The New York Times on Goddard, in a 1921 editorial:
“That Professor Goddard with his ‘chair’ in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react - to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools . . .”
Isn’t it gratifying to know that when it came to things scientific the so-called “paper of record” had its collective head as far up its collective posterior 100 years ago as it does today (as evidenced by its pontifications on global warming/climate change/climate disruption/whatever they’re calling it today).
It was stupid even at the time.
Journalism majors are so utterly unqualified to comment on virtually anything in science because as they admitted in the editorial, they know maybe a bit from High School and that’s it. And usually what they “know” is a misinterpretation.
Ask a space journalist, “what keeps the satellite in orbit?” and see what you get.