On Science and the Media

BMJ, UCL & MMR: OTT?

2011-11-25T12:01:00.008Z

Am I the only one who thinks the British Medical Journal's call for an independent inquiry into University College London's role in the Andrew Wakefield MMR saga is a bit OTT? Perhaps I am and you will all put me right on this, but until you do I’m leaning towards thinking it feels wrong.

Before I explain why, let me say two things. Firstly, I love Brian Deer. He is the personification of a kind of investigative reporting that inspired me to study journalism, a kind of journalism that is almost nonexistent in science today as most reporters struggle to file 3 or 4 news stories a day and to escape the dreaded diary. Secondly, no-one, with the exception of maybe Brian Deer and Andrew Wakefield, talks about the MMR scare more than I do. You cannot tell the story of the SMC without talking about MMR. I never do a speech without talking about it, or debate the issue of science in the media without referring to it. It is the seminal example of how potent a media scare story can be and of the lessons we must learn.

But do we really need to pursue one of our finest science universities for a small part they played in a now discredited paper published 13 years ago?

It was Deer’s continuing revelations about the extent of Andrew Wakefield’s scientific "fraud" that prompted the BMJ to call on UCL to set up an independent inquiry earlier this year. Ten months on and with no action from UCL the BMJ has now referred the matter to the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology stating, "if UCL does not immediately initiate an externally led review of its role in the vaccine scare, we believe that parliament should do it."

Let me explain why I’m uncomfortable with this.

I cannot see what is to be gained from yet another expensive and lengthy inquiry into what went wrong on MMR. No story can have been more scrutinised than the story of MMR. Brian Deer has done brilliant work, shining a light into every aspect of this complex issue and picking over the detritus of an ever murkier story. And Deer’s work prompted others to do the same. The SMC’s handy media-friendly Timeline on MMR gives dates for all the various actions resulting from multiple investigations: the date that the Lancet partially retracted the paper (2004), then when they fully retracted the paper (2010), when the GMC announced their inquiry (2007) and 3 years later when they found Wakefield guilty of serious professional misconduct in May 2010 and struck him off the medical register.

It is also seems especially harsh on UCL. At the time the Lancet paper was published in 1998, the Royal Free Medical School was not even part of UCL. Most of Wakefield’s fellow authors have retired and moved on. As is the way with universities these days there have been many reorganisations since then and almost all the approval processes for research are unrecognizable compared with those in 1998. As a result of the GMC ruling on Wakefield last year, UCL has already initiated a review of its research governance, which is ongoing. The current Provost Malcolm Grant has been the head of UCL since 2003, five years after the Lancet article was published, and is generally considered by his own scientists to be doing great things for science at a very challenging time for universities.

The BMJ makes the point that it would compound the original scandal if we did not heed the warnings from this wrongdoing. I could not agree more. But are we really unable to learn those lessons without another major inquiry?

As it happens I think things have already changed because of MMR – especially in the media. I have been in rooms when editors admitted they called it wrong on MMR and claimed that they defer to their specialist science and health reporters more because of the fallout from that story. It’s also the case that one of the reasons MMR comes up so often in every discussion about science in the media is that there are no more recent examples with quite the same wide-reaching impact. The fact that a scare story that broke 13 years ago is still being discussed suggests that to some extent, all of us are doing things differently. I would certainly like to think that the presence of the SMC now means that the scientific community engages more effectively and more swiftly when extraordinary claims are made on weak evidence.

There were other positive spin-offs which few people mention, like the way a much-neglected condition came to the fore. In 1998, autism was common but badly neglected by doctors and the research community. It isn't now. Talking to vaccine scientists, I gather that they have also learned much that is helpful from this episode that has global value. After all MMR wasn't and isn't the only vaccine that people worry about, however irrationally.

However, while many things have changed for the better, there is still some way to go. While Brian Deer and the BMJ have recently focused on the scientific misconduct in this sorry story, there were many angles to this controversy. Of most interest to me was the way that a weak scientific study, combined with the statements that Wakefield made at a press conference which went way beyond the paper, were seized on by a media hungry for a scare story. Sadly this is still a lethal combination that sees far too many scare stories hitting the headlines. And here’s the thing: the medical journals themselves are a critical part of this chain. A high percentage of the scare stories we see each week come from the key 5-10 medical journals. Many are genuinely alarming and are covered in a balanced and accurate way. Others are sensationalized by reporters or sub editors. But some are studies with significant weaknesses that are not always highlighted as much as they could be by the journal press releases or by the authors announcing the results. We know this because several times a week the SMC issues third party reaction to these studies which attempt to put them into context and spell out the limitations. A quick glance at these comments will show that the phrase 'extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence' is a message that should be applied to journals as much as to journalists. Everyone involved in publicising scientific research has the responsibility to get it right.

I agree we should continue to talk about MMR – it remains the most recent and dramatic example of how poor science and bad reporting can cost lives. But I think the time for the 'blame game' may be over. When Baby P died some people got so carried away with wanting to punish social workers that they lost sight of the fact that Baby P was killed by his mother and her boyfriend. Hardly anyone involved in the MMR saga emerges smelling of roses, but in the end the person most responsible has been identified and punished appropriately. Instead of now focusing on UCL I think it’s time to concentrate our efforts on improving the way we all communicate science to the public, ensuring something like this never happens again.

The perils of turning Greenland green

2011-10-03T13:10:00.006Z

Guest post by Tom Sheldon, Senior Press Officer at the Science Media Centre

On 16 September we were alerted to a flurry of activity on the CRYOLIST discussion group. Glaciologists around the world, it seemed, were getting steamed up about the Times Atlas "turning Greenland green" because of the dramatic effects of climate change. At the SMC we are familiar with bloggers and commentators bleating about 'the climate hoax'. But CRYOLIST is no den of deniers; it is a used by an international group of snow and ice experts to freely and openly exchange ideas about global ice cover. When these people start to complain, you listen.

In one way, this was straightforward. With great fanfare, a book was published and an accompanying press release trumpeted its arrival - along with some scientific errors. At the SMC we see this stuff all the time, and it is usually an easy decision to try to correct those errors before they reach the mass media. So why did this feel different – and why did we get some criticism for helping to publicise the error?

Most people who reject the theory of global warming do so on ideological grounds, not scientific ones. They cherry pick the pieces of evidence that support their political cause, twisting the evidence base to suit the conclusion they cling to. Science, however, is neutral. It must never be partisan, and it must never be used selectively. This is its great strength of course: facts speak for themselves. But in this case the facts showed that climate change had not caused the melting indicated by the new maps.

It's not surprising, therefore, that some scientists were nervous about conspicuously issuing a correction. There was every chance that some of the noisier climate sceptics would seize on the opportunity to say "Aha! Another climate lie – even the scientists say so this time!" After Himalayagate and Amazongate, the prospect of 'Greenlandgate' was not appetising.

But consider the alternative: scientists living in fear of climate sceptics, and keeping quiet in the face of certain errors for fear of 'doing damage to the message'. First, this would be completely wrong in principle; an error is an error, regardless of who might make political capital from its correction. Second, it would also be a bad move for climate science. Keeping quiet would be asking for headlines proclaiming "more dodgy data found in new climate shame". This would have been grossly unfair, as one press release would have been used to drag down a whole branch of science. But as is often the case with the media, there is no 'no risk' option. And such headlines would have been the risk of keeping quiet.

Instead, because of the courage of some principled and honest scientists, the press coverage was much closer to the truth:

"The publishers of the world's most prestigious atlas have been caught out by Cambridge scientists exaggerating the effects of climate change," said the Mail. Quotes issued by the SMC appeared across the spectrum of media. The Telegraph quoted Graham Cogley as saying "Climate change is real, and Greenland ice cover is shrinking. But the claims here are simply not backed up by science." And Jeff Kargel on the BBC: "a number like 15% ice loss used for advertising the book is a killer mistake that cannot be winked away."

The Sceptic movement has damaged climate science by spinning evidence to its own ends. It is ironic that the deep green NGOs have done similar damage to climate science by overclaiming for the effects of climate change with pictures of polar bears clinging to apparently dwindling chunks of ice and other messages that prioritise emotion and ideology over fact. And so it didn't surprise me when one senior climate scientist told me recently that he hates being called part of the climate movement. "I'm not part of any movement," he complained. "I'm a scientist. I just report what I find. And what I find is that the world is warming, and only CO2 can explain it."

Science is self-correcting, and we should be proud of that. It is also above politically-motivated bickering, or worse, 'messaging'. If we want science to have the respect of the public, scientists must be seen to be honest and neutral. This stance can be difficult to maintain when caught between sustained, vitriolic barracking on one side, and a politicised green lobby on the other. But by acting quickly and decisively scientists have done climate science a great service, and the SMC is proud to have played a part in the process.

Thoughts on the BBC Trust review of science coverage

2011-07-28T17:11:00.008Z

When invited to comment on the BBC's coverage of science Sir David Attenborough responded that it stands, 'head, shoulders, thorax and abdomen' over that of any other broadcaster. Having been commissioned by the BBC Trust to carry out an independent assessment of the accuracy and impartiality of science coverage, geneticist Steve Jones is minded to agree, though in his words 'My review gives the BBC head and shoulders, and probably thorax, but suggests that we need to talk about the abdomen'.

Amongst the complications found by Jones in the abdomen was the thorny issue of 'journalistic balance' as applied to science. Indeed before last week's publication of the Review I would have half expected this piece to appear on one side of a page opposite James Delingpole's objections. But if the Review is to be believed the days of the BBC's obsession with balancing every view from mainstream science with an opposing view may be numbered. Agreeing with Professor Jones's views on this, the Trust has stated that a 'false balance between well-established fact and opinion must be avoided'. And BBC bosses agree, stating in their response that an 'over rigid' application of the need for balance has allowed minority or even contrarian views an undue place'. They have offered to run training and seminars to 'improve our journalists understanding of impartiality in science'

These bits of the report have found favour among leading scientists with Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society saying, "It is important to have debate but marginal opinion, prominently expressed but not well based on evidence, can mislead the audience". Like Attenborough and Jones most scientists rate the BBC's science coverage highly but the 'he said/she said' reporting of contentious issues drives them to distraction . As Jones says:

"The world is not flat, life is not six thousand years old, carbon dioxide levels are rising through human activity and smoking causes lung cancer. Millions choose to disagree with each of these statements but within the world of science there is almost no difference of opinion about any of them."

Jones repeatedly calls for 'equality of voice' by which he means that if the BBC insist on featuring disagreements they should at least choose guests with some expertise and understanding of the debate. And in one of many great one liners in this report Jones says 'The BBC would not have a discussion between a centre-forward and an opera critic but some of the debates on science have been that surreal."

I know people are bored with the MMR example and admittedly much has changed for the better in the past 10 years, but there are good reasons not to forget it just yet. Whether your preferred villain of the piece is Andrew Wakefield, the Lancet or the Blairs (for refusing to confirm that baby Leo had the jab), the truth is that none of those actors can be blamed for
misleading the public into believing that medical science was split down the middle on the safety of MMR. That most wholly inaccurate and dangerous belief was down to the media's obsession with 'balancing' every interview with a medical scientist defending the safety of the vaccine with someone against.

And while the most intelligent discussions I’ve had on this issue are with specialist science reporters at the Beeb, I am not entirely convinced that everyone has been able kick the habit. When the government announced a new attempt at a national dialogue on GM crops earlier this year I had a horrible sense of déjà vu. Producer after producer on news programmes called asking for pro- and anti-GM guests. Now considering the story was a call for dialogue, it is not surprising that different voices were sought, but the result was an unnecessarily polarised debate. While the 'perfect storm' of climate change, food shortages and population rise should have changed just about everything about the context of this debate it seems some in the BBC just want to re-run the old debate.

For me the frustrating bit of this 'he said/she said' reporting is the implicit failure of journalists to guide their audiences closer to the truth. After 10 years in science I am better qualified now to judge between two experts making diametrically opposite scientific claims, but less qualified people are just left having to hazard a guess. Alternatively, in what one commentator has called 'regression towards a phoney mean', the journalists seem to hope that their impartiality will lead audiences to conclude that the truth lies somewhere in the middle (Jones likens this to asking a mathematician and a maverick biologist what 2 + 2 equals. When the mathematicians says 4 and the maverick says 5, the presenter sums up that the answer is something like 4.5 and proclaims that "the debate will go on").

Interestingly the Trust is now suggesting that the broadcaster should have more of a responsibility for guiding audiences towards the truth. Speaking at the press briefing the Head of Standards clearly stated that presenters will be expected to make the distinction between well-established fact and opinion clear to the audience. While they insist that minority voices are not going to disappear from the airwaves, they will in future be 'sign posted' by presenters.

Of course all this stuff would have been sorted by now if it was easy and I'm sure I am not the only one with questions as to how this will work in practice. How will the presenters 'signpost' where the weight of evidence lies when guests are disputing exactly that point (one sceptical editor has already suggested playing a jingle in the background to alert listener to the maverick!). Will the Trust put their money where their mouth is when the complaints from the critics of science come flooding in, and what happens when the scientists themselves stray into expressing personal or political views - is that signposted too?

There is also a danger that Steve Jones' position looks like special pleading for science, a call for censorship, or an example of 'scientism', the claim that science is the only valid way of understanding the world. However on the whole Jones stays on the right side of these lines and there are wonderful passages in the report about the need to be open about scientific uncertainties, to challenge orthodoxies and to have robust debate on policy issues. However Jones subscribes to the view that people are entitled to their own opinions but not entitled to their own facts. He also holds to a contentious, shared by many in science, that impartiality checks are already built into the scientific enterprise whereby findings have been thoroughly tested, replicated and reviewed by peers before they would ever get on air.

Yet Jones’ repeated call for a 'common sense' interpretation of impartiality suggests that this debate is as much about intelligent journalism as it is about prescriptive rules and signposts. My own view is that most of the real horror stories in 'false balance' happen when the science reporter leaves the office and hard pressed general reporters have to find guests at short notice. While it may get little attention the recommendation that could sort out most of the problems in this respect is that general news journalists, editors and presenters should make much better use of the excellent science specialists that surround them

There are other nuggets in this report that deserve highlighting. Pointing out that the BBC has more science reporters than the rest of the UK media put together, Jones urges the corporation to lead by example in encouraging more original reporting and less reliance on the 'diary' stories that emerge from the weekly diet of scientific journals.

The least convincing recommendation for me is the proposal for a new Science Editor for News. The new role is posited as the answer to what Jones identifies as the 'fractionated' nature of science in the Beeb where science journalists working in different parts of the organization stay in silos. But if, as looks likely, the post becomes the new Robert Peston for science then the new editor will spend so much time reporting the top science stories that they will have little time for the kind of co-ordination needed.

At the end of the week in which the Review was published I chaired the press launch of the new Academy of Medical Sciences report on the use of research animals containing human material. In a week where tabloid subeditors and picture desks had a field day with 'Frankenstein monsters' and 'Planet of the Apes', it was good to turn on the Today programme and hear Tom Feilden and Fergus Walsh covering the report beautifully. If the Trust Review does nothing more than remind busy BBC bosses that they should look after their science reporters it will be a job well done.

An edited version of this article appears in the latest edition of 'Ariel', the BBC's staff magazine.

Churnalism: demonizing PR is too simple

2011-07-20T09:04:00.007Z

What has 'churnalism' got to do with the phone hacking scandal? Plenty according to Chris Atkins, in his support for the motion This house believes news articles based on press releases should be marked 'Advertorial' at a debate at the Royal Statistical Society last week. Atkins opened by claiming that 'churning' out news stories copied and pasted from press releases is at the mild end of the scale of dishonest things journalists do which ends with phone hacking.

And he knows a thing or two about this. When the Media Standards Trust (MST) launched their new website Churnalism.com, Atkins sent out a number of hoax press releases which were slavishly reproduced by a variety of national news outlets – including the posh papers.

My favourite, about a "chastity garter" which contains a text message-sending microchip to alert a woman's partner if she is being unfaithful, became the most-read story on the Daily Mail's website.

The linking of phone hacking and churnalism found favour with the main organizer of the debate Martin Moore, Director of the MST, who raced to it from the House of Lords launch of the campaign for a public enquiry into phone hacking.

Atkins, Director of Starsuckers and Taking Liberties, was supported by James Randerson, News Editor for Science and Environment at the Guardian.

Against them were Trevor Morris, lecturer in PR at the University of Westminster and David Higgerson, Head of Multimedia at Trinity Mirror. I was chairing (after declining an invitation to speak because, uncharacteristically, I can't make up my mind.)

Atkins argued that passing press releases off as news is fundamentally dishonest. He insisted he was not out to demonise PR, but went on to claim that while the role of journalists is to tell the truth, the role of PR is serve their paymasters, and, yes, 'they lie'.

The essence of Atkins' argument was compelling – that the public have a right to know where journalists source their news, and that putting a bold sign on every article taken primarily from a press release could make readers do interesting things, like vote with their feet by seeking out journalists and newspapers that do more original journalism

Just as the audience began to believe we could enter a kind of journalistic nirvana, in came David Higgerson to explain that the press release is now the chosen form of communication with the media of almost every institution in society – many of whom we want to and need to hear from. Press releases get a bad press he argued, pointing out that many are written by former journalists who write well and know what the media needs. Admitting to not being a fan of Churnalism.com's 'churn engine' which allows users to trace how many stories are copied from press releases, Higgerson claimed it is a blunt tool: for instance, it fails to show whether journalists have checked the facts in the press release, or which press releases have been rejected.

He concluded with an argument that did rather queer the pitch of the proposers - that the press release is only one of the many ways the PR industry exert its influence. While his example of one disgruntled company PR threatening to turn up at his desk with a mallet is thankfully rare, it did drive the point home. Other dark arts include the angry call to the editor from would-be Alastair Campbells and the threat of withdrawal of advertising. Neither of those, of course, would be any more visible in a brave new world where press release stories are labelled.

This last point was echoed by Trevor Morris, the former PR guru, who pointed out that lots of PR comes from private briefings, tips offs and leaks, prompting Morris to suggest that, alongside labels like 'Advertorial', we would have to label other copy as 'Leakatorial' and so on.

Morris delivered a list of rather brutal home truths: if we have less PR we will have less media, and less media means less advertising which is bad for journalism. Also, PR allows small players without big advertising budgets to get media space. And PR keeps the cost of journalism down. Finally, PR people have a vested interest in supporting journalism because without the media they would lose their jobs.

Morris also argued that power of PR is grossly overstated by both its supporters and its critics – which explains why so many powerful people who spend buckets on the best PR advice still crash and burn (the Murdoch empire comes to mind). He said that 90% of press releases are never even used - which suggests that there is a lot more journalistic judgment going on in newsrooms than we are giving credit for.

It was left to James Randerson to subvert the motion by sheepishly admitting he couldn't give it the full-throated defence expected at this kind of debate. He started by bringing up the other media scandal of recent weeks in the form of the Johann Hari plagiarism saga. James sees some of the same paternalism displayed by Hari in his defence of lifting quotes from other sources in the general reluctance to be more open about where journalists have sourced their stories.

For Randerson the idea that the journalist knows best and the reader doesn't need to worry about the mysterious craft of reporting is no longer justifiable in a time of ever increasing demand for transparency. Instead of labelling articles as advertorial, Randerson argued for the simplest of solutions – linking to sources. For Randerson, the fact that we now have the technical ability to do so with such ease makes this move towards more transparency both desirable and inevitable.

