How newsrooms pick which science stories make the cut

Editors pick science stories by weighing novelty, human stakes, and surprise, but the filter leaks. A 2021 analysis in PLOS Biology of 1,535 news stories found that 69.5 percent of headlines about mouse studies left the mice out. The wording of a paper’s own title, it turns out, does much of the choosing. Science wants detail and precision, while journalism wants brevity and stories right now. Wikipedia’s science journalism entry frames that daily tension in one line each: science values facts, numbers, and being right; journalism values immediacy, words, and being right now. The site’s science news coverage works inside that gap. Choosing what to cover is an editorial act, not a mechanical one. Slow, unglamorous beats lose most often. Ocean heat content, a climate number that quietly keeps rising, rarely delivers the surprise a news meeting wants. Flashy lab results win the slot instead. Two recent studies put measurable shape on that trade.

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