Daniel S. Greenberg, a writer and editor who broke ground in science journalism by reporting on the research enterprise not with reverence but with journalistic rigor, died on March 9 at his home in Washington. He was 88.

His death was confirmed by his wife, Wanda Reif, who said he had been in ill health since sustaining a fall on Dec. 26.

Mr. Greenberg, who spent most of his professional life in Washington, became a science journalist at a time when many practitioners seemed to view their job as advancing the cause of research — a consideration that many researchers expected.

As an author, newspaper reporter and magazine editor, and as the founding editor and publisher of Science & Government Report, a newsletter he ran for almost 30 years, Mr. Greenberg took a different view.