Randerson shares Atkins' belief that more transparency could drive up standards. After all, few reporters come into journalism to copy stories from press releases. Being forced to reveal this would be an eye-opener for the public and may result in more self-policing policy in newsrooms.

The final vote was 23 for the motion – demanding the Advertorial label – and 39 against. The speakers concluded with a kind of consensus that more transparency about sources would be a good thing but the problem of churnalism is unlikely to be fixed by newspapers full of 'Advertorial' signs.

Personally, I think the critics of PR make the mistake of using it as a catch-all term. Product placement PR or the frothy opinion polls that trace back to some big corporate with something to sell are worthy but easy targets. It's not so simple in the science world, where I work: many press releases exist to document the findings of long, complex research studies on public health and the environment. Putting 'Advertorial' over a report of a press released Nature paper showing that asbestos-like effects have been found in the lungs of mice exposed to nanoparticles seems crazy to me.

Nor do I buy the idea that a newspaper should be spared the label just because a journalist calls the researcher directly and gets an almost identical comment to the press release – probably rehearsed by the scientist and press officer in preparation for publication. For me, the test of reporting in science should be whether the public and policy makers get access to good, factually accurate, balanced and truthful information. If that is done by journalists and press officers working together and includes a press release, then fine. The failures in this area are as much down to shoddy sensationalised journalism as they are down to an over-reliance on press releases.

PR, like journalism, is a mixed bag, but if I was asked to identify the people who most symbolise the pursuit of accurate, critical and balanced reporting, my list would include as many press officers as journalists.

Atkins argued that if lifting the lid on the way journalists get their stories leads to a decline in public trust in the media, that is a thoroughly good thing if forces journalists to change for the better.

In other weeks, Atkins' faith in radical and dramatic change in journalism might have sounded naïve and idealistic. But in the light of current headlines, it seems less so.

Just back from the World Conference of Science Journalists

2011-07-07T16:43:00.019Z

I have just returned from the World Conference of Science Journalists in Doha. Sadly the conference had to be moved from Cairo earlier this year because the revolution was literally exploding on the streets when conference centres, hotels and flights needed to be booked. But the spirit of the Arab Spring ran through the conference and it was exhilarating to be surrounded by people who had just changed the world. The Egyptian conference organizer, Nadia El-Awady, joined others at a plenary session to talk about the tension between their professional roles as objective reporters and their growing passion for the revolution. Nadia and Mohammed Yahia, the young Editor of Nature Middle East, who were part of the daily demonstrations in Tahrir Square described the exact moments when they each decided that they could no longer be neutral observers and must take sides.

Yahia closed the Conference with a plea to journalists in Egypt, Tunisia etc to fight to define a new form of free journalism. Echoing others he said the revolution was 'the easy part' and now science journalists must play their part in fighting for a new form of independent journalistic enquiry; "It can’t be the passive science journalism that was taking place in many of the state-run agencies. It needs to be more active – we need to push for more freedom."

These brave young science writers should make us all feel just a little less comfortable in our safe, easy lives as journalists and press officers and it frustrated me that more UK science journalists were not there to be inspired.

Restrictions on scientists speaking out

Talking of being slightly shamed, one of the themes of this conference for me was a growing tendency amongst western countries to prevent government funded scientists from speaking out. Editor of Research Fortnight Ehsan Masood cautioned early on in the conference about assuming that restrictions on free speech for scientists come only from authoritarian regimes. This point was graphically illustrated in the session on 'Secret Science' at which talks from Russia and China were followed by one from democratic Canada. Veteran science reporter Margaret Munro shocked the audience with the revelation that almost all the government environmental scientists she has relied on in in her 30 year career are now prevented from speaking directly to her under new government rules. Munro described the rapid rise of the 'wrong kind of press officer’ who see their job as controlling scientists and ‘corporate messaging'. The new restrictions have at least caused a stir in Canada and even made front page news. While there are no blanket rules restricting government scientists speaking out here in the UK there are some worrying signs. People still cite the now notorious sacking of Prof David Nutt, an independent government drugs adviser, but few have commented on the fact that more recently several government funded agencies with useful scientific expertise were told by government not to do media interviews throughout the Fukushima crisis.

Inaugural meeting of SMCs

The subject of restrictions on scientists speaking out became a hot topic at the first ever meeting of the rapidly growing collective of SMCs held to coincide with the conference. Present at the meeting were the established SMCs from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Canada, with Denmark due to open its doors soon. But we were also joined by representatives from possible new SMCs in Norway, Italy and China. While none of us have lived through a revolution, the sense of being on the brink of something new and exciting marked the meeting where we discussed the huge added value of being part of a truly international collaboration. Obviously there are threats as well as promise and probably the most important item on the agenda was the drafting of a Charter of Principles governing the establishment and running of SMCs. The challenge for the meeting was to get a Charter which does not restrict different national models of SMC while also ensuring that there are core values around independence that all SMCs must subscribe to to be part of the Collective. The first draft of the Charter should be ready soon and will be one of the first things to appear on the new international SMC website being created by our colleagues in New Zealand. By the way, any ideas for a name for the new Collective are welcome – perhaps the lack of easy access to alcohol in Doha can be blamed for the lack of inspiration so far!

SMCs challenged

The SMCs had a session in the main programme using the Fukushima crisis as a case study for the way we operate in different countries with very different media landscapes Given we were at a journalism conference we decided to invite a journalist onto the panel to critique the SMC model. BBC science reporter Pallab Ghosh had agreed but had to pull out at the last minute, so we got the wonderful Connie St Louis instead. Connie is Chair of the Association of British Science Writers and runs the new masters course in science journalism at City University. Connie took on her role as critic enthusiastically and told the audience that the SMCs are actively encouraging the trends towards lazy 'copy and paste' journalism, are becoming too powerful and are vulnerable to being hijacked by maverick scientists, campaigners and funders alike. Connie told us that she teaches her students to do real journalism - to 'dig out' original stories, ask the tough questions to mainstream scientists and to keep a distance between themselves and the scientists they report.

I was first to respond to Connie and said that I tended to agree with much of her characterization of the problems within journalism. I also conceded that by adapting great science to the needs of a media the SMCs can be seen as part of the problem. But I countered that we are Science Media Centres and not Journalism Media Centres. It is not our role to fix the problems of journalism but to ensure that a media under pressure is still able to report science well. The notion that if the world’s SMCs disappeared tomorrow all the science hacks would become 'diggers' rather than 'churners' really does credit us with way too much influence. It also misses the point that the SMCs have a wide variety of contacts with journalists and actually often help them to do the kind of original reporting that Connie and I so admire.

Many of Connie’s comments on that panel were echoed in her interview with Martin Robbins for his excellent blog post on the lack of original and investigative reporting which became a talking point at the conference. While I stand accused of denying the extent of the problems with science journalism I have always argued that there is a shocking lack of investigative reporting in science – a point that came out of my report for Government last year which recommended that the scientific community should fund a science strand at the new Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

However I baulk at the assumption that anything short of original investigations is 'not really journalism'. Running 2- 3 science press briefings a week puts me at very close quarters to the process of science reporting and the truth is that journalists do interrogate the scientists on SMC panels – so much so that we warn scientists to prepare for every claim they make to be pulled apart. They do use their years of specialist reporting to put studies in context and they often add comment and information even when the briefing has been about an extremely in depth and complex piece of science. The briefing I ran just before leaving for Doha was a case in point – ask the UEA and Cambridge authors of the paper on polypharmacy if they felt that journalists failed to challenge their claims during the hour long SMC press briefing and they would probably choke on their tea – I think Channel 4’s Tom Clarke alone asked about 4 times in different ways how the scientists could prove that the effects they saw were not caused by the illnesses themselves.

Both Connie and Martin would have enjoyed the WCSJ conference session on global health reporting with London’s very own Andrew Jack from the FT and Maria Cheng from AP, joined by American science journalist Jon Cohen and chaired by Martin Enserink from Science. Maria Cheng started by showing heart wrenching photos of African children – but only to warn us of the dangers of giving public health stories an easy ride. She also objected to the use of celebrities and hype around global public health and called for a higher standard of interrogation of some of the claims in this arena. Andrew Jack showed us a succession of FT stories – primarily exclusives – that had exposed problems and ultimately forced companies and governments to change policies and withdraw products. Jon described his role as a 'miner' and then showed how journalists can exploit the new openness of institutions like Gates Foundation and WHO to mine the figures and reveal inconsistencies. They also mocked some of what passes for investigative reporting on global health with Enserink lampooning a story that sought to blame Bill Gates for the worldwide obesity epidemic because he invested in McDonalds. Enserink also revealed his pet hate when newspaper articles open with 'We have learned that……' when all they have actually 'learned' is how to read a university press release. But there was no sign on any 'churnalists' on this panel and it was a refreshing reminder that we don’t have to look too far to find great reporters doing proper journalism

All in all, it was a great conference and a great opportunity for science journalists and those like me who care about their trade to reflect on our role and challenge ourselves. The next one is in Helsinki in 2 years. I am taking bets on how many new SMCs will be up and running by then, and hoping to persuade one or two more British science journalists that they would love this conference. Plus, I hear the Finns make excellent vodka…

Sharing the love of science: thoughts on Beddington

2011-02-28T15:41:00.010Z

There was much chatter on the blogs last week about John Beddington’s apparently unscripted outburst at the end of a speech to science and engineering civil servants reported by Research Fortnight. Beddington, the Chief Scientific Adviser, urged his audience to be as 'grossly intolerant' of bad science as we are of racism or homophobia:

"We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of racism. We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of people who [are] anti-homosexuality... We are not - and I genuinely think we should think about how we do this - grossly intolerant of pseudo-science, the building up of what purports to be science by the cherry-picking of the facts and the failure to use scientific evidence and the failure to use scientific method."

My first reaction was to feel a tad sorry for Beddington. Not that long ago the beautifully crafted full speeches made by Chief Scientific Advisers at such meetings, undoubtedly checked over by an army of civil servants and press officers, would have been the only thing available to the press and mostly went unnoticed. Now, in the age of online journalism, twitter and the blogosphere, the off-the-cuff comment in the closing remarks has become the main event. While his comments are now being celebrated on the science blogs, I suspect John Beddington has had better weeks in government.

But what of the comments themselves? Since coming into science I have become pretty partial to the scientific way of looking at the world (or 'gone native' as my friends put it). Scientists' commitment to evidence, accuracy, reason, rationality and all that stuff has totally won me over, and nine years on I wonder whether I can ever take my PR skills back into the worlds of politics or campaigning NGOs who work to a rather different set of norms. Evidence-based policy works for me every time over policy-based evidence, and when David Willetts talks about his vision of the scientific discourse becoming the common language of society I get a ready-brek style glow.

Where I depart from the comments above is over how we get the scientific approach to prevail. No matter how many times scientists demand that science should trump ideology and pseudoscience, it will not happen unless people are convinced. The role of scientists like Beddington should not be to demand intolerance of anti-science but to win more people over to his rationalist way of explaining the world. If others do not share our love of the scientific method then we have to try harder to convey why they should.

The SMC could have tackled our mission, 'to help renew public trust in science' after the rows over GM, BSE and MMR in a variety of ways, and I’m sure that some of our champions would have cheered us all the way had we chosen the route of attempting to close down debates, demanding the censorship of minority views, and condemning the media’s failure to do either. However, the philosophy we chose was a rather more humble one – that the media would ‘do’ science better when scientists start to ‘do’ the media better. Far from raging against debates over vaccines, GM and climate change the SMC has always encouraged scientists to see these rows as opportunities rather than threats. Every scientist thrown into the fray by the SMC is encouraged to use their moment in the spotlight to communicate something of the way science works as well as answering the questions or responding to critics. In my view it is a tribute to the manner in which scientists have engaged in these arguments that they have, for example, overturned government opposition to the use of human-animal hybrid embryos and persuaded 83% of the UK public that climate change is a current or imminent threat.

I’m still more of a fan of this approach . The House of Lords report that led to the establishment of the SMC talked about the need for scientists to earn their right to practice. They also have to earn support for science and the evidence it provides. People will naturally become more intolerant of pseudoscience when they have learned to love the same rationalist approach that Beddington espouses – much like I did.

Of course if Beddington is simply calling on more civil servants to speak out and engage more effectively with those who misuse science, as suggested in a clarification of his comments published on the New Scientist website, then I couldn't agree more. Beddington says:

"It is time the scientific community became proactive in challenging misuse of scientific evidence. We must make evidence, and associated uncertainties, accessible and explicable. In a world of global communication, we cannot afford to only speak to ourselves."

That beautiful quote could be put on a plaque and hung on the door of the SMC. It reflects the similarly stirring comments made by Paul Nurse at the end of his recent Horizon documentary. John Beddington has some form here – in a good way. In the middle of 'climategate' he made a public call for more openness on uncertainty and in the SMC a couple of weeks ago he told a room full of national media that the world should embrace GM crops where appropriate. But if Beddington is feeling angry there is more he could do. Many scientists still see media frenzies and controversy as a signal to retreat back to the safety of the lab, allowing those who would misuse science to dominate the debate. And scientists advising government on controversial issues still feel that their advisory role probably means they should step back from the media fray – a process not helped by the common use of confidentiality agreements and the official secrets act for scientists appointed to independent advisory committees. Only a few weeks ago a leading expert on talking therapies was told the government no longer needed his scientific advice after he raised important questions about the new Mental Health Bill – showing that the civil servants and ministers need to be reminded to re-read the Principles governing the use of scientific advice that Beddington helped to draw up.

In the meantime I think those of us who love science need to start sharing the love rather than spreading intolerance – not only is it a nicer way to carry on – it’s much more likely to achieve our goals.

Science funding and Channel 4 film on the green movement

2010-11-10T10:26:00.008Z

It was great to learn from science minister David Willetts that those of us who spent the Saturday afternoon before the Spending Review outside the Treasury forcing the words 'science is vital' into the verses of Pink Floyd classics did not waste our time. Danny Alexander greeted Willets on the following Monday by jokingly accusing him of dispatching the 2000 white-coated scientists to disturb his last minute preparations.

Of course it was not Willetts who set up the grassroots group Science is Vital, and nor did the scientific community need any encouragement from the new science minister to raise their voice about the importance of protecting the science budget. Groups like CASE did a great job of arming scientists with the facts to demonstrate that cutting science would undermine economic growth, and that case was delivered eloquently and passionately by influential scientists like Martin Rees, Colin Blakemore, John Krebs and a host of Vice-Chancellors.

But while many believe that the surprise decision to protect the science budget can be credited wholly to the scientific community, I think we are neglecting the role of the media. Not only did science reporters succeed in getting science a decent slice of the coverage, even compared to coverage of defence, education and health, but it was striking that some of the best arguments for the science budget were made by the science reporters themselves.

Mark Henderson’s success at persuading editors at the Times that the science spend was an exceptional case was evident in front page splashes, extended coverage and excellent leader articles. Science and education specialists at the Guardian also obliged after mounting a search operation for scientists considering a move out of the UK in the event of a savage cut in their research grants – they were not hard to find and the story was splashed across the front pages while decisions were still being made. And veteran science reporters like Mike Hanlon on the Mail and Roger Highfield at New Scientist penned powerful comment pieces on why science should be seen as special case. Meanwhile over at Research Fortnight the journalist who probably knows more about science funding than anyone in the Treasury, William Cullerne Bown, was characteristically blunt: "Trying to slim down public spending by cutting science is like trying to lose weight by blowing your brains out."

So maybe those who struggle to acknowledge that the media often does science a great service should be more gracious right now – the media they so often despair of may well have just helped rescue them from savage cuts. And before others shout 'going native' let me assure you that it will be these same specialist reporters who will now hold the government to account when the finer details start to emerge. Within hours of the good news that the science budget had not been slashed it was science reporters who grilled Willetts on the real terms cut and the confounding factors around the capital spend. In a first for the SMC, William Cullerne Bown presented Willetts with a massive bunch of flowers at the post-review press conference thanking him for 'making our day'. But the new science minister would be foolish to think that William or any of the other science journalists will not now scrutinize every aspect of the science spend. The beauty of specialist journalists is that they care about science but they also know and understand science enough to do what journalism is meant to do – speak truth to power.

Channel 4 film

It was our good friend Prof Howard Atkinson, the plant scientist from Leeds, who alerted me to last week’s Channel Four film 'What the Green Movement Got Wrong' after letting me know he was due to take part in the live studio debate straight after. Howard has more reasons than most to take an interest in this subject after his publically funded field trial of genetically modified nematode resistant bananas was destroyed by anti-GM activists a couple of years ago.

When I first read the publicity blurb alarm bells started to ring – with strong echoes of the kind of deliberately provocative film that got Channel 4 into so much trouble with the Great Global Warming Swindle. But having settled in for the night to watch the film and the studio debate that followed I was pleasantly surprised. What was so wrong about GGWS was that it mixed legitimate opinion with seriously distorted and inaccurate science. Unlike GGWS this programme didn’t even claim to be about science and there were mercifully few graphs or pie charts. Instead it told the story of the personal journeys of four or five prominent environmentalists who have changed their minds about issues like nuclear power and GM crops – primarily it seems because of the greater threat posed by climate change. There were odd bits – I thought the clips about Chernobyl and DDT were unnecessary and over-stated, and nor do four or five talking heads signify any kind of revolution in green thinking. But it was hard not to be fascinated by someone like Mark Lynas explaining how he has gone from ripping up GM trials in the middle of the night to now supporting their use.

Not surprisingly the representatives from Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth who appeared in the studio debate straight after the film after were far from happy, accusing the film of caricaturing them as anti-science and ideological. I’m sure this film was not easy to watch, and if the shoe had been on the other foot I’m sure I would be shouting about lack of balance. It is also true, and not disputed in the film, that effective campaigning by these groups has put many issues on the political agenda and achieved benefits for the environment. But that effectiveness has given green groups an enviably high media profile and significant influence on public and political opinion. Programmes raising questions about their approach are relatively rare, despite the fact that in my 8 years in science I have heard hundreds of wonderful environmental scientists saying many of the things repeated in this film by Tim Flannery and others.

One of the first big stories the Science Media Centre got involved with was the media launch of the Farm Scale Evaluations on GM crops, commissioned by the then environment minister Michael Meacher to assess the impact of GM on biodiversity. The four year field experiment was conducted on the ground, largely by idealistic young ecologists working for world class environmental science institutions – almost all of whom started out as members of either Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, or both. By the end, however, many had handed back their membership cards in protest at the trashing of their trials and the constant condemnation and misinformation by green groups. The environmentalists in the film are pretty opinionated, self assured, senior guys, and the filmmakers had fun presenting them as having turned on the movement that spawned them. But actually another film could easily be made about the silent majority of mild-mannered environmental scientists who have also come to despair of the way in which campaign groups have misused science.

