With a mission to provide the press and the public with high-quality scientific information and sources, the Science Media Centers in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan have become influential, but controversial players in the world of journalism. While some reporters find them helpful, others believe they are biased toward government and industry scientists.
This three-part series will examine the role that the original center plays in the UK, the performance of the centers during the Fukushima nuclear crisis, and the proposal to launch a Science Media Center in the US. For each installment, two writers were asked to submit opening statements replying to the question in the headline. They exchanged those statements and wrote short replies.
In Part 1, Fiona Fox, the director of the SMC in the UK, and Connie St. Louis, the director Science Journalism MA program at City University London and president of the Association of British Science Writers, respond to the question: “Does the UK model help journalists?” Parts 2 and 3 will be posted on Wednesday and Friday.
Fiona Fox, opening statement:
When Cherie Blair, the wife of the former British Prime Minister, opened the SMC back in 2001, she did little to win over a group of skeptical science journalists by suggesting that the new center would help them do their job properly. As well as irritating the reporters, Cherie missed the point that the center was not being set up to help journalists, but to support more scientists to engage effectively with journalists. The SMC’s founding philosophy reflected this focus on fixing science rather than fixing journalism, stating that “The Media will ‘Do’ Science Better when Scientists ‘Do’ the Media Better,” and to this day I still invoke Pallab Ghosh, the BBC science correspondent, telling scientists to stop winging from the side-lines, learn the rules of the game and get onto the pitch.
But while the SMC’s mission may be to help renew public trust in science, I believe that in doing so we help journalists as well. By facilitating more scientists to enter the fray, we have made it much easier for journalists to access the best science in a timely manner. During crises like Fukushima, or on complex and politicized stories like ‘Climategate’, the SMC proactively offers great experts for interview, quotes from leading scientists, reliable factsheets, and press briefings where journalists can question experts in the middle of an unfolding story. This easy and early access helps science journalists to report stories accurately and in-depth, and crucially gives them an advantage in the newsroom when general news editors are circling around a science story.
Outside times of crisis, the center helps journalists in different ways. ‘New’ in a newsroom means news. ‘New’ in science means preliminary and unproven. By asking third party experts to put new research into its wider context by commenting on the strengths and weaknesses of the study in question we help journalists to work out whether a study deserves the front page splash or a nice cautious piece on page eight. Sometimes there are wildly different views about the same study so there is still plenty of need for journalistic judgment. But often things are more clear cut, with a range of experts reminding journalists that a new study is preliminary, small, only done in mice and not worthy of headline news. On other stories the opposite happens, and the unanimously positive reactions we issued from five renowned stem cell experts to the recent Mitalipov paper in Cell probably helped to guarantee its front-page splash. Journalists particularly appreciate this work, with Richard Black, the BBC’s respected former environment correspondent once saying, “for many the Science Media Centre is a vehicle to help reporters negotiate the minefield of churnalism and public relations”.
Connie St. Louis mistakenly quotes Fiona as saying:
“I think the whole business of news values is fascinating, I have worked in NGOs, in politics, in overseas aid agencies; never have I detected more of a culture between the way two groups of people work than I have with scientists and journalists and this is a great example of this. So that when a journalist discovered that a commonly used vaccine might cause autism…”
A full transcript of what Fiona actually says is as follows:
“I think the whole issue of news values vs. scientific values is fascinating, I have worked in NGOs, in politics, in overseas aid agencies; never have I detected more of a culture between the way two groups of people work than I have with science and journalists and this is a great example of it: So when a journalist discovers that a commonly used vaccine might cause autism, or that somebody has claimed that they’ve cloned the first human being, or that a virus causes ME/CFS, or that coffee gives you cancer, they think that is such an amazing claim, so important to society, that they must rush to get that on the airwaves. The scientific community think the exact opposite way. What they think is, if a commonly used vaccine is suggested to be associated with something as awful as autism, that is a massive claim. We need to pause, we need to conduct these studies again, we need to replicate these findings, we need to do bigger studies, and maybe finally, we can say maybe there is a problem with this vaccine. But that could take years. And I think that that gulf, between the media’s love of rushing to publish something outrageous, and scientists’ caution and concern, is where the biggest gap lies.”
If you want to watch the original interview, it is available here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/collegeofjournalism/subject-guides/subject-guides-science-category-page/science-and-the-media
Robin Bisson, Science Information Officer, Science Media Centre
#1 Posted by Robin Bisson, CJR on Mon 17 Jun 2013 at 10:26 AM
I'm afraid that I too have been misquoted, and rather more seriously than Fiona.
