It's like herding cats. That’s an oft-used phrase to describe the bringing together of journalists. And after trying to gather journalists and scientists for a Metcalf Institute workshop in Rhode Island, the same phrase might apply to both groups. Or perhaps better yet, herding tigers.

The often-solitary nature of both fields means each is filled with people who tend to challenge authority and question conventional wisdom. The best not only tend to, but also need to. However, these attributes can combine to make it difficult for a group from either profession to agree on anything. Especially when it comes to the reporting of science news.

Perhaps one of the most significant findings to come out of the first workshop in this series was the reality that among many of those in attendance, the state of science reporting has not yet reached a Red Alert.

Does this mean there is no cause for concern? No. But it does mean there is perhaps a little time to continue with a reasonable discussion on how to improve the communication of science via the mass media.

The question, then, is how to do that. Out of the discussions there came several guiding points. I call them broad truths -- and perhaps first among them is the realization that neither scientists nor journalists adequately understands the cultures unique to each group.

Some journalists still regard scientists as living in remote ivory towers, obsessed with obscure details and able to speak only in arcane jargon.

And some scientists see journalists as heartless hacks. They think reporters routinely focus on the sensational at the cost of truth, and will cover only things that sizzle, rather than those that simply simmer.

While there may be some truth to each stereotype, the realities are much different. But the fact that stereotypes exist means that scientists and journalists still have some work to do to gain a mutual trust in each other's work.

Scientists, for instance, are deadly afraid of being misquoted, and they see many reporters as being prone to misquoting. And they are concerned that errors in stories cannot be challenged.

There are sometimes valid reasons for their concerns. But if they understood the role of a journalist better, they would know that reporters don’t willfully misquote. Nor are they reluctant to correct mistakes.

The fact is, journalists have absolutely nothing but their credibility. If sloppy reporting regularly occurs, the journalist's credibility suffers, and with it the trust from their work.

So it's in the reporter's interest to get science information right. That of course doesn't mean they always will. But if they don't, it is incumbent upon the scientist to help make it right. They should share their knowledge, and most importantly their time. And reporters should be more encouraging of such behavior.

As sources for stories, scientists often ask how they can prevent factual errors from occurring in the first place. One way, of course, is to be able to pre-approve a story before it is published or aired.

This area reveals another point of friction for scientists and journalists -- whether a reporter should allow a scientist to preview all or any part of a story. Scientists see this as a logical way to make sure the story accurately reflects their technical point of view. After all, much scientific work is peer-reviewed, so many scientists assume a similar process should be in place for journalists.

However, journalists are concerned that by granting outside interests a right to preview a story, they open themselves to pressure to change a story, not because of factual issues, but rather over concerns of tone, or a dislike of a particular angle. The issue of previewing, then, is still a point of contention and one deserving much more thought.

A second broad truth to come from the first workshop involves areas of disagreement between journalists and scientists. One major disagreement involved whether journalists, while their work may educate are themselves actually educators.

Perhaps reporters' concerns here lie in the word "responsibility." The definitions for inform and educate are quite similar. But education implies a greater responsibility to the public, and it is this responsibility that frightens some journalists. To many reporters, education also implies sticking with a curriculum, as opposed to simply "following the news." But whether we call it informing, or educating, the reality is the same -- the public relies on journalists to give them the information they need to be better informed citizens.

Another area of disagreement involves the communication of uncertainty, and how that is done. Journalists by nature are generalists. As science becomes increasingly more specialized, reporters are tasked with covering more and more topics. All this means reporters often don’t have the time needed to research and fully understand the uncertainties underlying a particular issue. So sometimes they fall back on portraying uncertainty as conflict.

Scientists become reluctant to then volunteer an opinion. Scientists, meanwhile, have headed in the opposite direction from journalists -- they are becoming more and more specialized, and thus less well-equipped to speak to broader issues, while newsroom pressures are leading to less and less specialization of beats.

The final truth though is that there is one point of agreement between scientists and journalists. And that is the agreement that things can, and should, be better, and both scientists and journalists have a ways to go to improving science communications through the media.

Let's remember that the next time we start herding the cats and the tigers.