In the Guardian environment blog the next day my old friend Andrew Simms said, 'The curious unsettling question left unanswered is why do GM food and nuclear power get disproportionate attention?', echoing another contribution from Craig Bennett from FOE saying that GM and nuclear are actually 'distractions'. But scientists have often posed precisely that question to green campaigners, even arguing that by separating out GM and shining a light on this one technology, environmentalists have allowed other new farming techniques with potentially greater impacts to avoid scrutiny or regulation. In eight years of running science press briefings on agriculture, climate change and energy I have never heard scientists making an isolated case for GM or nuclear. Most engineers and energy experts invariably agree that we must have both nuclear and renewables to cope with growing energy demands and climate change, and plant scientists involved in plant breeding believe that both conventional and genetic approaches are needed and should be researched.

I thought the film was thought-provoking television, and the debate that followed was robust and informative. And as someone rightly noted, it was also three hours on prime time television where everyone agreed on one thing – climate change is a real and pressing challenge and we need a proper grown up debate about how best to handle it!

The media on UEA: guilty as charged?

2010-07-22T09:42:00.012Z

At the press briefing in the SMC for the third and final inquiry into the UEA emails, Sir Muir Russell, Chair of the review, dared to hope that a line may now be drawn under this particular row, if not under the debate over climate change itself. But one row that has been reignited by Russell is whether the media were right to give this story such prominence in the first place when no smoking gun has been discovered and no 'scalps' have been delivered.

Dr Myles Allen, Oxford climate researcher, used his reaction to the Russell review to reiterate his early criticism of the media:

"What everyone has lost sight of is the spectacular failure of mainstream journalism to keep the whole affair in perspective. Again and again, stories are sexed up with arch hints that these 'revelations' might somehow impact on the evidence for human impact on climate."

Allen speaks for many scientists who have been dismayed by the apparent willingness of the media to give credence to the selective interpretation of the hacked emails that was first splashed around the world.

I have blogged before on why we should not appeal for special treatment for climate science, but there are also specific reasons why I don't agree that the vindication of Professor Phil Jones et al on the substantive issues of their science and integrity amounts to a guilty verdict against the media. It's just not that simple.

Firstly I think it's crucial to emphasise that the UK's specialist science and environment reporters simply did not know whether the references to 'tricks', 'hiding the decline' and keeping some research out of the IPCC's report amounted to an orchestrated attempt to distort and exaggerate the case for man-made climate change. What's more, many of their editors, sceptical by nature, were not in the mood to give their specialists the benefit of the doubt. A febrile mood developed in some newsrooms, with specialist reporters under pressure to prove that they had not gone native and got this story seriously wrong.

Compounding this was the lack of a detailed rebuttal and explanation from Jones himself and others at UEA. While many have suggested that this vacuum was disastrous, it's not hard to see how it happened. Jones was coping with the news that he had been the victim of a crime with international implications, and the University has now admitted that their own shock at the contents and the need to verify the accuracy of the emails contributed to their delayed response.

And on top of that the entire story was breaking just days before the Copenhagen summit. Many news organisations had so much journalistic fire-power directed at Copenhagen that they struggled to find the journalists to read and scrutinise the emails - hence the Guardian bringing in veteran environment reporter Fred Pearce.

Either way the world's media were largely left to their own devices in establishing whether or not these emails amounted to the conspiracy that was being alleged. Given what they could have meant about the most important science story of our age, I would suggest that ignoring or downplaying this story was not an option and would have done climate science no favours.

Obviously this was frustrating for Myles Allen and the many other climate scientists who were familiar with Phil Jones and the work of CRU. They knew what three reviews have now found: that these researchers were known for their scientific integrity and, far from exaggerating their findings and courting media attention, had tended to be cautious in their interpretation of their data and shunned the media spotlight.

While some scientists came out early on to defend the strength of climate science, the responsibility for verifying these emails, working out what they meant scientifically and putting them into some kind of context fell largely to the UK's science and environment journalists. Aware that the emails were being seized on by the most vocal critics of climate science to drive home their message that climate change is a huge hoax, these journalists none the less had to make judgements about where and how to cover this story in the absence of the detailed answers that only Phil Jones and his colleagues could provide.

Ask any of the science and environment journalists who first reported this story whether they got everything right and they will be the first to say no. Under fire from the sceptics for not doing more and the scientific community for doing too much, and under the watchful gaze of editors, specialist reporters worked hard to report this messy, complex and important story accurately and proportionately. Of course there were exceptions. Some newspapers could hardly hide their glee and we saw the kind of lurid headlines that all stories attract in the midst of a feeding frenzy, but on the whole the early reporting was a serious attempt to get to grips with the seemingly alarming facts by a largely responsible group of specialist reporters. The argument put by some scientists that the media should have held off reporting this story until the official enquiries rolled in is just totally unrealistic. Of course we would all love a media that waited a little longer for solid facts to emerge, and no journalist should have declared Phil Jones guilty in those early days. But if we consistently applied this idea we would be asking the media not to report the oil spill in the Gulf or the MPs expenses scandal. We would be asking the media not to be the media.

The other thing that critics of the media coverage of UEA miss is that it provided huge opportunities for climate scientists. The SMC was alerted to the UEA story in the very early days after a call from James Randerson on the Guardian asking for individual reactions from climate researchers and a comment piece to go alongside his news report. This appetite for reaction from the scientific community has continued apace over the past six months and the SMC has never before been so successful at placing opinion pieces from scientists on relatively arcane issues like peer review and scientific uncertainty. Thoughtful scientists like Professors Bob Watson, John Beddington, Alan Thorpe, Mike Hulme, Dr Chris Huntingford and others have been invited to play a prominent role in the media debate and have risen to the challenge. Indeed Myles Allen has been encouraged by the Guardian to vent his wrath at their coverage in print and in public debate.

And the journalists too have done their bit to put the UEA emails into a broader context. Despite the particular criticisms heaped on Fred Pearce, the specialist climate reporter who wrote so much copy for the Guardian that it has now been published as a book, close reading shows that throughout his reports Pearce was at pains to refer to the balance of evidence on climate change, the context in which emails were sent and the long and painful background to what he describes as 'Climate Wars'. Many specialists attempted their own analysis of the most contentious emails, and, way before the official enquiries had reported, many journalists had explained that a 'trick' simply meant a clever - and legitimate - way of doing something rather than a deception. And as the UEA emails merged with IPCC errors to create the predictable 'Climate-Gate', editorials started to appear concluding that the media too has a responsibility to get better at reporting the uncertainties. The SMC's founding philosophy was to encourage scientists to see science in the headlines as an opportunity as well as a threat, and I predict that future analyses of the UEA story will show that it was far from all bad for the scientific community.

The final thing I would say to anyone singling out the media's coverage of UEA for criticism is that it suggests that the media reporting of climate change before UEA was always balanced and proportionate. It was not. There have been too many stories on climate science in the past few years where the caveats, uncertainties and nuances expressed by scientists have failed to make it into the next day's headlines. Such was the appetite for alarmist coverage of climate change that at one stage new research that could not be reported under a banner of 'worse than previously expected', 'beyond the tipping point' or 'catastrophic climate change' would struggle to get covered. One respected think tank described the coverage as 'climate porn' and a variety of academics published studies showing that the exaggerated framing may have the effect of putting people off taking action to tackle climate change. The best climate researchers have always been uncomfortable with the simplistic presentation of climate research in the media but, with the exception of UEA's Professor Mike Hulme, few have said so publicly. One of the results of that silence has been that the scientific community now stand accused of glossing over the uncertainties in climate science with the Chief Scientific Adviser Professor Sir John Beddington appealing to scientists to communicate uncertainty more openly. Most climate researchers do emphasise these uncertainties when publishing their work and speaking to each other. But it is also true that some scientists were prepared to go along with the media's playing down of uncertainties because they feared that too much emphasis on the remaining uncertainties would dilute the message or be seized on by their critics - a position which many now accept has backfired.

Nobody embroiled in climate science has enjoyed all aspects of the media's coverage of UEA, and the whole saga is well described by Fred Pearce as a human tragedy. But I have now chaired the press briefings of all three inquiries into what went wrong. The same journalists that brought us the grim headlines about the story of UEA emails have now delivered the headlines about the exoneration of their authors. That the media coverage of UEA revealed no smoking gun is not an argument against the media's interrogation of the emails - it is an argument in favour of the scientific research discussed in those emails which has stood the test of the most enormous scrutiny. Research that Phil Jones will now hopefully be allowed to continue!

Are embargo breaks bad for science?

2010-06-30T16:04:00.005Z

The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE)’s very public ticking off of Jonathan Leake for breaking an embargo has prompted an angry reaction from some journalists; they have cleared Leake of breaking an embargo, because he had no access to embargoed material, and some have even called for ESHRE to apologise for their public rebuke. So once again the thorny issue of embargoes has raised its head, reminding us that journalists and science press officers are fundamentally different animals.

Now I like Jonathan Leake a lot, and have worked with him on many good science stories over the years, but he is a serial embargo breaker and I mean serial. Countless press officers could probably confirm Leake’s claim that he did not take this story from embargoed material because he no longer has access to any! Every scientific journal I know and many scientific bodies, including the SMC, have long since removed Leake from their press lists – as had ESHRE. The fact that he therefore operates outside the embargo system means that he is free to break embargoes wherever he chooses – a state of affairs he exploits to full effect; and one that is perhaps not quite as brave and intrepid as it first appears. Yes, we would all like to see more investigative journalism, with less reliance on press releases and PR, but do we really want it to look like this?

As with every high profile embargo break, and the debate that follows, it is complicated. And this case is no different. But whatever the truth about exactly how it came about, if Leake knew this story was under embargo and ran it anyway then in my book that qualifies as an embargo break! I might even speculate further and suggest it was possibly because it was under embargo that he ran it. The story made a good front page splash for two reasons: firstly, because it’s a great story, but secondly because it meant the Sunday Times beat their competitors to it. Leake is a science reporter of long standing who knows the rules of scientific conferences, and he probably knew that his colleagues at the Times and all those science reporters sent to Rome by their papers would be waiting for that embargo to lift.

I am not saying that there are never any exonerating circumstances for embargo breaks, and the SMC considers its response on a case by case basis. We decided not to act against the science reporters on the Times last year when their Scottish editor and a freelancer ran a front page splash on a vitamin D study due to be launched at the SMC the next day. Our enquiries revealed that one of the authors had been in close contact with the Scottish editor for some months and had long promised him an exclusive when the study made it into a journal. However, we did act against a former Telegraph health editor who splashed a hotly awaited Nuffield report on premature babies before our embargoed briefing - 24 hours before the embargo was due to lift. On this occasion the journalist in question had registered for the embargoed briefing but was allegedly handed an unembargoed report by a contact the night before. Despite fierce protests from her Telegraph colleagues, the SMC banned the offending journalist for three months. We then made it clear to all reporters using the SMC that if they made the decision to run a story they clearly knew to be embargoed in advance of an SMC briefing – thus ruining a briefing that may have been months in the making and depriving the entire media of a important public health story – we would have no choice but to remove them from our lists. The message is simple: run the splash but pay the price!

And here’s the thing – I don’t want to start bleating about the importance of the work done by the SMC, and god forbid I should even suggest that journalists have responsibilities to the public, but I would ask commentators to at least reflect about the consequences of embargo breaks on individual science stories. The SMC’s job is to work with scientists to help them ensure their science is covered in the most accurate and evidence-based way by the news media. In the Telegraph case, the scientists who had spent a year producing a thoughtful and sensitive report addressing whether babies under 24 weeks should be left to die suddenly found themselves catapulted onto the front pages and into the broadcast media before having had any chance to explain their findings to the whole of the news media in a considered way. The Telegraph got their splash ahead of the others at the expense of the public and policy makers getting access to the nuanced findings of this important report. Last week the SMC in fact ran a press briefing for journalists registered for ESHRE, where three leading fertility experts urged caution and care with the reporting of the ovarian reserves story. None of those caveats or caution showed up in Leake’s article or the subsequent broadcast and comment pieces that followed his report. In other words, embargo breaks have a huge effect on a story – on where it appears and how it appears. And it's particularly serious when this happens with research that has important implications for patients that need to be properly explained and put into context.

There are also broader issues here. What does it mean for the embargo system as a whole if one science reporter operates not just outside it but is completely immune to it? I know of several science reporters who are now being encouraged to break embargoes by their editors for fear of regularly losing out to the Sunday Times. I am all for replacing the embargo system with something better – whatever that might be – but there is a difference between a planned revolution and chaotic system collapse, something that will surely happen soon if no Monday paper can rely on an embargo being held.

It has also raised the issue of original journalism and ‘hunting for stories’, but surely the Sunday Times splash is not that? Running a story the rest of the media have access to, and simply doing it 24 hours before anyone else, is about as far away from original reporting as I can imagine. When I set up and ran the debate on embargoes at the World Conference of Science Journalists last June I actually wanted to side with the impassioned anti-embargo duo of Richard Horton and Vincent Kiernan who gave us a glorious idealistic vision of science reporting, freed from the shackles of the ‘diary’ story and free to roam the laboratories of the world in search of stories. I also think many science reporters share that dream, but turning it into a reality is easier said than done, as demonstrated by Richard Horton himself who continues to edit a journal whose embargoes are vigorously enforced!

The irony here is that Jonathan Leake does have the time to seek these stories out. I know embargoes often don’t work for Sunday newspapers – and that must be incredibly frustrating – but that disadvantage is surely outweighed by the luxury of time to find stories? Indeed Leake does sometimes do it; he attends scientific conferences like AAAS and manages to track down stories not being covered by the dailies. He does find good stories – but he also grabs a lot of low-hanging fruit and this should not be applauded.

Emma Mason and Mary Rice, the ESHRE press officers being chastised for their rebuke of Leake, are two of the best, most experienced science press officers I know, and have transformed journalists’ experience of ESHRE's conference into a well managed operation. Perhaps there are lessons learned about how information and abstracts from a conference are distributed – but even more likely than this the experience will make ESHRE and others look for even stronger methods to protect their embargoes.

I am sure before long we will be having this debate again – the embargo, as we would all freely admit, is not a perfect system. But many journalists, much as they may dislike it, would also admit that it is incredibly helpful given the time pressures they are under. And until we can come up with something better, it’s all we’ve got.

On Ben v Jeremy

2010-06-11T09:44:00.006Z

Given the history and role of the SMC I'm afraid I can't stay out of the debate that has broken out this week about science in the media. In a column in the Independent, Jeremy Laurance, the paper's health editor, lashed out after Ben Goldacre's latest Bad Science column in the Guardian in which Laurance says Ben 'pistol whipped' his colleague Denis Campbell for an article about the brain enhancing properties of omega 3 fatty acids.

In response Ben and others have fought back, accusing Jeremy and other science reporters of being thin skinned, allergic to criticism and defending the indefensible.

But here's a thing. I don't happen to believe Jeremy's outburst is about any of the above. I think it's about the tone of Ben's particular brand of critique. Those who have read the exchanges will know that accurate facts are held at a premium so here's one for you - Jeremy Laurance is one of the most highly respected health reporters in the UK, loved by legions of eminent researchers, clinicians and journal editors for his accurate and insightful reporting over 20 years.

Rather than rush to dismiss Laurance's piece as a defence of bad science reporting as others have, I would urge you to take a deep breath and consider what lies behind this rather uncharacteristic outburst. One thing I do know is that the frustration with Ben that explodes off the Independent page is not unique to Jeremy. The sense of a yawning gap between the brutal realities for jobbing journalists filing ever more stories to ever tighter deadlines and the luxury of a columnist like Ben who gets to lay bare the flaws in those stories once a week is now shared by almost every science reporter I know. Some still bear the scars of their own 'pistol whipping', others protest that they are an exception to his often sweeping attacks. And some, like Jeremy, are just appealing to this particular judge to entertain the existence of a few mitigating circumstances and allow for long years of good behaviour.

I believe the world needs Ben Goldacre and his Bad Science column, and he has pioneered a form of accountability which is doubtless the envy of politicians and football managers. The fear of being 'Goldacred' may have even improved science reporting in newsrooms. I hardly need say why it matters but Ben put it beautifully in one of his comments this week that people base their behaviours on this stuff and turning a blind eye to bad reporting can seriously damage human health. But the science and medical journalists generally think that too and when Ben started his column they warmly welcomed it as an additional way of exerting pressure on their editors. Indeed I seem to remember one Jeremy Laurance was one of the most vocal supporters.

So what has changed? Well I think it's back to tone. Ben was well within his rights to do his weekly column on the weaknesses in the Observer report on Omega 3 but he would not have prompted this backlash if he had done it in a different style. And he could win back the respect of many other UK science reporters if he could occasionally write a sentence or two about the messy business of daily health reporting or acknowledge those journalists who have bravely stood against the trends on issues like MMR – people like Sarah Boseley on his own paper. Arguably Jeremy too should have taken more care to emphasize that just because there are huge pressures to cut corners doesn't mean we should justify cutting them – something he has managed to avoid himself throughout this long career.

Denis Campbell has transgressed before, within weeks of taking on the health brief. But in between then and now he has delivered a hell of a lot of health stories and had his fair share of exclusives. Could he be better? Yes. Did that article fall short of the best journalistic standards? Yes. Should the tone used by Ben in his critique be the same as that applied to Andrew Wakefield, Gillian McKeith and AIDS? Absolutely not.

I have a huge respect for Ben Goldacre's core belief that we deserve a better media and that having one person out there banging that drum should be seen as a help not a hindrance. But there are lots of ways to be a thorn in the side.

I know Ben thinks I am dreary and repetitive in my defence of specialist journalism but if we're honest there is repetition from all sides in this debate. Science blogger Ed Yong concludes his comments on Ben's site with this: 'Perhaps in future, we should all stop being such meanies to "young, eager reporters" and just ruffle the lovable scamps' hair and draw a sad face on their report cards.' Is that the best we can do? Can we not rise above the playground and conduct this most critical of discussions in a grown up manner with a bit more mutual respect for the different roles we play? I suggest we try.

Evan Harris: parliament loses a champion for science

2010-05-11T11:59:00.008Z

Waking up to the news that Dr Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat science spokesperson, had lost his seat in last week’s election by a tiny margin was devastating. I can’t even remember how or under what circumstances I met Evan, but for anyone who works, as we do, on the frontline of some of the biggest scientific debates of our times, it is only ever a matter of time before you get to know this MP well. As the Science Media Centre emerged out of the ashes of the GM saga the remit was clear: to encourage more scientists to engage more effectively on contentious issues like GM. Opening in April 2002, a series of issues faced us that were clearly our reason for being: the MMR/autism controversy, the high profile campaign of opposition to animal research and the controversy over the use of embryos in stem cell research. Finding scientists to speak out on any of these issues was initially a huge challenge, yet Evan seemed to have made every one of them his own; arguing on behalf of the scientists involved in every public forum he could access. And that brave and dogged support of scientists working on the most controversial issues has remained a constant – seemingly impervious to either party politics or the search for vote-winning populist policies that dominates so much of politics.

It was eagle-eyed Evan Harris who first spotted the line in the draft Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that revealed that government may move to ban human-animal hybrid embryo research in response to public revulsion. It was Evan who organised the first meetings of scientists to contest the proposed the ban, which grew into one of the biggest and most successful scientific collaborations on a scientific controversy. A year later, when Parliament voted in favour of allowing research on human-animal hybrids, few in science failed to acknowledge the exceptional contribution of one politician to this amazing transformation in public and political opinion.