“The Science Media Centre is too influential and clearly has an agenda that is far too partial.” I didn't say it - I don't think it.
Just for the record, and to avoid any doubt, the other times I'm quoted here are correct, and I would begin my overall take on the SMC with the last - “In an ideal world we wouldn’t need science media centers.” The ideal world I have in mind is one where the majority of science reporting is done by people with some background in the subject - not so much because of the knowledge it brings, but because of the familiarity it generates with the thought processes of science - where journalists have adequate time to pursue all the sources they need, and where they are trusted by editors. And where the journalism that isn't done by specialists - from writing headlines through booking guests for radio shows to writing straplines for TV guests - is still done on the basis of some familiarity with the subject.
It isn't the world we have, which will be abundantly evident to anyone who's worked in mainstream media over the last decade. That's why, in my view, the SMC is more of a force for good than the opposite. In my own work it was useful in setting up briefings with people who otherwise would have been hard to access - climate scientist Phil Jones in the wake of 'ClimateGate 2', for example, or veterinary experts on Schmallenburg virus in the middle of an outbreak. More useful though is the capacity to steer journalists who are not specialists to real experts rather than charlatans. The SMC isn't perfect, and has (correctly, in my view) received a bit of criticism on occasion for being 'too establishment' - but the world isn't perfect either.
#2 Posted by Richard Black, CJR on Mon 17 Jun 2013 at 04:18 PM
This debate would be so simple if only the SMC was able to provide some proof of its so-called success: since it is supposed to enhance the quality of science in medias, after 10 years, where are the figures, the numbers, the facts, supporting that?
#3 Posted by Francis Lacombe, CJR on Mon 17 Jun 2013 at 09:00 PM
I wonder why Connie mistakenly makes the very bold claim that Monsanto funded a briefing, then doesn't respond when Fiona puts the record straight. This is a very important point and Connie does the GMO debate a disservice by making false claims such as this.
#4 Posted by Rebecca Nesbit, CJR on Tue 18 Jun 2013 at 04:33 AM
As a scientist who has come into contact with the SMC, I think they do an excellent job. It is impossible for them to get the balance and approach that would please all of the people all of the time, because people hold such different views.
Connie's view I don't think does a good service to her members of the ABSW. She seems to imply that if press officers provide a brief, journalists can't help but slavishly follow it, rather than simply treating it as one extra potentially useful source of information, and assessing it alongside others.
In reply to Francis' comment. I agree that is would be good to have some data, but unfortunately it doesn't exist in any reliable form. It is very time consuming to collect, and noone has done it. Establishing cause from the correlational data woudl also be difficult, though I guess it is worth noting that we have not had a big scandal like MMR since the SMC was set up.
#5 Posted by Petroc Sumner, CJR on Tue 18 Jun 2013 at 05:04 AM
As a science journalist, I would say the SMC does a very good job at occasionally connecting me with scientists. That is pretty much it. About once a fortnight I'll find myself there. I suppose they are pro-GM, but then again so are most scientists. I haven't detected an agenda in the briefings, on most subjects I'm not sure how there could really even be one. But if there is, then they are just one more source.
The organisation is just one useful way, of many, to meet scientists. The SMC is neither as pernicious, nor as prevalent in my life, as Connie implies.
On a side point, for a science journalist to write, "There is growing evidence that the existence of SMCs is also encouraging news organizations to downgrade science reporters," and then follow it with a paragraph that provides one anecdote and an unrelated trend shows a worrying lack of understanding of the word "evidence".
#6 Posted by Tom Whipple, CJR on Tue 18 Jun 2013 at 07:19 AM
I'm concerned that there's little consideration here of the possibility that SMCs are just another resource, whose line or purported agenda it would be just as potentially dangerous to swallow hook, line and sinker as any PR agency. There is a danger of an SMC fuelling churnalism just as there is a danger of uni press offices fuelling churnalism - it's all in how journalists make use of the information and resources they provide. This black-and-white framing of the issue has somehow taken journalists and their skills out of the debate - as if by merely dangling things in front of us the SMC and its ilk are threatening what we do. I use the SMC's output regularly but in a way that suits my needs and with the same grain of salt I'd sprinkle on anyone who's pushing things my way.
#7 Posted by Jason Palmer, CJR on Tue 18 Jun 2013 at 07:32 AM
Although Fiona Fox's piece was published at nearly twice this agreed length, we were both given a strict 300-word limit to reply to each other's opening statements. In my piece, the length limit did not allow me to include her full quote (over 200 words).
I could have included more of Richard Black’s quote, which I stand by. In it he goes on to talk about the particular areas that are of concern to him where the Science Media Centre exhibits partiality which were GMOs, biotechnology and nuclear. Again space did not permit me to do this.
