My third and final quest tonight is for a quotation with full source
that relates that journalists are not as fond about wrriting about
science (and mathematics) as the reading public are about reading
scientific articles. In other words, the reading public are more
scientifically inclined than are journalists. I read such an article
in the Brisbane (Australia) Courier Mail a few years ago, but I do not
have time to go to their library and search through all the
microfiche.

Hello, Zig.

I believe I have found the article you need. Here is a quote:

"...Things you can do: demand that the media cover science. That it be
taken seriously as a journalistic discipline. Among journalists,
covering science is seen as career-limiting...In 1997 and 1999, AC
Nielsen conducted opinion polls on what people would like to read in
their media. Leading the top 10 things people would like to read was
medical science, followed by new scientific discoveries. Do you know
what was at the bottom of both polls, the very bottom of things people
wanted to read more about? You guessed it: politics and finance.
People even want to read more about science than they want to read
about sport, and that's even men. It's not a case that Australians
aren't interested in science. They just get so little of it. The
newsrooms of Australia are bulging with political, finance and sports
reporters, and yet only four daily newspapers in the country have
science reporters. My advice to you is this: over the next year, each
of you write a letter to the Courier-Mail asking why science news is
not taken seriously by the newspaper (because it isn't.)"

This is an excerpt from an article entitled "Science in an Age of
Ignorance," written by Wilson da Silva. The complete article is
availalbe here, pages 8 through 10:

Australian Science Communicators: The Communicator, December 2000
http://www.asc.asn.au/publications/pdfs/communicator20.pdf

The file linked above is in .pdf format. You need to have Adobe
Acrobat reader software installed on your computer in order to view
.pdf files. If you do not already have this software, a free download
is available here:
 
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html 

If you prefer to read an html copy of the same material, please use
this link:

Australian Science Communicators: The Communicator, December 2000
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:GWi6eBFFbLAC:www.asc.asn.au/publications/pdfs/communicator20.pdf

My search strategy for locating this information included Google
searches using various combinations of the keywords "journalists,"
"writing," "science," "brisbane," and "courier+mail."

If anything in my answer is not clear, or if any of the links do not
function, please do not hesitate to ask for clarification.

Best regards,
pinkfreud

excellent

Please excuse my typographical error in the sentence "The complete
article is
availalbe here." I meant "available," but my fingers were apparently
running faster than my mind.

~pinkfreud