Arriving in the office after Evan’s defeat I discovered that my personal sense of dismay was widely shared with hundreds of scientists, science press officers and science journalists, all emailing and texting to express their shock that science had lost one of its foremost champions in Parliament. It’s clear that this is not a partly political issue, with one of the first supportive comments received coming from Lord Drayson, the Labour government’s Science Minister who has sparred respectfully and humorously with Evan at all three pre-election science candidates' debates. Perhaps one of the more poignant comments came from Professor Brian Cox, who admitted aloud that he and the scientific community should have waded in to fight for Evan’s seat given the importance of having such a champion in Parliament. His comments reflected some of the interesting articles written about science in government in the run up to the election, with respected journalists like Mark Henderson and Roger Highfield speculating whether we should or could corale the ‘science vote’ as a force in British politics. This question arose from the fear that the Commons has now lost many of its greatest science champions, with MPs such as Phil Willis, Brian Iddon and Ian Gibson having stood down. Phil Willis himself has written of his alarm that Evan Harris would be one of the only remaining active members of the Science and Technology Committee that he has chaired that has played such an influential role in scrutinising science in government. Now not even Evan remains.

There will of course be new MPs with a science background entering Parliament, but I should say that I am not a believer that you have to have a science degree to be an advocate for science – as I have argued before in relation to some of our best science reporters! Phil Willis has no science background but found a passion for it, which led to science defining his political career. Conversely, nor do I believe that having a science background is any guarantee that an MP will take science to the heart of the commons.

In general, the SMC tends to avoid science policy and politics, as it’s rarely the stuff of tabloid headlines, but because purdah left us quieter than usual - and in the spirit of election fever - I had more time to absorb myself in the interesting stuff being written on science and politics by Research Fortnight, the Campaign for Science and Engineering and others. I will probably duck out now as normal life resumes, but I do hope that scientists do as Brian Cox and others suggest and enter into a debate about whether scientists need to be a little less passive about the fate of science at election times.

In the meantime we watch and wait to see who we will have as Science Minister. Those who know me will know that I feel the same about Lord Drayson as I do about Evan Harris and indeed these two men have many things in common in terms of their love of science and their proven ability to take a brave and principled public stance on issues that many choose to keep quiet about. If anyone were to ask my opinion on this, I’d say they could do worse than keeping Lord Drayson as Science Minister – it would be popular with scientists and make the loss of so many other champions for science from the Commons a little easier to bear!

Drama at the Royal Insitution, Simon Singh's libel case dropped, and the principles of scientific advice

2010-04-26T10:57:00.006Z

I can't believe that I missed the drama at the Royal Institution a couple of weeks ago. While it was nice to be in Barcelona for a conference, it was torture getting excitable texts from journalists, scientists and colleagues describing the chaotic scenes unfolding in the RI, where 650 members packed into the building for a historic vote. As readers of this blog will no doubt be aware, the bid to replace the current council was roundly defeated, to the barely disguised delight of the RI staff who had bravely chosen to appeal directly to members to vote against the coup on the basis that more instability at the RI would mean disaster. In interviews over the next few days, Susan Greenfield, the former Director who had backed the insurgents, vowed to continue her own fight against the RI which includes a claim of sex discrimination. I do hope Susan changes her mind. There are rarely any real winners in these messy legal battles and it seems to me that both the RI and Susan now need to throw themselves into doing what they both do best – communicating science to the public.

Another welcome victory this week was the decision by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) to drop its libel case against science writer Simon Singh. The case has always been of huge interest for the Science Media Centre, which was founded to encourage more scientists to speak out on the most controversial science stories of the day. As readers of this blog may be aware, there are already a very long list of reasons why many scientists would prefer to steer clear of the media, and this and other libel actions against scientists have done nothing to make our job easier. Not that I feel sorry for them but the BCA were especially unlucky in their choice of target. Most people would have taken the standard legal advice which is to issue retractions and apologies in order to avoid the stress and expense of a legal battle that is almost always impossible to win. Yet Simon Singh chose a different path – this man decided that there was a point of principle here that was worth defending. In doing so he put aside his own personal ambitions and career and spent thousands of pounds of his own money and two years of his life fighting for a principle. Together with the awesome campaigning skills of the team at Sense About Science this libel battle was broadened out into a full-scale assault on the UK’s perverse libel laws and their chilling effect on free speech. I have to say at a time when I am struggling to find any men or women of principle in an anodyne election campaign, it's great to have a chance to celebrate real bravery and principle – Simon Singh is a hero and there are not very many of them around.

Talking of principles, I am in dismay at the way the new Principles governing independent scientific advice to government have already been undermined in the case of the ban on mephedrone. The Principles were drawn up by Science Minister Lord Drayson and Chief Scientific Adviser John Beddington in the wake of the David Nutt affair in the hope that they would prevent anything like that happening again. While some of the words added by civil servants are a hostage to fortune, there is much to welcome in the final version. For the SMC the most welcome section encourages independent scientific advisers to use independent press officers from outside government to get their major findings out into the public domain – something that we had lobbied hard for. Another principle suggests that there should always be enough time between the publication of the independent advice and the government's response to it to reassure us all that it has been properly considered. Yet hardly was the ink dry on these principles when they were subjected to a very public test, with the independent Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs coming together to discuss their advice on the 'legal high' mephedrone. They failed the test spectacularly; instead of following the principles, the independent advisers cut short their evidence session to allow the scientific Chair of the ACMD to attend a press conference with the Home Secretary entirely managed by Home Office press officers, where they effectively made a joint announcement on the intention to ban this drug. Perhaps we should resign ourselves to the fact that that drugs advice and the ACMD is just too politicized and messy beyond the point of no return, and hope that the Principles will still make a difference in other areas – I will watch with interest!!

My life in a parallel universe

2010-03-02T12:01:00.011Z

I was talking about science in the media on a panel at the Westminster Media Forum conference last week along with Ben Goldacre, author of the Bad Science column in the Guardian and a hugely popular book and blog of the same name. Not for the first time, Ben and I seem to be living in a parallel universe – with Ben dismissing almost all science reporting in mainstream media as poor quality and me insisting that a great deal of it is good and should be championed. Ben is far from alone in his more withering critique, and last week Colin Macilwain, respected free-lance science writer, echoed many of Ben's themes in a damning piece for Nature which argued that 'dumbed down media coverage has bred mistrust among some scientists'.

One of the striking things about Colin's piece and Ben's position is the emphasis on 'silly' science stories. A line that always gets a laugh in Ben's talks is the fact that the same product – be it red wine, coffee or chocolate – appear to both cause and cure cancer on consecutive days if you read papers like the Daily Mail and Daily Express. The theme was also taken up by Colin, who admits he once hoped that stories about the 'cures for cancer' would fade away, "but they are not fading". According to Colin "essentially silly stories about science continue to fill newspapers and news broadcasts."

Now here's the thing. Like Colin and Ben I am allergic to these stories and my colleagues and I groan every time we see them. In fact I'm going to let you in on a secret: I'm not a fan of any silly science stories, even the accurate ones that communicate really complicated science concepts to the wider public. Don't get me wrong, I am in awe of the PR prowess that can get the perfect chemical formula for a cup of tea onto the Today programme, but I personally would reach for the jobs pages if that kind of PR formed part of my job description. Silly stories like these and the daily diet of maddening scare stories are not what I think of when I'm talking about science journalism.

This was illustrated the day after I shared a panel with Ben when I sat on another panel about science in the media – this time with four journalists who have been reporting 'climate-gate'. In front of a sellout audience of 200 in Oxford I got to do my impersonation of Jeremy Paxman with Fiona Harvey from the Financial Times, Ben Jackson from the Sun, Richard Black from the BBC and David Adam from the Guardian. Technically they are all environment reporters now, though all but Fiona were formerly science reporters and in any case we use the term 'science reporting' to cover science, health and environment reporting. The debate was recorded so I won't go into too much detail here but suffice to say that I defy anyone who listens to this discussion to maintain that science reporting is silly, dumbed down or all done by reporters slavishly churning out journal press releases. While the journalists themselves were critical of some of the reporting of climate-gate and even critical of their own papers, what was clear was that each of these individuals had done little else for months but consider, debate, argue, challenge and reflect on how to best cover this story. Many have done original reporting on the subject and some papers including the Guardian have delivered a level of investigative journalism that most of us feared we may never see again. Most of these reporters have gone beyond news to write insightful and perceptive comment pieces on how the story has been covered. Yet climate change reporting never features in Ben's talks and Colin Macilwain actually appears to suggest that Copenhagen failed partly because science reporters were too busy covering weekly journals and the silly stuff. Now I would be the first to say there are problems with climate reporting but I think you would be hard pressed to argue that there is not enough of it and the huge investment of resources in covering Copenhagen by every media outlet testifies to that.

I guess you could argue that climate-gate is unusual and just a blip in the daily diet of stupid pieces of research that pass for science news - but I'm just not buying that. Before climate-gate it was the sacking of David Nutt, the Home Secretary's independent drugs adviser, that projected science into the headlines and produced weeks of well written and perceptive news and comment by science reporters. And before that it was swine flu exercising and exhausting health reporters, and before that it was the year long national debate prompted by the banning of the use of human animal hybrid embryos in stem cell research. Before that there was a year when animal research was rarely off the front pages. I could go on. And on. Yet none of these huge science stories emerge from the weekly journal press releases or from the dodgy PR agencies that loom so large in the minds of the leading critics of science in the media

I guess you could counter that while these huge science stories predominate at times, the media still run the daily diet of rubbish science stories on the inside pages. That may be true – indeed it's true that the media run a daily diet of rubbish stories about everything including politics, sports, education and celebrities, and that's predictable and depressing and it's great that someone rages against it. I'm not defending it.

But in my parallel universe there's a lot going on that's less depressing and I don't understand why critics seem reluctant to even acknowledge it. These days lots of the one-off studies that end up as stories on the inside pages come via the Science Media Centre. But none of them are silly stories about the latest cure for cancer. Again, I could bore you for Britain on this and I suggest a scan of our website might be better than me listing hundreds of briefings here - but let me just mention the kinds of stories that I'm talking about. Like the study we launched a few weeks back that showed that researchers had failed to replicate findings that appeared to link ME to a particular virus in a previous well publicised study. Or the study we launched a while back where researchers had found some association – albeit a weak one – between working in nuclear power plants and an increased risk of heart disease in huge study conducted over many years. Or the study that our friend Ken Donaldson did that found asbestos-like effects in the lungs of rats exposed to nanoparticles, or the studies that reveal that researchers have made significant leaps in our understanding of the relative merits of embryonic, adult and induced pluripotent stem cells. Or how about the more policy type stories like the need to reduce the burden of over-regulation of animal research and clinical trials, or the need to teach our doctors to be better at prescribing complicated new drugs. Or how about the backgrounders we run on incredibly complex areas like epigenetics, or about the ambitious new engineering approaches that could help us to fight climate change, like geoengineering or carbon capture and storage. If science reporting was as awful as many imply, the SMC should have stacked up hundreds of examples of angry scientists who refuse to engage after their stories were hyped or misreported. Actually we have virtually none - and this from a Centre which only touches a science story if it's messy, complex and controversial, and refuses to deal with any specialist publications because we only do mainstream national news. We operate on the front-line where the potential for conflict between science and the media is greatest and yet almost all the coverage we get is good - do you see now why I feel I am in a parallel universe?

Look, I am not saying that the daily diet of health scares doesn't matter, and it's great that Ben exposes the really scandalous ones in his column and great that the excellent Behind the Headlines runs a same day deconstruction of the biggest ones which is widely read by the healthcare workers and patients who have to deal with the very real fears and anxieties raised by these stories. And as it happens the SMC does deal with them regularly, offering leading third party experts to pour a huge dose of cold water on exaggerated claims, often at the behest of the reporters themselves in a bid to dissuade their over-excitable editors from running them on the front page. What I am saying is that silly health scare stories do not science journalism make.

Yes there are problems with the reporting of science. I engage with them on a daily basis and highlight them often. Many commentators and academics - including the excellent science reporters on the Columbia Journalism Review in the US - provide a running commentary on the weaknesses of current reporting on issues like climate-gate that I almost always find myself in agreement with. But restricting the discussion of science and the media to a bunch of silly stories on cures for cancer is pretty silly itself. The true story of science reporting today is so much bigger, richer and more interesting - thank goodness otherwise I would be looking for a new job!

Thoughts on 'Climategate'

2010-02-09T12:05:00.006Z

I don’t suppose I’m the first person to have lost sleep over climate change but it’s certainly keeping me awake at the moment – well, not climate change itself but the media coverage of it. I’m not sure what the strict definition of a media feeding frenzy is but I reckon we’re definitely in one. When the Guardian actually designs a logo for its coverage, labels it 'Climate Wars' and puts their top investigative reporters on the story, you know it's serious. Of course it’s serious for the SMC because this is absolutely what we are here for; set up after similar media furores over MMR and GM crops, it falls to us to ensure that scientists never again fail to engage effectively when a huge science story becomes headline news - no pressure then!

There has been frenetic activity at the Centre - luckily the media come to us a lot so the basic stuff about making sure that climate researchers are being heard has been relatively easy - and this week the bids came in thick and fast with Newsnight, Channel 4 News and the Today programme needing lots of different voices and print journalists needing both opinion pieces and reactive sound-bites. I even ended up being asked for my view from the Guardian for their 'round-table' discussion.

But the pro-active stuff has been more challenging. How can we seize the agenda back from the focus on the errors and flaws to an emphasis on the huge body of quality science that UK climate researchers have delivered to the world? Should we even try? Maybe this is the opportunity that scientists have been waiting for to better communicate the uncertainties and complexities that they complain get edited out by a media only ever excited by the 'tipping points', 'count downs' and 'points of no return'.

After much debate and discussion with other press officers we decided to run a briefing with three of the most prominent climate researchers in the UK – Julia Slingo from the Met Office, Alan Thorpe, head of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), and Brian Hoskins, head of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London. The ambitions for the briefing were pretty modest, and we were certainly not desperate to generate more column inches. But we did feel that the time had come to inject a simple and sober audit of the science into the frenzy, and give science journalists the opportunity to question three of the UK’s top climate researchers. And that’s exactly what the panel did. In possibly the clearest and most compelling summary I have ever heard, the experts told a room packed full of science reporters what we do know and how we know it, and what is much more uncertain, immature and up for debate. The panellists also talked about how this science is done, the kinds of peer review process at work, the way research is selected for funding and the myriad ways in which the goal of quality is achieved. After a week in which poor quality science, flaws in peer review and errors have loomed large, I personally was entirely convinced by their message that we must not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

And the scientists also departed from the science itself to make a number of concessions: to admit that they have not been good enough at communicating the uncertainties to the wider public, to admit that they have been slow to share the data with the outside world and to admit that maybe refusing to debate with hard core sceptics may have actually contributed to increasing scepticism in the wider public.

So far so good. Then question time started. Unsurprisingly the questions were not about the science but about what the scientists would say about the revelations in the University of East Anglia emails, the future position of Rajendra Pachauri as the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the imminent collapse of public trust in science. The scientists explained that they were unable to answer any questions on the UEA emails until the result of the pending inquiry, and refused to call for Pachauri's head. That did not go down well with the journalists, who were not at all shy to let the scientists know that these questions need to be answered. One journalist announced that he had 'naively' attended the briefing to hear a robust fightback and was staggered to get what he regarded as a limp repetition of the science. Citing comments on Fred Pearce's online Guardian coverage as his evidence, he claimed that the public are fast turning against climate change and that repeating the science would do little to help 'win' the battle for public opinion.

The scientists reaction was anything but limp – they stood their ground firmly, robustly defended their right to stick to the science of this debate and insisted that their primary responsibility is to do top quality research to answer the remaining questions in a rigorous and scientific way, and then to communicate that science to the public and policy makers. As the briefing ended almost all the journalists I spoke to were busily concluding that while the scientists did a great job on the science, the rest of the performance was 'not enough to win the battle against public opposition'. But the idea that research scientists have to wage some major battle for public opinion and start putting on winning performances is crazy. The world needs climate scientists to do top quality climate research to answer the questions we still need to answer. They then do need to go further - they need to communicate and convey that research to the media and the public - just as those three scientists did so beautifully on that panel. But they are not obliged to go beyond that to become campaigners who must answer questions outside their science in order to win a campaign.

The Science Media Centre and the scientific community have a huge responsibility in this national debate on climate change. And that responsibility is to ensure that the debate is informed by the best science available. That did not happen in the initial GM debate and the results were a wholesale public rejection of the technology. There are things for which scientists deserve to be criticised in this whole mess, but not for turning up to brief journalists in the middle of a massive feeding frenzy and sticking to the science. And I for one got a great night's sleep that night!

Launch of new scientific committee on drugs, Media Show, the Met Office and Simon Jenkins

2010-01-29T11:59:00.015Z

When Professor David Nutt called to ask if we would host the media launch of his new independent scientific committee on drugs, my reply was "Is the Pope a Catholic?". David Nutt’s sacking from his position as Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs by the Home Secretary was one of the biggest science stories of last year and led to a huge debate about the role of independent scientific advisers. Needless to say there was huge media interest in this latest twist and if, as some suspected, the Home Secretary announced the new Chair of the ACMD the day before our briefing to distract attention, it had the opposite effect. David has amassed an incredibly impressive list of scientists for his new Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD) and three of them joined him on the panel, including a leading chemist, psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist. They all spoke incredibly well and convinced me that they will do important scientific work that can only help inform the debate on drugs. David explained that his new group would differ from ACMD because it will focus exclusively on the science and be geared toward informing public debate rather than government. It will of course also be independent and there was a fascinating moment where David and other former ACMD members on the panel described how liberated they felt working outside of government. The SMC strives to be as impartial as possible on issues like this, and we have in the past also run briefings for ACMD and with Professor Robin Murray at the Institute of Psychiatry, whose research focuses on the association between cannabis use and psychosis. But I do think Nutt’s committee is going to be an incredibly interesting experiment in truly independent scientific advice. While the government will want to ignore it I wonder if they really can. If, as seems likely, the new committee attracts lots of media attention, it’s likely to have a significant impact on the public debate. How ironic it would be if it ended up having more influence on government policy as a truly independent body than it did as an official one. We look forward to having these excellent scientists back in the Centre to report on their evidence gathering in future.

IFR/John Innes Centre
I had a great day at the Institute of Food Research and John Innes Centre last week. Zoe Dunford is one of the SMC’s favorite science press officers and each time I visit I am struck by how well she knows her scientists and her zeal for their research. As well as doing a talk about science in the media for a packed lecture theatre of researchers, I also met groups working on developing exciting new antibiotics and using the waste from biomass to create petrol. I finished meeting the new Director of IFR, David Boxer, who is an expert on the gut and he told me fascinating things about just how important this organ is and his plans to make IFR a centre of excellence in promoting our understanding of all things gut-related. I’m pretty sure each of these will make great SMC briefings and know I can rely on Zoe to keep an eye out for the right pegs to make them happen.

