The first session this morning dealt with the hype and spin of science journalism, so it was no surprise that definitions of “journalist” and “advocate” were brought up.

Traditionally, these terms have been pitted against each other in the field of journalism.

But one point that came out of this talk was that the two terms shouldn’t be looked at as polar opposites, particularly by science journalists.

Crime, economics, and sports are rarely presented in the “two sides to the story” approach that has become dominant in traditional discussions of journalistic format. And, for most stories, neither should science.

Climate change is an obvious example; the theory of evolution is another. The evidence in the scientific community is such that there just aren’t two sides to the story for such issues. There can be many facets of such stories, but scientific data can often dictate one dominant idea.

This means a science journalist would have to write a one-sided story. And the natural tendency of a journalist is to fear this, because it might turn into an advocacy piece. And aren’t journalism and advocacy enemies?

There was a bit of a hot debate on this at the session, but what I gathered from the discussion is that if the scientific data dictates it, a journalist can be an advocate — or at least can present information that will likely persuade an audience to be advocates.