The study pointed out that few of the press releases “provided access to the full scientific report.” But they failed to add that, in many cases, copyright protections prohibit institutions from providing copies of such papers to the news media. The journals publishing these reports hold fast to their legal right that only they can distribute the papers carried in their journals. Omitting that point casts undue blame on the medical centers.
The researchers also faulted some releases for lacking outside review, but that is rarely, if ever, used on such releases, regardless of the subject. Unlike the inherently slow process of journal publication, the rush of daily journalism can hardly accommodate the time needed for outside review. However, at trustworthy communications offices, press releases endure an editing process that is similar to the ones employed in most newsrooms. One or two editors on staff who are experienced in evaluating research with an eye towards news edit the release. It is then sent to the lead researcher, who is asked to check it for technical accuracy alone, not for any editorial slant. No deans, directors, department chairs, or administrators review the story prior to dissemination. This prevents overt PR intent from affecting the story. That’s how it works at our shop, and at a host of other big-time places.
Interestingly, the Annals of Internal Medicine study reported that at all twenty medical centers, it was the individual researchers who requested that their work be covered in a press release, and that at more than half of the centers, administrators made similar requests. There was no suggestion that qualified science or medical writers on staff were functioning as reporters and seeking out newsworthy stories—the practice routinely followed at most major research universities, nor were there any questions regarding this practice in the script (pdf) the authors used in gathering data.
The study team recommended that academic medical centers simply reduce the number of releases they issue; in particular, the report said, they should avoid reporting work presented at scientific meetings that has not been published.
But doing so would cloak an important part of the way that science is done in academe. It would also impede the ability of knowledgeable journalists to cover research that the public has, in many instances, funded and determine where on a continuum from conjecture to conclusion it lies.
To be fair, some press releases are, in fact, as spotty as the study implies. But doing fewer press releases isn’t the answer. Doing better press releases is.
Equally important is halting the decline in staff jobs for well-trained science journalists, and improving science training for all journalists who want it (to its credit, the Annals of Internal Medicine report acknowledges this and even suggests a few workshops). For instance, reporters should know that human trials are more noteworthy than animal trials; that phase-3 clinical trials overrule phase-1 trials; and that multicenter, randomized, double blind trials with large samples are more reliable than others.
Medical centers should absolutely work to improve research communications and reduce instances of hype. But in the end, The Washington Post’s perspective on the press-release report seems most correct:
“Journalists, read the darned studies!”
If the release conflict with the study’s findings, ignore the release. But either way, get reporting.
Some important observations, Earle.
I'd like to add, as someone who has written stories on press releases for the Associated Press and Business Week, among many others, that reporters are not generally equipped to evaluate the science in journal reports. I've had weeks in which I've written studies on epidemiology, evolutionary biology, genomics, and virology, back to back. No biologist would be equipped to judge such a diverse collection of studies, and reporters can't do it either, even if they happen to have Ph.D.s (which I don't).
The key to this business of covering studies is to find people who can understand and evaluate them, and who are not connected to the research, and to ask them what it means. I've seen many reporters come to believe, after years on the job, that they are experts, when, in fact, they've never examined a patient, run a regression analysis, or analyzed an immune response.
That leads me to one weakness in most press releases. They rarely include that kind of outside, independent assessment. Public information folks rely on their own scientists to evaluate their own research, and that can lead to overstatement of the importance of the study--either because the researchers are caught up in their enthusiasm, or because they hype the results to advance their careers, to promote their university, or to prop up the companies that they own and stand to profit from.
That's where reporters come in; they provide a check on that, if they do their jobs well. Or at least that used to be the case. Now press releases are distributed directly to the public via the web, and the news spreads without any independent assessment.
#1 Posted by Paul Raeburn, CJR on Tue 12 May 2009 at 10:55 PM
Paul is way too humble in his comments. He certainly is one journalist who I've found can effectively deal with journal reports, even across the diverse fields that he mentions. And I would differ, slightly and respectfully, with his suggestion that reporters can't evaluate studies at a fairly basic level. I think they can, given that they evaluate source material for other complicated stories. The kinds of missing elements that I cited in the Annals piece above are fairly basic and are derived from stepping back and looking for holes in the logic -- not a sophisticated understanding of research methodology. I believe that reporters need to be able, and empowered to do just that.
And for the record, I'm not defending all practices concerning all press releases, God forbid! We all have seen disasterous attempts at spinning and messaging. But not all are bad and those dealing with university research tend to be closer to single-source journalism than releases coming from commerce or industry.
Paul's "weakness" of releases that they don't offer "outside, independent assessment" as part of their offering is really puzzling when you consider the role that releases are supposed to play -- that of alerting the news media to a potential story and providing adequate basic information to make an initial determination of viability. If PIOs are supposed to seek outside assessment of their own researchers' work, what does that leave the journalist to do? Moreover, since the folklore in journalism has always been that the provider of a news release is bent on manipulating journalists, then why would journalists trust any supposed "independent assessment" we might offer? Surely, it would be seen as our own spin.
As to the suggestion that researchers overstate to advance their careers, I can only say that in 35 years of doing this work, I've never encountered that. Nor have several colleagues whom I asked that question. Sadly, the assumption is that selfishness is a primary driver of actions by researchers, and while I'm not so naive as to suggest that it doesn't exist, it doesn't dominate the scene.
The lamentation that news "releases are distributed directly to the public via the web, and the news spreads without any independent assessment" is easily fixed, if it is a concern at all. Journalists need to do a better job of evaluating the studies. A bit of time spent at Gary Schwitzer's great website, Health News Review [http://www.healthnewsreview.org/] offers a great primer on what's good and bad about ongoing medical/biomedical reporting.
#2 Posted by Earle Holland, CJR on Wed 13 May 2009 at 10:12 AM