The Media Show
On the train on the way home I got a call from the producer of The Media Show on BBC Radio 4 to remind me about my interview the next day and talk me through the content. She explained that the interview would use the impartiality review on science announced by the BBC Trust as a peg to discuss science on the BBC, and that I should think of what the BBC does well and what it does badly and said examples would be useful. I spent the rest of the train journey texting friends in and out of the BBC to ask their views leading to some fascinating insights into which programmes people have loved and hated. In the event, the entire interview actually focused exclusively on climate change at the BBC and in particular their coverage of the UEA email-hacking scandal and the latest controversy involving the IPCC's predictions about glacier melting rates. So there I was live on air, with notes in front of me that bore no resemblance to the subject I was supposed to be talking about, and at that stage blissfully unaware of what ‘glacier-gate’ actually was (a useful reminder that even the best of us can get hijacked on air). Steve Hewlett, the show’s feisty presenter, asked us to answer the charge that the BBC is soft on mainstream science and on climate change, and slow to cover stories that expose its flaws. The other guest, Mary Hockaday from the BBC, put up a robust defense of the Beeb and I at least got to argue something I believe in passionately – that climate change research must be subject to the same kind of journalistic scrutiny as any other area of science and politics. I believe that the science of climate change is rigorous and robust enough to stand up to journalistic scrutiny, and if and when it does fall down – as I now realise it did in 'glacier-gate' – then that must be exposed. Any other approach simply plays into the sceptics’ hands and does science no favours.

In praise of…the Met Office
The other nice thing about getting out of the office (and the reason I have not yet gone down the Blackberry route) is that I get to reach all the way to the Comment section of the Guardian. And on the way to Norwich I read Michael Fish’s spirited defence of the Met Office, currently under fire from all sections of the media for apparently wrongly predicting both a barbeque summer and a mild winter. I am absolutely with Michael and the Met office on this one. Because they are based out in Exeter, the Met Office use the SMC for most of their science-related press briefings and I have sat through their summer and winter forecasting ones for several years now. Despite what appears in the headlines the next day these briefings often end up as mini seminars on communicating scientific uncertainty, the limits of short-term and long-term forecasting and current state of development of computer modelling. One of the briefings that stands out was one to mark the 20th anniversary of the Great Storm of 1987. Lewis Smith, then environment reporter at the Times, supposedly spoke for all the journalists when he said, "All any of us need to know is what day and what time the next one is coming". The good humoured Met Office scientists laughed and then punished Lewis with a painstaking explanation as to why science cannot deliver such certainty. Now, I’m a grown up and I accept that none of that nuance and uncertainty and caution makes the next day’s headlines – but I do think it’s a bit rich for the media who ignore all the stuff about uncertainty to attack the Met Office for getting it all wrong. Maybe the Met Office press officers will think twice about catchy sound-bites in future (though even here it seems a bit mean that scientists stand accused of failing to communicate in soundbites and then lambasted when they do!) but I think the media should come clean and admit that no-one would have booked a holiday in Skegness based entirely on the balanced, nuanced, cautious scientists that I heard in the SMC – the journalists did their bit too!

In praise of…Tom Sheldon
And talking of great articles in the Guardian, I hope some of you spotted my colleague Tom Sheldon's brilliant response to Simon Jenkins’ latest rant about the global conspiracy to sell us swine flu vaccines. I normally love Simon Jenkins, especially when he's writing about the UK’s foreign adventures, but when you really know what he’s talking about you realize just how lazy you can be when you’re a columnist. In fact when I die I want to come back as one – then I can write anything I like irrespective of whether it’s true and the more people I annoy the more chance of keeping my column. Anyway – thanks to Tom he didn’t get away with it entirely, and judging by the number of emails we've had praising Tom’s piece, he was talking for a lot more people than Mr Jenkins was.

New year round-up: ME, Susan Greenfield, and the future of science journalism

2010-01-21T12:03:00.009Z

Encouraged by my colleagues, my new year’s resolution is to blog more and make it a bit more like a normal blog, where I chat about all things science in the media rather than extended articles on a single subject. So here goes – let me know whether you like the new style and whether I should go on in this vein.

My idea that I could ease myself slowly into life at the SMC post-Christmas proved naïve, with three major press briefings and the shock news about Susan Greenfield all in the first week!

The press briefing I was working on was a new study in PLoS One about chronic fatigue syndrome, a subject close to my heart because I have a sister who has been plagued with it for years. Clinicians at the Institute of Psychiatry and virologists at Imperial College London had attempted to replicate the findings of a study published in Science last year which showed a particular virus was present in tissue from a large percentage of patients with CFS. The Science study was a major breakthrough in an area which is sadly lacking in them, and became headline news throughout the world. Sadly for those desperate to find out what on earth is causing this terrible illness, the researchers found no signs of the virus at all in the UK patients they studied and implied that other groups doing similar research are also failing to replicate the US study.

The whole thing raised the question about the way the media covers these issues. Despite telling us before the briefing that they hoped to avoid any criticism of the US study or of Science, the lead author, Prof Myra McClure from Imperial, was pretty open about the fact that she would have preferred the US research team to have thought longer and harder before publishing a study with such huge implications, citing as evidence the fact that patients are asking for tests and anti-viral drugs in the belief that they can help them. But were the US researchers or Science at fault for rushing to publish, or was this another example of the media itself raising false hopes by splashing the potential breakthrough on the front pages despite the fact that it was only one study and had not been replicated? My maxim has always been that the more outrageous the claim, the more the need to pause, stand back and check the facts. But in the world of news reporting I think it would be fair to say that the opposite is generally the truth – the more outrageous and shocking the claim, the more the rush to publish. And if a credible scientist in a credible peer reviewed journal claims that MMR causes autism, or that a virus could be linked to CFS/ME, then that story will be headline news precisely because it’s such a dramatic claim.

On the plus side the media on the whole reported our briefing very responsibly, and prominently enough that those who had seen the news of the previous breakthrough couldn’t miss this one. Until some very fundamental things change in the way science and the media work, I think the best we can hope for is that as scientific literacy grows amongst the public, more people will understand that, front page news or not, they should not rely on a single study to prove, or disprove, anything about science.

Susan Greenfield

And then at 3pm on Friday came the bombshell news that Susan Greenfield – the scientist who gave life to the SMC – had left the Ri after being told that her post as Director could no longer be afforded by an institution with huge debts to clear. Since then almost everyone I’ve met has been pumping me for news, and since I have said it to so many I see no reason why not to say it on my blog. I think that all the good things people say about Susan Greenfield are true. She was a breath of fresh air blowing through the Ri for many years and she is a wonderful science communicator – inspiring many young people, especially young women, to embark on a career in science. Indeed, many of the things that people have criticised her for in the media in the last week are things that I love about her – that she hates bureaucracy and working by committee, that she dresses flamboyantly and tears up the rule book about the way members of the scientific establishment should behave. But – and it’s a big but – I believe that as of 3pm on Friday 8 January 2010, the Royal Institution has a better chance of surviving its current crisis. Susan would be the first to admit that she is a divisive figure in science; just mention her name in any scientific circle if you want to see just how this woman polarizes opinion! Being loved and hated in equal measure may be fine in times of plenty – and as Steve Jones said after the story broke, Susan is anything but 'beige' – but being this divisive is not what you need when your institution is millions in the red in the middle of a recession. Susan had twelve years at the helm of the Ri, she set up the SMC and made lots of other exciting things happen, she delivered a wonderful refurbished building which the queen opened. Now I believe it’s right for her to step back, allow a less divisive (though hopefully equally colourful) figure to take the helm and put the interests of the Ri before her own. When I contacted leading scientists to get reaction to Susan’s departure, most of them said lovely things about what Susan had achieved and wished the Ri the best for the future, but equally significant was the fact that none of them condemned the decision or said it was a disaster for the Ri. I really do wish Susan the best, and look forward to working with her again in one of her many other capacities. I hope that she forgets the sex discrimination claim and puts her energy into doing what she does best – reminding young people that a career in science is anything but beige!

Science in the Media – Securing the Future

Just before hearing the news about Susan, I had been with the science minister Lord Drayson to talk about the final report of a working group on science and the media that I have been chairing on behalf of government for the past six months. I’ve never chaired anything like this for government and wasn’t sure what to expect. On the whole it’s been an incredibly positive experience. After I got over the initial shock of realizing that being chair of this kind of group is code for having to do most of the work, I started to see this as a real opportunity to investigate some of the broader issues that the SMC is just too busy to focus on. Leading this group has given me the excuse to stand back from the battle line between science and the media that the SMC inhabits on a daily basis and reflect on the broader challenges we face. While the final report is packed with practical recommendations for action, some of the most interesting bits focus on more philosophical questions about what constitutes journalism and whether it is worth saving.

Of course the million dollar question is whether anything will change because of this report. While the training section may be the least sexy bit of the report, it’s by far the most likely to deliver real change. Almost every specialist science reporter we spoke to felt that many issues around quality of science reporting arise because of a lack of understanding of science amongst general reporters, editors and the dreaded headline writers! Initially we assumed that there must be some in-built resistance to training non-science reporters, but to our delight discussions with those responsible for training at the BBC, Reuters, the Press Association and on journalism courses all indicated a willingness to offer training on the basic principles of science reporting. If we can persuade the government to fund the recommendation for a National Science Journalism Training Coordinator then I have no doubt that within a year hundreds of editors, presenters and general reporters will have undergone training in science reporting, which will make a real difference in newsrooms and TV studios.

I also believe that the Wellcome Trust will waste no time in taking forward our recommendation for a new Science Programming Centre loosely modeled on the SMC, and indeed our recommendation builds on work already done by the Trust, which has been innovating in this area for some time now. As with the training, everyone we spoke to who makes science programmes indicated that they would make use of such a resource, assuring us that this too will meet a real need and make a real difference. Other recommendations are less concrete – the call for a working group to further investigate the new innovations that are sprouting up in response to the crisis in journalism may look like an excuse for this group to carry on – a bit of a cliché of government working groups. However we felt strongly that while the scientific community has seized the initiative in the face of other changes in science, we have been almost entirely passive in the face of radical changes to the media landscape. We didn’t have the time to do much more than scratch the surface of the exciting initiatives from the US and the UK, including scientific institutions stepping in to save science programmes faced with the chop, employing science journalists who have been sacked from mainstream media, or setting up their own alternative news media outlets. But we had a strong sense that we are seeing the future developing before our eyes, and that we should not stand passively by to see which flowers bloom, but rather decide which ones are most likely to deliver the kind of science journalism that we all want to see.

Seeing congratulations, disagreements and questions flooding into my inbox after the report was published immediately reassured me that, if nothing else, the report will get people thinking and talking about this important subject. Given that is one of the objectives, I reckon we can already say the report was worth the effort.

There’s life in the old dog yet: in defence of journalism

2009-07-13T12:05:00.005Z

Any notion that the 6^th World Conference of Science Journalists held in London last week was going to be a tame, cosy affair was shattered at the opening plenary when a row broke out as to what constitutes science journalism. Jeff Nesbit, Director of the office of legislative affairs at the US National Science Foundation, which is a bit like our research councils, offered his prescription for the current crisis in science journalism – the scientific community should step in and do it ourselves. And this was not just a provocative idea – we learned that no sooner had Jeff heard that CNN had closed their entire science unit, than he hired two of them to write and film content for NSF’s websites. When I leapt to my feet to describe what he was doing as ‘science communication’ not ‘science journalism’, Nesbitt fought back with two contentious statements. Firstly he argued that because the two people he hired are journalists with journalistic training that they will still be doing journalism for NSF. And secondly that we no longer have the luxury of this academic debate – science journalism is disappearing before our eyes and the scientific community is obliged to step in and replace it.

For me the issue became the defining theme of the Conference and raised its head in almost every session. Most people spent the week trying to tell me that arrival of new media and the pressures on science journalism around the world mean that the lines between journalism and PR have now been blurred. Press officers tweeting all day and creating video clips for their University websites told me that the term press officer has become a misnomer as they spend as much time creating ‘content’ as helping journalists to create it. And science writers who have moved from national newspapers to write for popular science blogs insisted that they are engaged in the same craft. But just because we are blurring lines doesn’t mean those lines no longer exist. And nor does it mean that we should not pause at this time of change and reflect on whether those lines are important to maintain. One of the delegates challenged Nesbitt to give the money spent hiring the ex CNN reporters to CNN to keep them on. Unrealistic maybe, but a neat way of making the point that we have some choices here. Faced with a crisis in journalism we can look for ways to shore it up and defend it, or we can simply declare it in terminal decline and set about replacing it.

I think one of the reasons Nesbitt’s talk left me bristling is that I’m finding it increasingly hard to find anyone to defend the craft of journalism. Having decided aged 18 to study it and spent my adult life as a journalism junky I find this alarming. Of course I could talk about its flaws forever and listening to Nick Davies again at the conference we were reminded that ‘churnalism’ prevails. But at its best journalism represents a specific approach which is distinct from other forms of communication; it is a process with a common set of standards including selection, investigation, truth telling, independence, editing, accuracy, balance, scrutiny, objectivity and so on.

Yet for some this fine set of mores is so fragile that it has apparently just collapsed in the face of a barrage of new technologies. Mobile phones, blogs and twitter have, we are told, made journalists of us all. I can’t tell you how mad it makes me to hear the people who were caught up in the July 7^th bombings or the poor unfortunates vomiting on some cruise ship, or even the brave protestors in Iran described as ‘citizen journalists’. They are nothing of the sort – they are members of the public caught up in a news story as members of the public always have been. Yes their photos, blogs and tweets have radically changed the face of journalism – mostly for the better - but that does not make them journalists. And anyone who noticed how many conflicting reports came from the ‘citizen journalists’ who witnessed the shooting of John Charles de Menzes should note that a journalist is still needed to sift thought these accounts and apply journalistic standards to the mess.

And I have a similar reaction to Jeff Nesbitt’s approach. I don’t buy the ‘once a journalist always a journalist’ line and in fact I take a sneaking pleasure in watching many journalists who have been rude about PR finally come over to the dark side when needs must. Jeff’s ex-journalists will make great employees, they will understand the way the media works and apply the values of journalism to what they do but they are no longer working journalists. As soon as NSF employed them to produce copy for its website they underwent a career change – they can take their pick of job titles – they can be science writers, science communicators or science PR officers but they are not journalists. Of course I don’t actually know the finer details of their contract so maybe I will stand corrected but since there is a lot of this about I am determined to labour my point here. If NSF selects the subjects that they film then that immediately make this a different enterprise. And here’s a thing – what if in the course of their work for NSF they discover a funding scandal or uncover a scientific fraud– will that end up as a film on the website? Maybe I’ll be surprised by the answers but we should at least ask the questions.

I am not in any way posing science journalism as superior to science communication. I am a huge fan of the latter and believe it's imperative for science in general to get round the very journalistic vagaries that I alluded to earlier. Just because journalism is worth defending does not mean it’s always a good thing for science, as we know to our cost after stories like GM and MMR. Finding ways round some of the less attractive norms of journalism – the perverse news values, the dreaded headline writers, the need to ‘balance’ every article – is critical and scientists should use every method at their disposal to get the full story about science direct to the public. But in the same way that ‘citizen journalists’ would never have claimed that title for themselves, none of the science communicators I know see themselves as journalists and while the delegate who described us as ‘cheerleaders’ for science may have gone too far, I think most science press officers and communicators would accept that we are paid to get the best possible profile for the science carried out in our institutions.

Nor am I arguing that some of the new approaches like the one described by Nesbitt will not end up taking the place of traditional journalism. If Nick Davies’ bleak view that the thing we know as ‘journalism’ may be beyond saving is right then we must accept that we need to look at ways of doing something similar which achieves some of the same ends – informing educating and entertaining vast sections of the public about science. Indeed some blogs like RealClimate and PlanetEarth could be said to be doing that already. But that still doesn’t make these things ‘journalism’. It’s perhaps ironic that a week after Davies announced the death of journalism at the World Conference he himself broke one of the biggest stories of the year about the bugging of celebrities phones.

It is precisely because science journalism (as all traditional journalism) is under pressure and in decline that I think we need to fight for it. Instead of standing by passively and allowing lines to be blurred and investing in alternatives, we should consider ways to defend, shore up and champion science journalism – something we did collectively and to good effect at the World Conference.

Fiona discusses science and politics on Radio 4's Leading Edge

2009-03-17T13:51:00.008Z

The Home Secretary publically demanded and received an apology from Professor David Nutt, Chair of the independent Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, for saying what he believes about the relative risks of ecstasy and horse riding. A few days later Professor Adrian Smith, who has recently moved from academia into government, was also forced to apologise to Secretary of State John Denham for saying what he believes, in a speech about the poor quality of science exams. Unlike Nutt, Smith is now a paid up civil servant as the Director General of Science and Research at the Department for Innovation Universities and Skills and as such not free to speak his mind. However, like Nutt, he was appointed to his post because of a long and distinguished career as a mathematician and academic. What they also have in common is that these retractions were not for racist gaffes or plunging the country into financial chaos – they are apologies demanded by government quite simply because what these experts believe conflicts with government policy.

This is a worrying trend and one that anyone interested in evidence based policy should care about. Surely the whole point of appointing leading scientists to advise or join the government is to access their expertise not stifle it. In her very public castigation of David Nutt Jacqui Smith insisted that his comments (published in a peer reviewed academic journal) were incompatible with his role as an adviser to government. But this is crazy – are scientists to stop publishing in their own field because they are chairing one committee advising government?

This is not to argue that government must always follow the advice of its scientific advisers. Politicians rightly base their decisions on many factors and I have no doubt that when rejecting the ACMD’s advice on the grading of cannabis and ecstasy the Home Secretary had to measure the strong views of police chiefs and the public against the recommendations of her own advisers. I have no objection to that – it’s called democracy and we have the option of voting Jacqui out if we don’t like her decisions. However that does not and should not translate into stopping us hearing what these scientists have to say in the first place.

As someone who cares passionately about the quality of public debate on science what worries me most is that society may lose out on the views and expertise of some of the UK’s leading academics on some of the most important issues of our time. Adrian Smith has promised not to repeat his concerns about the state of science education and it’s hard to see how David Nutt can keep hold of his job if he repeats his comments about the relative risks of ecstasy. At his valedictory lecture the wonderful former Chief Scientific Adviser and acclaimed chemist Professor Sir David King reflected on the trouble he got in with ministers after saying in the US that climate change was a bigger threat than terrorism. His message to all the Scientific Advisers brought in to work for government was to think long and hard before making statements publically that might undermine government policy

Ever since Galileo, scientists have been testing established theories and challenging orthodoxies. A grown up, self confident government would have the courage to let our modern day Galileos do just that...from both inside and outside government. And guess what: we might even get more grown up and informed debates!

Broadcast on Leading Edge, BBC Radio 4, Thursday 5 March 2009

"Using a sledgehammer to crack a Nutt" - the media furore over ecstasy

2009-02-13T10:52:00.008Z

It's hard to express just how dismayed I feel at the shameful way in which one of my favourite scientists was treated by the Government this week. Professor David Nutt, Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, was condemned in parliament by the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for comments in the media in which he argued that taking ecstasy was no more dangerous than riding horses. Slamming the Prof's comments as "trivialising the dangers of drugs" and "showing insensitivity to the families of victims", the Home Secretary informed MPs that she had called the scientist to demand that he apologise publically to her and to the families of victims. As one sketch writer described it: "With shameless self-righteousness, Miss Smith became the wielder of a sledgehammer to crush Professor Nutt."

With the honourable exception of Lib Dem MP Evan Harris who complained to the Speaker about the unprecedented attack on a "distinguished scientist who was unable to answer back in parliament", MPs raced to pile in against David Nutt with Keith Vaz prompting Jacqui Smith's outburst by asking whether she planned to have a word with her adviser and Tory MP Laurence Robertson suggesting that Professor Nutt "might be appropriately named but he's in the wrong job" (no apology yet issued for his rudeness!).

