Sex, drugs and money' is not the working title of a forthcoming movie of the pulp fiction genre, but a reasonable summary of the coverage that the last Society for Neuroscience meeting received in the lay press. In the Highlights section of this issue, we include three representative examples of what the media regarded as good neuroscientific stories, one from each of these broad categories.

But what are the ingredients of a good story? Answering this question is not particularly illuminating because, as most scientists whose work has caught the attention of the press know, the 'human' side of the story takes precedence over the science behind it. What you felt when you made your discovery is more important than what you actually discovered. What your finding might do for my well-being is more important than any conceptual advance or provocative idea. As the Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska aptly put it in her poem 'Surplus': “A new star has been discovered/Which doesn't mean that things have gotten brighter/Or that something we've been missing has appeared.”

It is easy to imagine that a random poll among neuroscientists would show that many of us dismiss such an approach to scientific reporting. But, embarrassingly, it would also probably disclose that we would not turn down the opportunity of hitting the headlines, leaning on the pervasive idea that any publicity is good publicity. So, although a lot of ink has been spilled on the need for scientists to be more proactive in shaping the way society perceives their work, it would seem that we must first confront our contradictory attitude towards scientific reporting in the mass media before we make any rightful claim on the representation of our data.