Measuring unique science stories
Google News picks up on science stories that many outlets are covering. Its reasoning is that the more outlets publish a particular story, the more reader interest the story has. However, the flaw here is that news outlets don’t evaluate all kinds of science developments on an equal footing nor do they always focus on reader interest. (The latter is more so since news outlets often don't select stories for reader interest; instead they select stories for the reasons described below, then work in the reader interest.)
Outlets focus on those that they can understand or which they can cover for a lower cost. The former is almost always a major development — which is rare in science, as research is fundamentally incremental — or a finding that has been misreported in a university press release or in fact at the journal itself, e.g. if the paper title is itself oversimplified.
The latter — findings that can be covered at a lower cost — are typically simple, whose significance or wonderfulness is easy to communicate, e.g. “astronomers produce the largest image ever taken of the heart of the Milky Way” or “with lunar missions looming, scientists grow chickpeas in 'moon dirt’”.
Altogether, the science stories the press has focused on have systematically avoided more involved topics or ideas, those that can’t be communicated easily, and those that require some expense (e.g. the services of a veteran reporter or freelancer, of a graphics team, etc.). Since Google News, and Google Discover by extension — which is also driven by what readers are interested in — drive a lot of traffic to news websites, and page views and unique users remain the metrics of choice at these websites, Google News/Discover also aggregate and create a preference among publishers for relatively uncomplicated science stories and ideas.
Which means when we pursue stories that are complicated or interesting in a way that allows us to tell a unique story, we shouldn’t expect it to draw readers from Google News/Discover nor focus on page views or unique views. Instead, we’re better off focusing on readers’ average time on page.