Of course demanding apologies these days is de rigueur – just this week the BBC demanded one from Carol Thatcher for her allegedly racist comments, Jeremy Clarkson for calling the PM a 'one-eyed Scottish idiot' and of course we are drowning in apologies from bankers. But spot the difference here. Professor Nutt was not asked to apologise for an insult overheard or for scientific fraud – he was being told to apologise for saying what he believes to be true based on over thirty years of distinguished scientific research in this field. To be precise this eminent scientist was being told to apologise for something he wrote in an editorial published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, a respected peer-reviewed journal.

Unlike Thatcher and Clarkson who gave half-hearted apologies, David Nutt did deliver the required apology which was widely reported in the press. But this was an apology that should never have been demanded and I believe it marks a shameful episode in the relationship between Government and their independent scientific advisers.

Let's look at a few facts here. David Nutt was appointed as Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs a few months ago after taking over from the equally wonderful and respected Michael Rawlins. The independent advisory body was set up in 1971 and as reported in the Guardian this week is widely respected for 'injecting some rationality' into drugs policy. The Home Office would have been fully aware of David's stance on ecstasy when they appointed him as Chair because he has presented scientific papers on it, published on it and argued around it for many, many years now. The Home Secretary was quick to declare that the views quoted in the press were incompatible with David's role as Chair of ACMD but the idea that leading researchers should abandon 30 years of their own research when they agree to chair an independent advisory body is ludicrous. David was appointed to this and many other influential advisory bodies because of his expertise, not in spite of it. And anyway, the comments that so angered Jacqui Smith were made in a paper published before he was appointed to chair the ACMD and written in his capacity as a Professor of Psychopharmacology, not as Chair of ACMD.

As Evan Harris MP pointed out: "As a scientist David Nutt would be expected to publish peer reviewed work in the scientific literature. In so doing he can occasionally expect to be criticised publically by the Daily Mail (as happened here) and by ignorant politicians (as happened here). But he would surely not expect to be phoned by the Home Secretary and told to apologise to her and to the families of [victims of] drug deaths. Surely the fact that he is an independent adviser to Government entitles him to more protection, not less, from public criticism from ministers."
While most of the scientists I spoke to felt sorry for David, some felt that speaking out like this the week before the long-awaited ACMD Report on ecstasy was due to recommend the downgrading of the drug was riskier than ecstasy and horse-riding put together (and no – don't try that at home!). I too wondered why David had decided to go public with comments that would obviously grab the headlines just days before he was due to brief the media on the considered and comprehensive recommendations of his committee. So I called him up and guess what – David hadn't gone to anyone with this story. Instead, as is so often the case on controversial issues like this one, the media came to him. On the weekend before the launch of his report David was contacted by journalists from the Daily Telegraph who had suddenly and inexplicably become regular readers of pre-prints of the Journal of Psychopharmacology. The Telegraph got their exclusive which was then picked up throughout the media forcing David into a number of interviews defending his position. This row was not of David Nutt's making or timing – a fact that should have been blatantly obvious to Government ministers and their army of sophisticated spin doctors.

This episode is laced with ironies, but perhaps the most obvious one is that Jacqui Smith accused David Nutt of "making light of a serious problem and trivialising the dangers of drugs". I feel the exact opposite has happened. The Home Secretary was not responding to David Nutt's scientific work on this issue but to the selective and partial reporting of that work in the news timed to stir up the row in advance of the ACMD report. What's that if not trivialising the issue?

David Nutt may well be controversial; you may well reject his work on comparing drug risks with other legal but dangerous activities – many excellent scientists do. But one thing you cannot accuse him of is being trivial or making light of the issue. I was present at press briefings where David Nutt explained his scientific work on harm analysis; he and the eminent scientist and former head of the Medical Research Council Colin Blakemore published a major paper on this approach in the Lancet at the Science Media Centre a couple of years ago, where they presented a complex evidence-based model which they argued could be used to rank illegal drugs in terms of harms and also drew out risk comparisons with some legal but dangerous activities. My point here is not that David Nutt is right, but that his approach is well known to the Home Office, shared and respected by many eminent scientists, and basically anything but 'trivial'.

As Professor Nutt said in an interview with Eddie Mair on PM on Radio 4: "The Government is concerned that downgrading ecstasy would be sending the wrong signal to young people. But I believe that the only correct signal is a signal based on the true scientific evidence. We damage that signal if we say that a drug is more harmful than it actually is."

And there is one other worrying aspect of this whole affair. One of the reasons that I and the Science Media Centre are friendly with David Nutt is that we have hosted the media briefings of the ACMD in the past. But this time we declined to do so on the basis that the Centre's fiercely protected independence was being undermined by the conditions being placed on us by the Home Office press officers about aspects of the press briefings. While the press officers for the ACMD are really nice people who have clearly developed some loyalty to the committee, at the end of the day they are Home Office press officers and the Home Secretary is their boss. For cases like cannabis and ecstasy where the evidence-based advice on classification from the advisors has been firmly rejected by the Government, this is a serious conflict of interest. One of the things that has emerged from this miserable affair is the critical importance of the mass media in these scientific controversies, and the SMC has now asked the IUSS Committee to look into how independent scientific advisers can get access to independent media relations support.

I was initially saddened that David Nutt had been forced to apologise but what became clear in his brilliant interview on PM on the day the report was published is that David Nutt wants to keep his job. Why? Because this scientist passionately believes that the ACMD can reach out beyond the shallow and superficial confines of a manufactured media spat shamefully engaged in by ministers, and generate a more considered, rational public debate on drugs. For that we should all salute him!

Fiona creates a buzz at the World Conference of Science Journalists 2009 Programme Launch Party, London

2009-02-04T10:38:00.010Z

If the Science Media Centre were to close down tomorrow the most important lesson I would have learned in my six years in science media relations is that science specialist reporters are our greatest ally. Quite simply when science reporters cover science stories, the stories are better. I do believe that science is a special case and needs specialist reporting. And I do believe that bad science reporting costs lives.

It's because I think science reporters are a special case that I think we need a special conference for science journalism. Those of you who know me will know I'm a conference sceptic and tend to think that too many people sit in conferences discussing science communication rather than actually doing it, but that scepticism went out the window when I attended the World Conference of Science Journalists in Melbourne, 2007. Being in the company of 600 science journalists from 50 countries was an amazing experience. I knew this conference was different when I slipped into the first session late to hear contributions from the floor from the editor of Scientific American, the editor of Nature, the science editor of the Toronto Star and head of science at the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

As Chair of the Programme Committee for the World Conference of Science Journalists 2009, I was in despair a year ago because we were sitting looking at a blank page where the programme should be. Now I'm in despair for a different reason, because we have such a wonderful programme that the big dilemma is which sessions I can actually go to and tragically which ones I'll have to miss.

On day one there is Jia Hepeng's session on Reporting science in countries with restraints which clashes with Ehsan Masood's session on Reporting creationism, which in turn clashes with my session with Nick Davies, the author of Flat Earth News and creator of the term 'churnalism'.

Then on Wednesday there is the choice between Tim Radford in conversation with Bob May, or Martin Moore's session on Whether science journalism and science PR have become too close for comfort, and I can't go to either because I'm speaking at a session with my fellow Directors of Science Media Centres in New Zealand, Australia and Canada on How science in the media looks entirely different in different countries.

I am really proud of the programme. Pallab Ghosh, President of the World Federation of Science Journalists, has been on our case the whole time to make it edgy and provocative, and he is not disappointed. Put it like this there are likely to be lots of rows and debates that will spill out into the coffee breaks and parties. This conference will generate a very real debate about very real topical controversies in science journalism.

Now all we need is the audience, so please tell everyone, let’s create even more of a buzz, WCSJ2009 is the place to be for everyone who cares about science journalism!”

How I became a physics groupie

2008-09-19T10:59:00.002Z

Clock this: September 2008 – the moment that particle physics became sexy. And no-one was more surprised than me. To put it mildly, I am not known for my enthusiasm for this branch of research. In fact, to the horror of some of my colleagues, I have long argued that it's not even really Science Media Centre territory. After all, the obscure controversies that preoccupy physicists – from string theory to dark matter – are not the ones we were set up to deal with. OK, about twice a year they make it onto the five to nine slot on the Today programme, but usually the only thing we learn is that even John Humphrys can sound utterly bewildered. No… the SMC was set up to deal with the controversial science stories that impinge on real people's lives, like whether MMR causes autism, could GM crops kill and so on. Let us leave particle physics in the capable hands of the clever press officers at the Institute of Physics.

That was until last week when the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN made me feel that nothing can be as important as finding out what the universe is and how it began.

So why the religious-type conversion? I think there are a number of reasons, but foremost among them is quite simply the things physicists have said in the mass media over the past 2 weeks and the way that they've said them. They have of course done a sterling job of explaining the science – to the extent that even I have been able to answer some (though not all) of my 9-year-old's probing and incessant questions.

But what has been more compelling is the passion with which an array of media-friendly physicists made the case for curiosity-driven research. "Surely the reason we are put on this earth is to ask the really big questions like what is the Universe really made of?" said one physicist on the Today programme. Another, Professor Ted Wilson, told journalists, "In a world run by accountants looking for short term gains from any research, LHC stands out as an unusual example of mankind prepared to spend resources on pure knowledge for its own sake." And far from being even slightly defensive about the lack of any obvious life-saving applications for their work, many of the physicists have emphasized that they have no idea what they will find. When asked if he was excited by the thought of the switch-on, Professor Antonio Ereditato replied, "Yes of course. This is like opening a window on an unknown view: you expect to see mountains but maybe you see a sea shore." This sentiment was echoed by Jim al-Khalili, whose reaction to those who worry that physicists will be disappointed if they fail to find the Higgs particle was to say, "On the contrary – that will be even more exciting because it will mean that we have new mysteries to solve. No matter what we find, we will be unlocking the secrets of the Universe".

In the face of this infectious passion and enthusiasm for blue skies research, those protesting that the money could be better spent on curing cancer or tackling climate change somehow seemed churlish. I am a huge fan of David King, but his call for scientists at CERN to design their experiments with climate change in mind hit a bum note, as anyone who watched him sparring with Brian Cox on Newsnight will testify. Cox, like so many other physicists on the airwaves recently, argued that those brave enough to ask the really big questions may well be rewarded with the cures for cancer and solutions to climate change that have so far eluded a more instrumentalist approach to science. And my favourite comment of all came from my hero Mary Warnock, whose concern with the applications of human genetics has clearly not blinded her to the need for more basic research: "To say that the money would be better spent on the health service or the transport system is like saying that the only point of universities is so that students can contribute to the economy. It is philistinism attempting to murder the imagination."

The other reason I've enjoyed the CERN thing is just the sheer joy of seeing particle physics as headline news. Just think of all those tortured discussions physics press officers have had for years about how on earth you persuade the arts graduate editors that physics is sexy. Well this time they did and not just in the posh papers. All the tabloids went big on the story, with the Sun running two double page spreads in the week of the switch-on. And I'd love to know who at BBC Radio 4 made the decision months and months ago to run a live broadcast from CERN on switch-on day and dedicate the whole day to the story. In these days of dumbing down, the person who trusted any audience to understand and enjoy something as impenetrable and complex deserves an ABSW award now!

Of course some may argue that the only reason LHC ended up on the front pages was the associated scare story about the possibility of the world ending, and I know a couple of seasoned science writers who feel that the price paid for physics in the headlines was too high. Now I realize that the Science Media Centre commending a good 'scare story' is a dangerous line to take, but I shall take my life in my hands and do it anyway. I have long harboured a sneaking suspicion that it's not the scare story but the way the scientific community and media react that really matters, and this case has made me braver about saying this out loud. With the exception of Martin Rees, who referred us to the CERN safety reports, most scientists seemed to seize on the media's questions about black holes swallowing us up as just a further opportunity to engage the public about the wonder of their project. Phil Dooley, from the University of Sydney, said "No, the world won't end as LHC turns on. Instead a new world of discoveries will open up as we explore further and further into space." Brian Cox's more colloquial response, that "anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a twat" earned him a place in the Times diary: "At last particle physics has its own Liam Gallagher."

Actually, the media didn't treat this as a normal scare story either. When the Daily Mail runs a headline like 'Are we on the eve of destruction?' on page 10 you suspect something is different, and when the sub-headline reads 'Man-made hole could swallow the earth (or then again not)' you can really relax. The Sun's coverage of LHC was superb – great science, great graphics, great quotes but as ever excelling all others in their choice of headlines. 'End of the World in Nine Days….Don't panic, there's time to try out every possible position in the Kama Sutra', followed by another double page spread the day before switch-on under the headline 'More Big Bang news on Thursday …hopefully.' As well as getting to write 'twat' in the Telegraph just weeks before his departure, Roger Highfield also had fun with the story for the day of switch-on: 'If it's 8:31 and you're still reading this', read the front page headline, 'then Professor Hawking must be right', and the Today programme presenters were having such fun with the black hole scare that they were forced to read out listeners' emails reprimanding them for taking it all too lightly. The doom-mongers' scary predictions on CERN merely offered yet another platform from which physicists could work their magic.

I know almost all my blogs include a little homage to the UK's science writers, but that's because so many of the scientists I meet still view 'the media' as an amorphous thing that's out to get them. Stories like LHC should remind us that we have some of the best science journalists in the world and it is undoubtedly because of them that we have ever more editors prepared to take a punt on putting complex and difficult science onto the front page. I have seen, read and heard some fantastic journalism over the past few weeks from our science hacks, and I think that as with the media's coverage of human-animal embryos, it is often the combination of great scientists with the best of science journalism that creates the magic. Anyone who has listened to Tom Feilden's many, many reports on Today will know what I mean, and here is just one short excerpt from Mark Henderson's coverage in the Times: "It is fitting that it is housed in caverns so large that they could hold the naves of great churches like Westminster abbey. These are cathedrals of a different kind, which celebrate the glory of knowledge and discovery."

And of course as a press officer I am well aware that none of this would have happened without the unsung and sterling efforts of press officers behind the scenes. Press officers at CERN, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the Institute of Physics have been fantastic and seized on every aspect of this historic event to promote the wonder of science and showcase their specialism in the best possible way. I have absolutely no doubt that many of the world's future scientists will cite this moment as the spur to pursue a career in science. Tara Shears, a particle physicist at Liverpool who will be analyzing the data, was yet another scientist who seemed to be able to articulate beautifully what the switch- on means for her generation of young scientists: "Everything is ready. We are now going headlong into this journey into the unknown. It really is a bit like a moon landing for us." OK – so I still don't understand particle physics – but I have shared this kind of excitement and, more importantly, it seems so did the entire media and the public.

Nick Davies' Flat Earth News and 'churnalism' - myth or reality?

2008-05-16T14:37:00.000Z

Anyone interested in the media and science should read Nick Davies' Flat Earth News, described on the dust jacket as 'exposing falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the Global Media'. Davies, a Guardian reporter, took a break from Fleet Street to apply his trademark investigative reporting skills to his own trade – breaking the unspoken rule of journalism that 'dog doesn't eat dog'. And he is paying the price – one newspaper editor interviewed on the Today programme spewed out a list of insults about Davies and the book and I haven't yet read a good review – even in his own paper. But, love it or hate it, no-one can deny that Davies has kicked off an important and much needed debate.

Within just weeks of publication it seems that 'churnalism' has already entered the vocabulary of anyone commenting on the media, and for me this is by far the most important aspect of Davies' wide ranging critique. 'Churnalism' is shorthand for a media that is now too commercially driven, too obsessed with speed and too understaffed to produce original and accurate journalism. In Davies own words: "Working in a news factory, without the time to check, without the chance to go out and make contacts and find leads, reporters are reduced to churnalism, to the passive processing of material which overwhelmingly tends to be supplied for them by outsiders, particularly wire agencies and PR."

Having been one of those who 'supplied' the media for over 20 years now I recognise Davies' charting of the changes. At the start of my career my relationship with journalists was much more one of separate individual journalists plying me for information, exclusive stories and new leads on lengthy investigations. Now things feel very different and it's not just the long boozy lunches that have disappeared. My starting point now is the need to adapt the most complex science to fit the needs of a group of science and health reporters who are routinely working on at least two or three stories a day and increasingly also being asked to adapt them to web news, podcasts, video clips, etc.

Having read this book I had to concede that the Science Media Centre's success can be largely attributed to the current condition of the media. We state that our role is to 'adapt the best science to the needs of the fast moving 24 hour media' and we take some pride in the fact that we do this on a daily basis. But I suspect Davies' would accuse us 'spoon feeding' journalists.

And on the face of it, it would be easy to look at the SMC's operation and call it a classic example of 'churnalism' – packaging science on a plate and presenting it to over-worked journalists in bite-size chunks that fit their time-frame and format. And it's not just us – go to any of the annual major science conferences from the AAAS to the BA Festival and watch the media operation – it's almost unheard of for any of the science reporters to actually attend any sessions or mix with the scientists or public attending the conference. Instead they stay in separate buildings, attend a series of 20 minute press briefings and hear a five minute version of what the festival press officers have identified as the most newsworthy talks taking place at the conference.

I watched with absolute amazement at my first AAAS in Seattle four years ago when David King, the then Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, enraged the press corps at his early morning briefing by failing to give them the top line of his major speech on climate change to be delivered to the main conference later that day. Looking on passively at the explosion of anger from the press corps at the end of his briefing I couldn't quite decide where I stood. Obviously given that his later talk would have been too late for their deadlines, I could understand their frustration – but the level of bile and anger spewed over King's hapless press officer for daring to ask that journalists actually attend his lecture and listen to the whole speech was a sight to behold. Clearly journalists have now come to expect, rely on and indeed demand that science adapts to their timescales. While I couldn't help having a sneaking admiration for Dave King's bravery I also made a mental note not to let anything like that happen on my watch!

Given that more than half of the press briefings we ran last year were our trademark 'background' briefings rather than new research, it stands to reason that all of these stories were out there for the taking if journalists had the time to leave the office and hunt them out. The fact that stem cell experts back in 2005 were considering using animal eggs in therapeutic cloning; the fact that paediatricians are operating in a climate of fear of reporting child abuse after Southall and Meadow; the fact that pharmacologists believe that lives are at risk because clinical pharmacology is being written out of medical training; the fact that the scientific community are lobbying the Government for better regulation of animal research; the fact that scientists are working on ways of processing foods that could help us lose weight; the fact that researchers in Aberystwyth have long ago worked out a way of reducing farting and belching from cows that will reduce methane emissions – I could go on and on. All of these stories were generated by what Davies calls 'churnalism' – delivered by the Science Media Centre press officers to a room of journalists rather than dug out by individual journalists investigating their own stories

But here's the question – does it matter? According to Davies "Fabrication is at the heart of PR , the fabrication of news which is designed to open the media door...PR is clearly inherently unreliable as a source of truth simply because it is designed to serve an interest." That description applies to much of PR but it is a deeply flawed generalization. Many institutions employ press officers because they generate real news and need to react to real news. I'm sure the press team at the British Veterinary Association occasionally do 'PR' to get coverage – but my only experience of them over the past few years is of an amazing team working weekends and evenings to help the news media get access to the UK's best experts on foot and mouth, bird flu, bluetongue and so on. And that applies to many of the science press officers that we deal with.

