In his lecture titled, Britney Spears vs. Chimps with Spears,"" Alan Boyle, visiting Science Writer in Residence, spoke at Memorial Union Tuesday about the challenges of writing about science in a tabloid culture.
Boyle, the science editor at MSNBC.com, referenced a Feb. 22 news article about researchers in Senegal who spotted chimpanzees making spear-like weapons to use for hunting. This event marked the first time a primate species was seen making tools of warfare to hunt another primate species.
The same day, Boyle said, a story about Britney Spears' return to rehab received almost five times as many hits on MSNBC's website as the chimpanzee story.
Boyle said this example illustrates the difficulty for science writers, who must figure out how to generate interest and break down confusing scientific topics for readers.
""If we want to write about those chimps, we have to fashion our own weapons to capture the public's attention just like the tabloids do,"" he said.
According to Boyle, one of MSNBC's most popular stories this year was about a line of cloned cats developed in Korea that ""glowed in the dark"" because they carried a gene making them glow red under ultraviolet light.
""The glow-in-the dark angle was worthy of tabloid treatment, and that sparked most of the more than 1,200 comments we got for this story,"" Boyle said.
Although Boyle said many readers missed the reason behind the tabloid hook, journalism professor Sharon Dunwoody said it's still a beneficial way for journalists to ""trick people into learning.""
""The celebrity stuff is always better known than anything else,"" Dunwoody said. ""There are certain things that just attract our attention.""
UW-Madison sophomore Lavilla Capener said she is interested in science but might not look specifically at scientific news unless it deals with something like stem cells.
Boyle said he has taken similar approaches in his own writing, including a story about sharkskin swimsuits and their effects on Olympic performers. He added these types of stories provide a sense of wonder and allow readers to come away feeling smarter, which is not the case for entertainment stories.
