Should Journalists Embrace Jargon?

I am totally behind this. The reason we have jargon and technical terms in the first place is specificity,

There are two reasons that jargon are used. First, by a person in the field to another person in the field to convey information based on a common understanding of the terms used. That's fine. That isn't what a journalist is trying to do, however.

The second reason to use jargon is to obfuscate the information or cause the recipient to lose interest. That, too, isn't what a journalist is supposed to do.

So, based on those two reasons, the answer is "NO", the journalist's job in conveying the information to his readers includes translating jargon. And if the journalist doesn't understand the jargon in the first place, he's going to have a hard time knowing which of the two reasons his source used the jargon is correct.

and failure to use these specially created words and phrases only causes confusion and false understandings.

Ever been to a doctor? Do you want him to tell you about your medical condition using jargon or clear language? How about the side effects of your prescription? Which is clearer? "This medication may cause dyspnea, anaphylaxis, or in rare cases pheochromocytoma. If you notice any of those, call an ambulance and come to the hospital immediately". Unless you are up on your medical jargon (most of us are not), you'll either be scared to death of any little event and calling 911 all the time, or not be aware that the "shortness of breath" or "itching" you are experiencing needs immediate attention. Much better to say "when you take this, you might have trouble breathing, suffer a severe alergic reaction, or in rare cases you might develop a tumor in your adrenal glands." Oh, ok. I know "trouble breathing". I know "allergic reaction". I don't know how I'd detect the last thing. Tell me more..."

Scientists typically have a hard time conveying information about what they do to the public, precisely because they become used to the jargon and don't realize that the average reading ability of their audience is 7th grade. The next time a scientists talks to you about "subaerial" events, ask him why he didn't just say "on the land". Yes, it's longer, but almost everyone understands "on the land" while not as many grasp "subaerial" (or the counterpart, subaqueous -- "underwater"). Or how about the ones who continually refer to "anthropogenic" when they could say "human-caused"?

We somehow managed to learn that meat could be chicken, beef, or pork,

"We" did? For many people "meat" means dog, cat, snake, horse, and a host of other things. It's what you deal with daily, so you know what you deal with daily.

How many people deal with dyspnea on a daily basis and have a reason to know about it, before the doctor who uses jargon uses it with you? Other than weather geeks who glue themselves to TWC, who knows "isobars"? Thermoclines? Isohaline contours? Common mode rejection?

how come we can't learn that T1 could be PRI, DIA, or dark?

"We" can, if we deal with it enough to need to know. Most of the public who reads the product of journalists don't study every field he covers so they can be conversant in the jargon. If you force people to look up the terms when they come across them, yes, you'll have "taught a man to fish" in a way, but more likely he'll say "fishing is too hard, I'm going to McDonald's. Call me when Big Brother is on."

By the way, your use of "dark" to refer to a T1 line is questionable. T1 is a copper pair which carries no light. "Dark" refers to fiber optic lines which do have a photonic signal when activated and are dark when disconnected. As in "dark fiber".

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/pD_3g4vrc2k/should-journalists-embrace-jargon

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