Yes the SMC packages stories – but all the stories we offer to journalists have been brought to us by a number of top scientists and their press officers, verified as significant by our many scientific advisers and written up by specialist journalists who use the briefing to interrogate the experts. In other words 'churnalism' is not always 'flat earth news'

Having used researchers at Cardiff University to analyse the source of the stories in the media for a sustained period, Davies concludes that over 60% of stories in the quality print media came "wholly or mainly from wire copy or PR material" and a further 20% that "contained clear elements of PR" and only 12% that could be classed as truly original reporting. According to Cardiff researchers: "Taken together, these data portray a picture of journalism in which any meaningful journalistic activity by the press is the exception rather than the rule."

Maybe so but where is the evidence that, because the stories were facilitated by press officers and packaged to suit reporters, they are not the truth? I would say in every single case the stories generated by SMC briefings were the kind of truth-telling stories that Davies champions. Perhaps Davies and all those concerned about the state of the media need to have a more discriminating and discerning look at PR and media relations. Maybe we need to reject corporate and institutional spin while championing a new breed of science press officers who feel that their role is to answer Davies' call to arms to improve science and health reporting.

Having said all that, I think many of the journalists I know would be the first to agree with Davies that they would love to be liberated from having to churn out so called 'diary' stories on a daily basis. Davies' fascinating chapter on the kind of luxurious timelines and resources enjoyed by the Sunday Times in the 1970s, in the heyday of their award-winning Insight Team, gives the lie to the editors' refrain that that there was no golden age of investigative reporting. The concept that a journalist may have days, weeks, even years to investigate a story is so alien it is hard to grasp. But there are enough veteran science reporters around to testify to a time when it was different. Anyone who has heard Tim Radford, the much-loved former science editor at the Guardian, will be in no doubt that his golden age was a time when he was allowed to spend most of his time out of the office spending time with scientists who occasionally let slip an amazing story. Nigel Hawkes, our equally respected health editor at the Times, is one of the few journalists quoted in Davies' book: "We are churning stories today, not writing them. Almost everything is recycled from another source…the work has been de-skilled".

Davies is illuminating something important here, and to his credit he repeatedly reminds us that our many talented journalists are the victims of this process not the instigators. Mark Henderson, the Times' science editor, would not get so many front page exclusives sitting in his office churning out stories, and some journalists like Sarah Boseley at the Guardian manage to do the diary stuff and then somehow produce a seven page feature revealing the true background to some news story. And there are many more examples of journalists that we work with flouting all the pressure and norms to produce original journalism.

I also happen to think that our main allies in this battle being fought by science press officers for a better media are the science, health and environment reporters in the media. As Davies points out, there are some terrible examples of grossly inaccurate media coverage in the news in recent years – but almost all of them have been written by non specialist reporters. Just this week we have seen what happens to the quality of reporting of human-animal hybrid embryos when the story passes from the science and health journalists to the political or lobby correspondents.

Obviously Davies' book is a critique of the modern media and as such legitimately shines a great spotlight on the problem areas. But the reality for those of us in science media relations is that we spend a lot of time celebrating amazing science reporting. To me, the fact that the Mail's science and health reporters can produce such accurate copy in the kind of atmosphere that Davies describes is nothing short of a triumph. Similarly, the fact that John Von Radowitz, the Press Association's science reporter, is churning out up to ten stories per shift can also be reason to comment on the genius of a reporter like John who can sit through an incredibly complex science briefing that would confound many scientists and translate that into a 500 word popular science story within half an hour . None of this is to challenge Davies' thesis – it is just to say that for those of us at the sharp end, there are plenty of reasons to cheer as well as to despair.

Where should politicians get their scientific advice?

2008-05-09T08:53:00.002Z

Where should politicians get their scientific advice? Anywhere except the headlines!

God knows how, but I have managed to reach my 40s without ever having attended a party conference. However last year I managed to make it to Bournemouth to the Labour Party Conference after being asked by the Social Market Foundation (SMF) and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to speak at their fringe meeting on how governments get their scientific advice. I did protest that I was the wrong person for the panel, but they were adamant that they wanted at least one person to address the role for the media in this area - this is what I said:

Well I’m the one person on this panel not qualified to talk about how the Government gets its advice on science so I shall restrict myself to saying this – wherever they do get it, they should NOT be getting it from the media.

In my five years at the Science Media Centre (SMC) I have organised hundreds of media briefings on complex and often controversial new science. I think the UK has some of the best science and health reporters in the world and almost all the coverage is accurate BUT at the same time as being accurate it almost always partial, simplified, de-nuanced, and ever so slightly exaggerated and as a result can be misleading - and I suspect that most journalists would be the first to acknowledge that.

A topical example of why politicians should not take their science from the media comes in the coverage of the recent FSA/University of Southampton study on the behavioural effects of artificial additives in food. We were getting calls from journalists reporting on this study, so I contacted several leading nutritionists and toxicologists to ask for their opinions. They all came back with strikingly similar answers:

1. It’s a good study but it does not give us definitive answers

2. It doesn’t say which additives are responsible for the effects or make a distinction whether the responsibility lay with the additives or with preservatives

3. The size of the effect was small – with an increase in hyperactivity of less than a tenth of that seen with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

4. It shows an association – but does not prove a direct cause and effect

5. This hypothesis needs further investigation

So that’s what experts thought. Now let’s look at what headline writers thought:

New Link Between E Numbers And Hyperactivity (The Independent)

E numbers 'link' to manic kids (Daily Mirror)

Food Additives Make Children Behave Badly (The Times)

Parents warned over food additives (Daily Mail)

Now I am not even criticizing the media here, because there was enough in this study to give them these kind of headlines. But what I am saying is that no self respecting politician should base policy on the media coverage of this science. I gather Gordon Brown came out that day to say he favours the removal of these additives. If Brown favours a ban on taste grounds, or moral grounds or democratic grounds then that’s fine by me. However the timing of his comments suggests to me that his view is based on rather misleading media reports of this research and that, I would say, is a long way away from evidence-based policy.

There is other worrying evidence that politicians are too often basing their policies on the media reports rather than the actual science. On the question of biomedical research on human-animal hybrid embryos, it is widely believed that ministers proposal to ban this research last December was heavily influenced by 'Frankenbunny' headlines and pictures of humans with cows heads. Subsequently, when the scientists came out fighting and generated what I think were the 'right' kind of headlines, the Government relented and it now looks like the research will be allowed to continue. As my friend, Professor Chris Shaw, said "Scientists-1; Scaremongers–0". But my question is, why the Government considers bans or green lights on such hugely important areas of research on the basis of news headlines?

A couple of years ago, a group of conservationists from the University of Oxford had a paper published in the journal Nature which was a fascinating deconstruction of a news story 'gone wrong'. They discovered that because of the misunderstanding of a scientific term – 'committed to extinction' (which apparently means something very different to 'will be extinct'), the entire media ran a grossly inaccurate story about a million species being wiped out by climate change. But what really shocked the scientists was that politicians had repeated the inaccurate figures – Margot Wallström had raised it in the EU and Margaret Beckett in the House of Commons. You could say that the scientists' idea that Beckett would spend hours poring over impenetrable language in the original paper just reveals their naivety – but I suspect the public too would rather like to think that when politicians cite a scientific study in Parliament that they are citing it accurately and not repeating sensationalised headlines.

So while I spend my working life persuading more scientists to engage with the media and passionately believe that scientists ignore the media at their peril, the more I see the disjuncture between the detailed research and the story, the more I want to encourage both the public and the policy makers to take a closer look. The news media does many great things for science: getting us talking about science, raising the alarm, setting the agenda, offering us fresh hopes of new solutions. It is, and is likely to remain, a poor place for politicians to get their scientific advice.

Embargoes, helping or hindering good science journalism?

2007-07-30T14:01:00.000Z

There has been much discussion in various fora about David Whitehouse's provocative tirade against the embargo system. Many of the reactions defending the embargo system I agree with, but there were a couple of points I wanted to add to what's already been said.

Firstly I would like to point out that the discussion about whether embargoes protect or prevent good science journalism slightly misses the point about embargoes - that they are the property of science press officers. Journalists can engage in all the discussion they like about the embargo system, but the truth is that it is likely to continue because embargoes are one way that science press officers can have some control over the stories we give to the media. If we want the story to be seen or heard by policy makers we can slap on a midnight embargo to make sure MPs wake up to it on BBC Radio 4's Today programme and in the morning papers. If it's a story that we would prefer to reach the general public, we can embargo it to get on the main BBC and ITN TV news. The embargo is something that press officers use to help us do our jobs – to get the best possible coverage for our institutions' work.

And let's face it guys, the embargo is about the only thing we do have control over. Even with the best media management in the business we have no control over what journalists do with our stories. There was a salutary reminder of this at the Science Media Centre (SMC) this week. Having successfully persuaded the Home Office to get on the front foot by issuing their annual animal research statistics at an SMC media briefing (rather than the old policy of sticking the data on their website and waiting for the anti-animal-research groups to give the story to their favourite journalists), we woke up with horror to see that half the press led with Ed Balls' (Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families) father attacking the rise in animal research. Not that I was counting or anything, but our mates at The Guardian gave the previously unheard-of Prof Balls the headline, lead paragraph and six paragraphs to attack the rise in animal research compared with only three for the contents of the briefing itself. But hey, that happens all the time, and not just in science – read any spin-doctor's diary.

Of course that doesn't mean that we should abuse the embargo system and I accept that there has to be a good reason to embargo a story as well as some rationale for the timing. When the SMC embargoed a media briefing on clinical trials after the Parexel disaster for the Sunday papers, we were rightly ridiculed by the dailies for slapping an artificial embargo on an ongoing public health story. But in most other cases the objections from journalists tend to relate to whether or not the embargo time suits them. I love the Today programme dearly but when producers occasionally do that "do you know who we are" thing I now take a perverse pleasure in telling them that I do indeed know who they are but that this time we're trying to reach 8 year olds so the embargo is geared around Newsround! As I have said before in this blog, no matter how much we go out drinking with journalists, there will come a time where the fact that they are journalists and we are press officers will put us at loggerheads – and in my experience that tension almost always comes to light over embargoes.

My only other reaction to David Whitehouse's polemic is to ridicule the notion that the embargo system is somehow preventing hoards of intrepid investigative science journalists from digging out original stories. Quite frankly I find that ludicrous. Science stories do not only appear in embargoed journals or press briefings. There are beautiful science stories blooming in every scientific institution in the country just waiting for some science reporter to pluck. After spending a day with scientists at IGER (the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research) in Aberystwyth two years ago, I told at least 10 journalists that they should pay a visit because there were some great stories to be found. Not one took me up on the idea, but when I persuaded an IGER scientist to come to London to sit on our panel on "farming and climate change" last week, every journalist went crazy over the wonderful story of modifying grass to reduce the methane being belched into the atmosphere by cows. It wasn't the embargo system that had prevented journalists getting this story, it was the long slow train line to Aberystwyth. And if embargoes do thwart journalists from getting their own science stories, how come so many of our science journalists do just that? How come Mark Henderson has broken so many of the cutting edge fertility stories that have graced the front pages of The Times? How come Rachael Buchanan and Fergus Walsh have got so many exclusives on the BBC 10 O'clock news? Did they break any embargoes? No, they pursued stories and kept in touch with scientists.

It is kind of Whitehouse to argue that the embargo system discriminates against Sunday papers, but the best Sunday journalists are not complaining. Robin McKie, science editor of the Observer, has been taking pot-luck on finding a story at the institutions he visits almost every Tuesday and Wednesday. On trips organised by press officers like Sheila Anderson at NERC (Natural Environment Research Council), he meets scientists, takes time to discuss their research and almost always finds his story for that Sunday's paper. Far from whinging about being cruelly denied stories from the journals, McKie tells me he feels liberated from the pressures that his colleagues on the dailies face and says it's a privilege to have the time and space to meet amazing scientists and dig out stories that no one else has. Likewise his colleague on the health side, Jo Revill, has won more awards for her journalism that we've had hot dinners – and in five years I've never heard her complain about being excluded from the embargo system.

So I'm afraid I find little to agree with in Whitehouse's article and indeed his starting point – that the embargo system produces shoddy journalism –simply does not ring true.

I want to give the last word to my friend Geoff Watts, a long serving BBC health and science reporter, whose witty reaction to David Whitehouse's article neatly sums the majority view; that embargoing journal stories almost certainly improves the quality of science reporting and we remove it at our peril:

"What a splendid idea! Drop all the barriers, get shot of this fuddy-duddy idea about having five minutes thought before we burst into speech and print. Then science too can reap all the so-evident benefits of more general 24 hour news: such as raising the quotient of speculation to established fact; and such as getting the first available "expert" to comment rather than the best one."

Why we need the best journalism on public health stories

2007-07-18T10:29:00.000Z

My favourite bit of Sunday is when I finally get to sneak away to a quiet corner of our house and settle down to read my Observer. Last week however it ended up being the unsettling bit of my weekend. When I saw the headline I had to check that I hadn't picked up the Mail on Sunday by mistake – but there it was under the Observer masthead: "New health fears over big surge in autism. Questions over triple jab for children". This front page splash linking a rise in autism with the joint Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine coincided with a two page exclusive interview on the inside pages with Dr Andrew Wakefield, architect of the MMR scare, who is due before the General Medical Council (GMC) Fitness to Practise Panel this week to face charges of misconduct in relation to his research on MMR.

"This had better be good", I thought as I hungrily devoured the piece.

The article was based on a leak of unpublished research into the rising levels of autism. The top line was that as many as one in 58 children may have some form of the condition - much higher than the current highest estimate of one in 100.

You would think that was already a shocking enough story – but then in paragraph three the reason for the headline becomes clear. Apparently two of the seven researchers privately believe that the rise may be connected to the MMR vaccine. The claim is elaborated on in the fourth paragraph where the two researchers are named as Dr Carol Stott and Dr Fiona Scott. Though the paper made it clear that Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, leader of the research group and one of Europe's most respected autism experts, does not accept the link, alarmingly almost ten years after Andrew Wakefield sparked off a frenzied debate over a link between MMR and autism, the Observer's front page was suggesting that there is still a serious dispute amongst leading experts as to whether he was right. Predictably several papers repeated the MMR allegations the next day and countless columnists, including James Le Fanu and Peter Hitchins have cited the Observer piece as evidence that the MMR autism row is still alive and well.

One of the challenges for the Science Media Centre (SMC) was what to do about it. We were set up in the wake of media furores over issues like MMR and we know that poor journalism on public health is our territory. However we also know that the SMC philosophy (the media will 'do' science better when scientists 'do' media better) was a reaction against the culture of complaint within science which often saw top scientists complaining privately about coverage rather than pro-actively engaging with the story.

With this in mind, the SMC reacted to the article primarily by coordinating a joint media statement by 14 institutions involved with child health and vaccination to back the safety of the jab which we issued to coincide with the GMC hearing. However I did also send a note to Denis Campbell, the journalist who wrote the article and a friendly contact of ours, to make sure he knew that the SMC was unable to defend the piece to the angry scientists who were contacting us. The result was an invitation to meet with him, the readers' editor and a variety of other Observer news editors at their offices. So, with two leading MMR experts at my side, I went to highlight the concerns.

One of the main points that I made at that meeting was my belief that in science reporting the rule of thumb should be that the more outrageous the claim the more the need for the best standards of journalism – a rule which is often interpreted in exactly the opposite way by journalists hungry for a sensational scoop. I then argued that I would take this rule even further in this peculiarly sensitive and important public health issue. The claim that MMR may cause autism, made by Dr Andrew Wakefield in 1998, produced one of the biggest rows in public health for decades and millions of pounds of public money have been spent on scientific studies researching the evidence for a link. Not a single reputable study has found any and just last year the SMC coordinated a joint appeal from many of those involved in child health that the media now draw a line under this row unless and until it has compelling new evidence. Many autism experts have echoed this call and issued their own plea for resources to move from the obsession with MMR to investigating the many other possible causes - including genetics, environmental factors and so on.

Given this context, I would argue that the bar for evidence in any newspaper splashing on a link between MMR and autism needs to be much higher than for other stories. In my view the Observer really needed to have produced stunning evidence of a link between MMR and autism to justify re-running this particular scare story.

Stunning evidence it wasn’t. The two researchers cited are experts in autism but not in MMR and the study they were involved with was nothing to do with MMR. In fact it had nothing whatsoever to do with what causes autism at all - it simply looked into prevalence of autism. As such, the authors private views on MMR are neither significant in terms of public health or in any way relevant to the Observer's story. In fact I'm tempted to say that their private views as to what causes autism are no more significant than my mum's view - something on which it seems Dr Fiona Scott agrees: when contacted the following day by the Telegraph she was not prepared to repeat any private views in public and instead voiced her support for MMR and her decision to get her daughter vaccinated.

One of the news editors pointed out that that any article reporting a dramatic rise in autism would prompt readers to turn to the question of MMR. I accept that but the way to answer those readers' questions is with an accurate summary of the balance of evidence against any link. Instead, any Observer reader whose mind turned to the question "is MMR to blame?" was provided with the answer that two out of seven experts believe it is and one believes it is not - a reckless distortion of the real balance of views within the scientific community.

Ironically, if this piece had appeared in certain other campaigning papers, no would one would even bothered complaining. The fact that it was in the Observer, which has a reputation for excellent science and health coverage, made it worth challenging. The fact that senior editors invited us in and the acknowledgement by the readers' editor Stephen Pritchard the following week that the MMR allegations should not have been included in the autism story reassure me that the Observer have seriously reflected on the scientific community's concerns and their responsibilities as journalists - that should be welcomed.

Professor John Henry (1939-2007): tribute to a media friendly scientist

2007-05-21T15:49:00.000Z

John Henry was a dear friend of the Science Media Centre and, judging by the reactions I received by sending out news of his recent death, was also much loved by the many journalists he helped over the years. We met John soon after the Centre opened five years ago when he sat on our plush couches at the Royal Institution sipping wine and telling us that the way for scientists to improve the quality of science reporting is to get stuck into to helping journalists. From that day on, John Henry never failed to return our calls - no matter what time of the day or night and no matter how controversial the story.

When the tabloid press splashed the story about a planned ricin attack on the London Underground - Professor Henry was the expert who balanced the hysteria by pointing out that London commuters could in fact sleep in it or swim in it with no problem because ricin would be fatal only if it gets into the blood-stream. And that was one of many scare stories that he challenged. When campaigners for tougher controls on chemicals in the environment repeatedly grabbed news headlines and Daily Mail front pages for discovering a 'cocktail of toxic chemicals' in samples taken from breast feeding mothers and the cord blood of new-born babies - John spent hours telling journalists that this was unscientific scaremongering. He patiently explained that, for toxicologists, what mattered was 'at what levels the chemicals were found' and 'whether there was evidence of harm' - information that was not forthcoming from the campaign groups, despite him contacting them directly on many occasions. One of his many comments we issued on this story was typical of John, "I would have been surprised if they hadn’t found chemicals at that level. You find traces of flame retardant because we have them in our homes. That's why fire deaths have plunged. These chemicals are monuments to mankind's progress."

