The reporting of science in the press has been much debated recently, spawning some fantastic articles from Ed Yong, Martin Robbins and Ben Goldacre to name a few. Recently I attended the Voice of Young Science’s “Standing Up for Science Media Workshop” which included a panel of scientists and a panel of journalists who put their thoughts on science in the media across.
My thoughts on the issue (and I really do think it’s an issue) didn’t change after attending the workshop although my thoughts on why there is an issue did.
Science takes time, journalism has no time
When I think about investigating something I think about taking time over finding reliable sources of information, carefully going through the information, picking it apart, probably finding more sources on the way and repeating the process until finally I can balance up all the information and form some sort of conclusion. Mainstream journalism is about picking which stories will sell papers and getting it there as fast as possible.
I really don’t think the two mix well. When a journalist is reporting on a science item they simply do not always have the time to read original articles let alone read up on the background of the particular subject matter and previous work by the scientists in question, which can all lead to misinformation in the public sphere. In order to get their story past the news-desk they may also, depending on who they work for, need to balance articles by finding opposing opinions (even if there is no real opposing side or evidence and credibility to back up the opposing view), give articles a human angle (so for example if an article is about some basic cancer research, they will find someone with cancer to quote from) or they may even have to bypass some stories altogether because their paper, for instance, doesn’t like mentioning bowels.
Science no, writing yes
Some don’t deem it necessary to have a science background to report on science but only the talent to write. Now, I don’t think it should be a definitive rule but, making sense of science, and more so knowing how credible the science you are looking at is, takes a scientific mind. If you are reporting on what a scientist is showing you, you need to be able to understand and appreciate the scientific method. One scientist on the panel at the workshop spoke of a journalist he encountered who did not understand that an increase is not an increase unless it is statistically significant and therefore reported it that way.
The answer from the journalists on this point was that science was too wide a subject and that they could never have all the knowledge they needed. Bollocks. Understanding science does not mean you need a degree in every discipline, it means you need to understand the scientific method and the subtleties of uncertainty. This is exactly what you get at the very basic level of any science degree or long-term interest in science. As Martin Robbins pointed out on his blog “… imagine the same [sports] journalist explaining that understanding the offside rule required specialist in-depth knowledge which they didn’t have the training or time to gain, and which readers wouldn’t be interested in anyway.”
Press releases ≠ news
It was said by one of the panelists that if the press release for a story is simply printed and not played with, this is good for science as only the facts are reported. More bollocks. This is only good for the scientist who released the press release. Imagine if press releases from the world of politics were simply printed and the journalist added nothing more to the story. Not only is this lazy it is dangerous because it means the facts are not checked.
It also makes for very boring reading. After being reminded that journalists’ jobs are on the line because people are not buying papers anymore then maybe it’s the journalists’ job to actually do something more than just play middle man.
What I’m trying to say is not that science journalists are bad at their jobs but that the system to which they work is not compatible with science and if it stays the same, I can’t see anyway to get by the issues of badly reported, dull and dangerous science reporting.
I also by no means claim to have the answer. Scientists want to reach the public and one way to do this is mainstream media and people like Voice of Young Science are helping edge the two together in a great way. But it seems to me, and it is already happening, that there is no better way to inform the public about the importance and the sheer awe of science than avoiding the middle man.
I would like to add that not all science reporting in the media is terrible and many journalists under the exact same pressures as their counterparts manage to produce well written, accurate and informative science reports without aways feeling the need to terrifing you into reading it.
