That’s true of any data including straight-up text – if you look at a popular science show like The Sky at Night you can, after reading NASA’s press releases and technical websites, observe that difficult concepts are altered to become comprehensible and relevant to the audience who mostly aren’t working in say astrophysics or rocket propulsion. Similar case with Feynman, Sagan and any scientist who ventured to layman’s terms.

For this you’ve got a tonne of information that must be converted and condensed so the audience ideally derives the benefit of insight. It’s rare to see a graph/chart heavy article in a Trinity rag; that’s broadsheet territory. You’re likelier to get one simple bar chart with a big picture of a school incase anyone forgot what one looks like.

Point is that for any journalist who has a cache of information concerning anything there’s choices to be made and a tone to be achieved. That’s the job for any who have a modicum of investigation in their hackery. It’s also a skill that is lacking; flexibility in language is vital – however my unresearched, evidence-less belief is that there remains a pompous line that sees papers oversimplify as readers are mostly ‘uneducated’.

It’s the birthday today: Paul I never got the statuette we spoke about. However these are trying times so if you used the slow post it’s understandable: Not by me as I wanted my frigging dachshund figurine in time, but kindlier people would let it slide.

Pete, editor at Dirty Garnet.