Robin Bisson (also of the Science Media Centre) correctly points out a minor transcription error in my quotation from Fiona Fox, that I inaccurately transcribed the word ‘issue’ for ‘business’. However, re-examining Fiona Fox’s full quote only serves to reinforce the serious point I am make. When Fiona Fox says, ‘So when a journalist discovers that a commonly used vaccine might cause autism’, it is incorrect. No journalist discovered this: they quoted Dr Andrew Wakefield as saying this, based on his fraudulent findings.
To quote at more length from the full transcript from Fiona Fox which Robin Bisson posted yesterday: ‘The scientific community think the exact opposite way. What they think is, if a commonly used vaccine is suggested to be associated with something as awful as autism, that is a massive claim. We need to pause, we need to conduct these studies again, we need to replicate these findings, we need to do bigger studies, and maybe finally, we can say maybe there is a problem with this vaccine…’.
This, again, is an extraordinary claim. In my view, it is PR and spin, because this is not how the scientists responded. The scientific community peer reviewed Andrew Wakefield's paper and said that the findings should be published in one of the top global medical journals. Andrew Wakefield said at a subsequent press conference that autism was caused by the MMR vaccine. At the time the scientists did not say that further studies or replication or bigger studies were needed. Investigation after investigation has found medical science silent on the robustness of the data presented in the Lancet and the statements that Andrew Wakefield initially made. The scientific community did not respond until when Brian Deer, the investigative journalist, uncovered the fraud and published his findings in 2004. The Lancet partially retracted Wakefield's research as a result if and fully retracted it in February 2010 following the GMC findings when Wakefield was struck off.
The media were not blameless when Wakefield’s findings were first reported, and I would even go as far to assign at least 50 percent of culpability in this case to them for not questioning the facts more critically. It is Fox’s reinterpretation of facts that suggests science can lay the blame completely at the feet of the media. Perhaps another instance of science needing to remove the ‘log’ from its own eyes before trying to remove the ‘speck’ from the media’s?
#8 Posted by Connie St Louis, CJR on Tue 18 Jun 2013 at 09:48 AM
For those who may be forgiven for now being confused about this: I do not believe that science can lay the whole blame for MMR at the feet of the media and I do not believe that a journalist started the whole saga. The great news here is that Connie and I actually agree on this. The SMC would be the first to say that Wakefield’s claims at a press briefing kicked this off in the first place and at the time too many scientists stayed too quiet – indeed one of the reasons the SMC was set up was to encourage scientists to engage more actively with issues like this one. We would also agree that Brian Deer and the Sunday Times are the heroes of this tale. Some of my thoughts on the complexities of the MMR row, which I have talked about many times before, are here.
The problem here may be that the interview from which Connie is quoting is a short video interview on the science section of the BBC College of Journalism website. The interview was not specifically about MMR and I was making a much broader point about the well documented differences in culture between newsrooms and science: in a newsroom, new or preliminary findings from small studies are often seen as front page news, whereas in science these are often regarded as the least scientifically significant (a point I make above in my opening statement).
Rather than using this as an example to suggest the SMCs are a force for bad, I think Connie and the SMCs could easily work together to tackle many of the challenges we are actually both agreed on.
#9 Posted by Fiona Fox, CJR on Tue 18 Jun 2013 at 12:10 PM
"In reply to Francis' comment. I agree that is would be good to have some data, but unfortunately it doesn't exist in any reliable form. It is very time consuming to collect, and noone has done it."
Which I found very surprising as an answer, for an organism who is claiming to enhance the quality of science in the medias. So all this claim is based on feelings? Scientists happy to have been quoted, and things like that?
#10 Posted by Francis Lacombe, CJR on Tue 18 Jun 2013 at 12:43 PM
On the subject of evidence, I thought I would add an Australian SMC perspective. It’s definitely something we struggle with as it’s impossible to have a control group on any individual story as no one can say what the difference in information would have been had an SMC not got involved – because we did get involved. But permit me to provide some stats. The Australian SMC tracks media coverage of the experts we work with and from this we know we have helped scientists directly engage with the media and contribute to over 55,000 news stories since we opened in 2005. In 2011 we commissioned Hales & Associates to independently review the AusSMC’s activities (http://www.smc.org.au/about-us/five-year-evaluation/). In the review, media representatives (journalists, producers etc) were asked what impact, if any, they thought the AusSMC has had on the breadth and /or quality of media coverage of scientific issues in Australia. Among the 78 respondents to this question, 71% considered the AusSMC has had an impact (32% ‘significant impact’ and 39% ‘some impact’). Only 1.3% (one respondent) considered it has had “no” impact, 28% replied “don’t know”. The Media were also asked what impact it would have on their work if the AusSMC no longer existed - 89% of respondents reported that if the AusSMC no longer existed, it would have a negative impact on their work; 5% reported that it would have no impact. Not a single respondent reported its loss as having a positive impact. The review also asked editors, scientists and media officers in science institutions about the impact of an SMC – but that’s probably enough dull stats for now.
