn’t confined to the “science, health, and environment” section (if there still is one) but integrated into all beats.
Imagine a local newsroom where this approach is standard. A city hall reporter covering housing policy in a flood-prone area would weave in projections about rising sea levels and the disproportionate impact on low-income communities. A health reporter investigating maternal mortality would draw on research about systemic racism in healthcare. A political reporter covering legislation on artificial intelligence would unpack its implications for labor markets and privacy and energy usage. You’re already remembering stories you’ve read that fit the bill, aren’t you?
What I’m talking about is not turning generalists into scientists, and it’s not about asking every journalist to master statistics. It’s about equipping reporters and editors with enough understanding to ask better questions, follow credible evidence, and reject false equivalency and hype. It’s also about recognizing that science is crucial to understanding the world.
Integrating science more fully into journalism will not only serve readers — it will strengthen public trust in both science and in journalism itself. Audiences exposed to thoughtful, well-explained reporting about scientific evidence will be better equipped to discern credible journalism from misinformation. And in a time when misinformation thrives and even the very definition of a fact is up for grabs, building trust is journalism’s most urgent project.
The challenges we face — from climate change to pandemics to the rapid acceleration of AI — are vast and interdependent. Covering them well requires curiosity, rigor, and humility. And it requires breaking down silos, not just between beats but between journalists and the communities they serve.
In 2025, journalism will thrive not by doubling down on specialization but by recognizing that the methods and values of science journalism are essential to its future. The gulfs that divide us — between science and general reporting, between local and national and global issues, between journalists and their audiences — will diminish. And the best journalism will emerge from what grows in those in-between spaces.
Siri Carpenter is executive director and editor-in-chief of The Open Notebook and editor of The Craft of Science Writing.
There are pivotal, life-altering moments when access to trusted information and expert analysis is critical. Cast your mind back to 2020, when news of a deadly coronavirus was all-consuming, and we needed to know: Am I safe? Are my loved ones safe? Why did this happen? How long will this last?
Almost overnight, it seemed that every reporter, no matter their beat, was deputized as a health and science reporter, their minds suddenly occupied with concepts like virus transmission, PCR testing, social distancing, and vaccine development. During those frightening early days, weeks, and months, society turned to journalists to cut through confusion and misinformation and to cover stories that might save lives.
The pandemic only highlighted what has always been true: Science journalism is an essential public service, informing communities about society’s most important issues, from climate to reproductive health to the explosion of AI. Yet we’ve created a world in which many reporters or editors think of “science journalism” as a distant relative of their own work.
For too long, science journalism has been treated as something distinct, something extra — the domain of specialists writing for audiences who are already deeply interested in and informed about science. This is bad. It’s bad for journalism, and it’s bad for the audiences we serve.
There was a time, a few decades ago, that some remember fondly as a science journalism heyday. Scores of newspapers had dedicated science, health, and environment desks. They featured weekly science sections. Magazines with “science” in their title peppered newsstands. The science beat (as well as employment and revenues) was thriving.
But that period also perpetuated and deepened the perceived gulf between science journalism and the rest of journalism. It reinforced the inaccurate sense that covering science is and must always be the purview only of those journalists who made it their full-time calling, one that requires a deep background in biology, or astrophysics, or statistics. Distinctly, our industry viewed science coverage as not the purview of local journalists covering the city council, school board, or state legislature.
It doesn’t have to be that way. We cannot afford to let it stay that way.
Science journalism is a way of thinking, a journalistic practice rooted in evidence: how it is gathered, how it is verified, how it bumps up against communities’ realities. Science journalism means reporting on whether the city’s plan for remediating PFAS contamination in local waterways is likely to work or not.
It means debunking misinformation about vaccines by explaining the methods behind vaccine trials and shining light on the devastation caused by vaccine-preventable diseases. It means exploring the connection between urban heat islands and increased crime rates and interrogating efforts to put cooling solutions in place. It means connecting public health and policy by examining the opioid crisis through both the science of addiction and investigative reporting into pharmaceutical companies’ marketing of addictive painkillers.
In these ways and countless others, science is relevant to every aspect of journalism. It underpins nearly every story we care about. Climate change is not only a science story — it’s a story about infrastructure, migration, equity, and policy. AI is not just a technology story — it’s about labor, environmental resources, and governance. Public health isn’t just about disease outbreaks — it’s about housing, ecosystem decline, education, and systemic inequities.
Siloing science journalism is dangerous because it leaves the public vulnerable to misinformation. It undermines journalism’s ability to put global crises into context and make them meaningful at the local level. It deprives people of the opportunity to appreciate the evidence surrounding the issues they care about. And it allows powerful actors — from corporations to politicians — to manipulate public understanding by filling the void left by a lack of evidence-based reporting.
The newsrooms that succeed will be the ones embracing science as a thread that runs through every beat. This shift will require systemic changes. Less than 3% of reporters and editors in the U.S. — and even fewer elsewhere in the world — have formal training in covering science, health, or climate. But incorporating scientific evidence and perspectives into reporting is a learnable skill, one within the reach of any capable reporter. Managers will need to invest in giving their reporters that training. Reporters will need to build stronger connections to the scientific community, developing relationships with researchers who can offer insight and context. And editors will need to reframe how stories are assigned, ensuring that science isn’t confined to the “science, health, and environment” section (if there still is one) but integrated into all beats.
Imagine a local newsroom where this approach is standard. A city hall reporter covering housing policy in a flood-prone area would weave in projections about rising sea levels and the disproportionate impact on low-income communities. A health reporter investigating maternal mortality would draw on research about systemic racism in healthcare. A political reporter covering legislation on artificial intelligence would unpack its implications for labor markets and privacy and energy usage. You’re already remembering stories you’ve read that fit the bill, aren’t you?
What I’m talking about is not turning generalists into scientists, and it’s not about asking every journalist to master statistics. It’s about equipping reporters and editors with enough understanding to ask better questions, follow credible evidence, and reject false equivalency and hype. It’s also about recognizing that science is crucial to understanding the world.
Integrating science more fully into journalism will not only serve readers — it will strengthen public trust in both science and in journalism itself. Audiences exposed to thoughtful, well-explained reporting about scientific evidence will be better equipped to discern credible journalism from misinformation. And in a time when misinformation thrives and even the very definition of a fact is up for grabs, building trust is journalism’s most urgent project.
The challenges we face — from climate change to pandemics to the rapid acceleration of AI — are vast and interdependent. Covering them well requires curiosity, rigor, and humility. And it requires breaking down silos, not just between beats but between journalists and the communities they serve.
In 2025, journalism will thrive not by doubling down on specialization but by recognizing that the methods and values of science journalism are essential to its future. The gulfs that divide us — between science and general reporting, between local and national and global issues, between journalists and their audiences — will diminish. And the best journalism will emerge from what grows in those in-between spaces.
Siri Carpenter is executive director and editor-in-chief of The Open Notebook and editor of The Craft of Science Writing.