#11 Posted by Lyndal Byford, CJR on Wed 19 Jun 2013 at 02:08 AM
What a shame that an interesting discussion between two view points has been made null and void by misquotations. It seems that Ms St Louis, by misrepresenting her fellow contributor and an important source to her argument has negated the very point she has set out to make - only serving to strengthen the argument for SMCs...which by my calculation is no bad thing!
#12 Posted by Anthea Bisson, CJR on Wed 19 Jun 2013 at 03:04 AM
A few points on the MMR controversy which is alarmingly misrepresented by Connie St Louis.
It is TRUE that the Wakefield paper was peer-reviewed and published in the Lancet.
It is NOT TRUE that Wakefield said at a subsequent press conference that autism was caused by the MMR vaccine - indeed his paper explicitly states that 'we did not prove' a link. At the press conference he merely suggested that MMR be administered in separate components.
It is NOT TRUE that at the time scientists did not propose further studies - indeed the Lancet paper itself indicated the need for further studies in virology and epidemiology. Others at the time not only called for further research, but immediately undertook it, publishing within 2 years: Brent Taylor, Elizabeth Miller.
It is NOT TRUE that medical scientists were silent about Wakefield's study - see the lengthy correspondence in the Lancet and the 3 inquiries conducted by the MRC.
It is NOT TRUE that the scientific community did not respond to Wakefield before Brian Deer's revelations in 2004. Many paediatricians - notably David Elliman and Helen Bedford at Great Ormond Street and the autism specialist Eric Fombonne - challenged him consistently. And not only scientists: as a parent and a GP I published a series of critical articles from 1998 and a book in 2004.
It is TRUE that much of the media was captivated by Wakefield's posturing and neglected critical scientists. It is also true that scientists were not very effective in presenting their case in the media - a deficit that the SMC has subsequently helped to correct.
Michael Fitzpatrick
#13 Posted by Michael Fitzpatrick, CJR on Wed 19 Jun 2013 at 05:01 AM
I believe the commenter who said they sprinkle the same amount of salt on an SMC offering as they would any other PR agency offering is correct.
The SMC does have the occasional habit of pushing only one side of a controversy. In the area I am familiar with it is interesting to note that a prominent scientist in a controversial area was part of the founding board - and the SMC only pushes his agenda. A peer reviewer and source, who is often used by other British journos, was turned down when he asked to be included among the SMC sources listed as he believed the research being pushed by the SMC and the Lancet had flaws that should have been made public.
It is unfortunate when a resource like the SMC fails to provide balanced information from legitimate sources. Science is nearly always a case of "we know in part" and if the research is solid then there is no need to be afraid of including sources who differ.
#14 Posted by Kate Benson, CJR on Wed 19 Jun 2013 at 09:02 PM
Why does anyone take any notice of an organisation set up by a revolutionary communist with no scientific qualifications?
#15 Posted by James, CJR on Thu 20 Jun 2013 at 06:09 AM
"...contribute to over 55,000 news stories since we opened in 2005."
This statistic is a point of departure, but not the end of it. It does not tell us anything about how many of those news stories would have been done without the SMC, and in how many of those news stories, journalists would have found mostly the same kind of experts, with or without the SMC.
I want to believe that 32% saying SMC had a "significant impact" in Australia is important, but who are those 78 journalists? If they are science journalists, and good ones I presume, it means that SMC didn't enhance the quality of science in the medias: it simply helped those journalists to save time.
#16 Posted by Francis Lacombe, CJR on Thu 20 Jun 2013 at 09:36 PM
One of Connie's key quotes is incorrect.
She says, 'Recently the newspaper The Australian sacked its science reporter, Leigh Dayton. The reason she was given by the editors was “they could rely on the supply of press releases from the Australian SMC so that their general reporters could write the science news”.'
This is not true. Leigh Dayton opened her talk at the World Conference of Science Journalists by stating that she had never made this claim. She certainly has concerns about the roles of SMCs but this is not one of them.
#17 Posted by Niall Byrne, CJR on Wed 26 Jun 2013 at 05:13 AM