However, while John was sanguine about scare-stories on chemicals in the bloodstream, he was anything but relaxed about the other dangerous toxins we put into our bodies. He was one of the world's leading authorities on drugs and poisons and in earlier life helped set up the now famous Poisons Unit at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital. As Professor of Accident and Emergency at Imperial College London, he told us that he had pumped out the stomachs of one too many drug addicts and binge drinkers to be relaxed about the effects of illegal drugs. John was an expert witness at the inquest into the death of Leah Betts who died after taking an ecstasy tablet on her 18th birthday in 1995. Following this he became outspoken on the risks of the recreational drug, earning himself the nickname as 'Mr E' amongst his colleagues. In comments for the Science Media Cetre, Professor Henry often added that society should spend more time worrying about the harmful stuff we put in our bodies every Saturday night than scaring everyone to death about unproven risks.

Never normally one to shy away from controversy - the one time he apologetically backed off was when he gave his opinion that the Ukrainian political leader Viktor Yushchenko had been poisoned by dioxin. He and I both felt that the time when we received calls from Ukrainian 'journalists' asking where he lived, may be the time to draw a line. However, he didn't steer clear of East European poisoning stories for long and the truth is that few in the UK media covering the Litvinenko story did so without help from Professor John Henry.

As with many scientists who choose to do high profile media work on controversial issues, John Henry wasn't without his critics: with some government advisors suggesting that he spoke out before the full facts were known in the Litvineko case. It saddens me that the last time I met him before he died - just a few weeks ago - he was worried that he had been given some inaccurate information by the doctors treating Litvinenko that could have affected what he said to the media. However I would passionately defend John in this regard: everything he said was based on the most incredible expertise and knowledge built up over many years and while the Litvinenko story was changing by the hour, every fact professor Henry provided - about thallium, radioactive thallium and finally polonium 210 - was accurate. As I have said previously, the demands of our current 24 hour media mean that if John Henry and others like him had not spoken to journalists until the full facts were known, the press would simply have had to use people with less knowledge and expertise.

As if John hadn’t done enough for the Centre by doing hundreds of media enquiries at anti-social hours, John also spoke to politicians, editors and scientists at our request. When we asked him to speak to 250 media shy academics as to why they too should enter the media fray, he amazed us all by revealing that he was an early victim of Ali G in an interview on drugs. But far from being humiliated or outraged by the experience, John took it with his usual humour and assured our audience that after that, John Humphries or Jeremy Paxman had been a doddle. His final message to the scientists in the room was "if you want the story about your science to be accurate, keep your mobile phone switched on."

After hearing the news of John’s death I searched for some of his emails only to bring up hundreds from journalists thanking us for putting them in touch with him, all saying how friendly and useful he had been. My colleagues here, and at Imperial College press office, now dread the inevitable moment when a story breaks in his area and we cannot pick up the phone to him.

My final act for John Henry was to ensure that the media he served so well paid tribute to this amazing man and together with Imperial College press office we got his amazing obituary into the Times, Telegraph and BBC Radio 4's Last Word. In doing so, we all learned that he had been an even more amazing character than we thought and were literally stunned by the news that he had become a celibate member of the devout Catholic group Opus Dei since the age of 20 and had been to mass every day ever since.

We also learned that John had given up medicine for several years in the 1970's after his kidney failed. He received what must have been one of the earliest kidney transplants in 1976 and returned to a full and active life in medicine. In April this year that kidney failed him and he died from complications caused from removing it. Fittingly, on the day he died, he featured prominently in a BBC Horizon on poisons and drug use in 'the perfect murder'.

Somewhere along the way, John Henry announced himself on the phone as Uncle John and allowed us to treat him as our friend as well as an expert from our database. We will miss him so much, and so will society. He was a rare example of a brilliant scientist who, in-between saving lives and pursuing amazing research, invested time and energy in ensuring that the British public got the best possible information from the media about his areas of expertise. We need more scientists like him.

Why experts need to speculate, without speculating

2007-03-09T09:54:00.000Z

The Cumbrian train crash was just one in a long line of stories that saw me and my colleagues asking experts to speak in the media about what went wrong before anyone could possibly know what went wrong. And let me tell you these are the times when you really do need to take a deep breath before calling a scientist, because it’s almost inevitable that one of the experts we call will be seriously outraged at being asked to speculate in the media before the full facts are known.

One of the experts I spoke to on the liquid explosives scare last summer shouted down the phone that the police had asked people not speculate and he expected the Science Media Centre to comply with that request. Others get less cross but are no less strident in their refusal to join the frenzy of speculation that is now a permanent feature of our 24–hour–news culture. One of the train experts I called this week insisted that no self respecting scientist or engineer would take to the airwaves without access to the full facts on what had gone wrong.

This is particularly familiar territory for the Science Media Centre. After all, we were set up five years ago precisely because leading figures in the scientific community recognised that the absence from the media of the best experts on issues like BSE, GM crops and MMR mitigated against a balanced and accurate debate. So asking scientists to enter the fray before the full facts are known is kind of part of the job description. It also happens to be something that I now feel passionately about.

Breaking news is, by its nature, based on speculation and guess work –from the horror of six healthy men on the verge of death after a clinical trial went wrong to the images of the poisoned Russian dissident to the outbreak of bird flu in our turkey farms.

But speculation and guesswork is not what scientists do best. And of course you could argue that the scientists refusing to speculate are simply displaying all that is special and distinctive about science. The search for truth and respect for evidence and accuracy that drives the pursuit of knowledge by scientists is about as far removed as it could be from the media’s needs at times of breaking stories. I will always remember the sharp intake of breath in a room of 200 leading scientists at the Royal Society when Simon Pearson, news editor of The Times, calmly told them about the first rule of journalism: “to the question ‘do you want it good or do you want it now?’ there is only one answer”.

It also stands in sharp contrast to the culture of politicians, protest groups and NGOs who often see these huge breaking stories as an opportunity to get their messages over and raise their profile. The Soil Association certainly did not let the lack of full facts stand in the way of them using the outbreak of bird flu amongst Bernard Matthews’ turkeys as an opportunity to voice their opposition to factory farming. Similarly news of disasters at GM crop sites or nuclear power stations are seized on by opponents of these technologies with breathtaking speed.

And good for them - campaigners exist to raise awareness of their issues and put them on the political and media agenda. I know, I did it for many years. But it does make it all the more important that scientists and engineers enter these discussions as well.

One of the train experts who objected to my call (and not just because it was 9am on a Saturday!) argued that the integrity of expertise is intimately bound up with the refusal of real experts to imitate other groups by speaking before the facts are known. And there is a beautiful logic in this position. After all, surely the way to counter irresponsible and possibly dangerous speculation by non-experts is to not play the same game.

But it’s exactly because of this integrity and respect for evidence that I want the public to hear from this expert. It’s precisely because when he goes on the air he will refuse to speculate that I want him to do the interview. It’s specifically because what he says will be based on 10, 20, 30, often 40 years of expertise in this field that he will be a million times more qualified to speak on this issue than many of those who happily make themselves available for interview. At times when people quite literally fear that they will die – from Sudan I in our food, ricin on the underground or travelling on dangerous trains – I want to hear about the real risk from real experts, not self appointed ones.

When media headlines screamed out that terrorists were planning to wipe out hundreds by throwing ricin on a packed underground train, many of us thought we could be facing our worst nightmare. Yet the first ricin expert I spoke to told me that, in fact, we could swim in it, eat it or sleep in it with minimal effects and that to kill us it would need to be injected inside our bloodstream (as it famously was with the sharpened tip of an umbrella to kill a Bulgarian spy, Georgi Markov, in 1978). Getting this expertise into the media very quickly changed the shape of that story.

When six men are lying dying in a bed after a pharmaceutical clinical trial and I am already hearing patient groups and politicians on radio talk-shows saying this proves that animal research doesn’t work and that companies are taking risks with people’s lives, I want to hear from scientists who can explain why adverse effects don’t always show up in animal trials and who can balance a horror story with the facts and figures about how many clinical trials take place with no problems. Not knowing what had happened in this particular case needn’t be a barrier to experts sharing what they do know about monoclonal antibodies, first-in-human trials and the importance of both!

And here’s the rub – we never ever ask scientists and engineers to speculate. In fact we encourage them not to. When the media were claiming that Litvinenko was poisoned by thallium, our physicists made it clear that they had no more information about what was killing him than anyone else, but were happy to be interviewed on what they knew for fact about thallium, then radioactive thallium and finally polonium-210. However counterintuitive for the scientists, they did accept our argument that it was better for them to talk to the media at this time, rather than self appointed experts who could fuel scare stories with their partial knowledge.

So what I’m arguing here is that society needs to have access to the best science and engineering precisely at times when these issues are headline news and the public and policy makers are most engaged with them. The truth is that when the full facts are known about this latest crash it will probably merit a 100 word article on page 10 of The Times; no-one will be listening, no-one will be worrying. The time to inject expertise into the public debates about vaccines, clinical trials, train crashes and similar issues is when they are in the news.

The expert that starts an interview by saying, “I cannot speculate on what caused this crash and nobody should until we have the results of the investigation – but I can tell you this about the infrastructure of this model of train…” will be injecting much needed accurate information into a story as well as reminding the public that what is good about scientists is their integrity and respect for facts. The Science Media Centre's philosophy is that “the media will start ‘doing’ science better when scientists start ‘doing’ the media better”. We are not in a position to change the media – but we can respond to Simon Pearson’s first rule of journalism by offering to help the media to “have it now AND have it good”!

Stem cell scientists seize the media agenda on human-animal embryos

2007-01-22T13:36:00.000Z

Setting up a press briefing a few days before Christmas for a few days after Christmas on an incredibly controversial subject with some of the UK’s most important scientists should have been a nightmare. In fact the opposite was the case for the Science Media Centre after eagled eyed Evan Harris MP and leading stem cell expert Stephen Minger spotted a sentence in the Government’s White Paper on fertility laws published in late December which proposed a ban on the use of human-animal hybrid embryos for research.

As emails started circulating with the text of the White Paper more and more researchers expressed deep dismay that this important area of stem cell research might be banned. I won’t go into too much detail about the science here – not least because unless you have been on holiday in Antarctica – you are likely to have seen the specific process described in great (and accurate) detail in everything from The Sun to the BBC News at Ten. Put basically, what scientists want to do is to further their understanding of certain diseases by studying stem cells from cloned embryos, a process known as therapeutic cloning. However because of the severe shortage of human eggs for this kind of research some have applied to the HFEA for a license to use animal eggs. What they would do is empty out the rabbit or cow egg and put in the nucleus of a human cell – taken from an adult with the disease they want to study - and induce it to become an early stage embryo which would be destroyed at 14 days after they had derived the disease specific stem cells.

What has worried stem cell researchers so much about this surprise proposal is that no reason has been given for recommending a ban apart from the strength of opposition to this research voiced by those who responded to the Government’s consultation on fertility laws. In other words it looks like a government that has gone out of its way to promote the importance of stem cell research may be about to ban one aspect of it for no other reason than a perception that the public don’t like it – and the prospect of ‘frankenbunny’ headlines.

The SMC has history on this issue – it was at our Fertility Rumble press briefing this time last year that Chris Shaw, from Kings College London, first told journalists that he and Ian Wilmut were amongst others considering applying to use rabbit eggs to allow them to pursue their therapeutic cloning research into motor neurone disease. Having seen the media reaction and some of the ‘frankenbunny’ headlines, we immediately spoke to a group of stem cell experts and invited them into the Centre to run a background briefing on these human-animal hybrid embryos. We also continued to organise briefings and interviews as the scientists submitted their applications to the HFEA later in the year.

The SMC reacted to the news about a proposed ban by arguing that this development should be seized as an opportunity to remind public and policy makers this research is needed. We suggested an emergency media briefing to take place in advance of a HFEA meeting scheduled for early January where two applications to use animal eggs were due to be discussed.

With the enthusiastic backing of their respective press officers, Ian Wilmut from Edinburgh, Lyle Armstrong from Newcastle, Anne McLaren from Cambridge and Chris Shaw and Stephen Minger from Kings College arrived in the Centre on 4th January to face a room packed full with science and health reporters from almost every conceivable national newspaper and TV and radio station.

There’s something special about a briefing like this where something big is at stake and that’s how it felt on the day. In what one journalists described as a ‘feisty’ briefing, these scientists made a case for the use of rabbit or cow eggs that was compelling, humane, reasoned, passionate and just plain convincing. The arguments just kept coming: the cloned embryo is almost 100% human and the HFEA has already licensed therapeutic cloning of human embryos; it will be destroyed after 14 days; the stem cells are for research only and not to be used as therapies in patients; there will be no living thing produced; no-one is harmed by the research and so on and so on.

For me however the highlight of the briefings was when Chris Shaw, a clinician who sees patients with motor neurone disease every day of his life, told us that despite years and years of research the scientific community has been unable to find a cure or even effective treatments for this most terrible of terrible diseases. Suddenly the moral equation seemed to have changed and it felt to me like it was the Government and those seeking to ban this research who have a case to answer – when tens of thousands of people are suffering and dying – how can they morally justify closing the door on an avenue of research that many experts agree offers real promise? Rather than scientists playing with nature – these scientists came over as people dedicated to improving the quality of life while their opponents are playing politics and running scared of lurid headlines and the pro-life lobby.

Waiting for the media coverage from SMC briefings is always an anxious affair – after all we specialise in presenting the most controversial science subjects to the national news media – it’s a risky business. Though after 4 years at this job I have turned into something of a cheerleader for the national media’s specialist science and health reporters and was less worried about their coverage than about their headlines writers and picture editors. But despite a few images of cute bunny rabbits and the more annoying pictures of 6 month old foetuses in the womb, the coverage was overwhelmingly positive, balanced and accurate. It was also everywhere! Many papers, including The Times and the FT ran leaders supporting the researchers case and many others ran supplementary ‘fact boxes’ explaining the science in great detail. The midnight embargo allowed the Today programme to run not one, not two but three packages on the story as well as making it their lead story on the news bulletins. And thanks to the wonderful science reporters on the Daily Mail, that most important of newspapers ran a beautiful piece pointing put the threat to patients if the HFEA turned down applications for this groundbreaking research!

Such was the intensity of the coverage that health ministers who had refused to put anyone up for interview on the Today programme had to change their mind and agree to an interview on The World at One. And after a week of answering stupid questions about his Christmas holiday in the Bee Gees’ mansion, Tony Blair returned to face very serious questions about his Government’s intention to ban important stem cell research. His response – that he felt sure this research would be allowed to go forward if it could be shown to improve the quality of life for ill people – has given the researchers hope that this wrong-headed proposal won’t make it through to the final legislation.

In the days that followed more of the same kind of media coverage appeared with the scientific community keeping the pressure up with a joint letter to The Times organised by Evan Harris MP and signed by 50 leading experts including three Nobel prize winners and the head of the Royal Society. By this stage other prominent scientists were entering the debate with statements of support from people like Mark Walport from the Wellcome Trust, Colin Blakemore and Chris Higgins form the MRC and many medical ethicists. Within the space of a week there had been so much media coverage of this issue across the whole spectrum of tabloids, broadsheets, radio, TV, on-line etc that few people in the UK could claim to not have heard about human animal embryos. And because the coverage was generated by the scientists, it was their message on this research that came over loud and clear. Interestingly the on-line opinion polls carried out after people had heard the issues explained by the researchers came out very differently to the government’s consultation with nearly 60% of those polled by BBC on-line voting in favour of licensing this research.

So even by the SMC’s standards the first week of 2007 has been both exciting and satisfying. But I hope it will be more than that – I hope that the way these scientists reacted to the threat to their research can act as a model of how scientists should react when other crucial science is under threat. These scientists have done everything right. They have been briefing science and health journalists at every stage of their application to do this research so that by the time the government signalled a plan to ban the research all the key journalists in the national news media already understood the complex science and the compelling case for the research. I have no doubt whatsoever that the media coverage was so good because of the established relationship between these two groups.

Secondly these scientists seized the media agenda in an exemplary way. Despite voices suggesting that lobbying MPs should be done in private and that we should wait to see what the HFEA decided before going to the press, the scientists agreed with the press officers involved that by proactively briefing the media in advance of the HFEA discussion they would have more chance of getting the science across in an accurate and balanced way. This kind of boldness and pro-active approach to influencing public and political discussion is rare in science and obviously scientists rightly don’t want to turn into campaigners – but occasionally there will be policy decisions that are bad for science and bad for society and the scientists doing this research deserve to have their voices heard in the national debate.

A week after our briefing the HFEA announced it would not follow the Government in seeking a ban on research on human animal embryos but will launch a public consultation in which the scientists will be invited to play a significant role. A victory for a brave pioneering group of scientists whose voice was made loud and strong and influential because they were prepared to engage with the media on this most controversial of subjects – the Science Media Centre was proud to be associated with it.

Richard Doll: Supping with the Devil?

2006-12-11T15:20:00.000Z

The Guardian and Today programmes' revelations that Richard Doll was paid to do research for the chemicals industry (Friday 8th December) are the latest in a series of media exposes of scientists' links with industry. Investigative journalists have shocked many with the news that a string of supposedly independent scientists advising us on some of the hottest topics of the day are in the pay of industry and by implication not to be trusted.

In the last few years, media reports have written off the entire scientific advisory panel on GM crops because some members had ties to industry; launched an attack on a highly respected MMR expert because she happened to be on the same side as vaccine manufacturers in a legal challenge and accused one of Europe's leading nutritionists of attacking the Atkins Diet because her institution once received a small grant from the Flour Advisory Bureau.

The apparently ever increasing links between science and industry are definitely a subject worthy of investigation and if anything there are too few journalists with the time to pursue potential conflicts of interest in this area. But the problem with the Richard Doll story and many other similar 'exposes' is that the journalists don't feel the need to come up with the hard proof that a link with industry has corrupted the independent scientist and his or her research findings. Instead these articles often end up relying on the public’s suspicion of industry to get away with guilt by association rather than proving that guilt through intrepid investigation.

For the scientists who contact the Science Media Centre after these kinds of stories the criticisms are bewildering, appearing to combine an attack on their integrity with a naivety about the way science is done in the UK. It’s a fact of life that there is more research needing to be done than public money to fund it and a lot of science would simply not be done without some collaboration between industry and independent scientists. Universities now have to find substantial sums from the private sector if they are to unlock Government funds for research and even the Research Councils, who are on the more blue-skies end of scientific research, are being encouraged to forge closer links with industry. According to Colin Blakemore, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council, the whole concept of an independent scientist is a misnomer:

"Although the public repeatedly tell us that they trust independent scientists more than those in industry, the reality is that as a species the truly independent scientist is becoming extinct. But the idea that because a scientist has some links with industry they are automatically tainted and evil is just ridiculous."

Professor Adam Finn, a leading expert in childhood vaccines from Bristol University, points out that it’s not possible for scientists like him to be involved in developing life saving vaccines without working alongside the vaccine manufacturing companies who pay for the all the clinical trials. Finn believes that the public and media need to have more of an insight into the way things work in science and medicine: "throughout the world this is how societies have opted to do it – through a collaboration between academia and industry."

And there are other relevant facts that fail to show up in the exposes, like the introduction of written agreements which allow the scientists to publish irrespective of the results and the fact that most of the top journals now require scientists to declare any conflict of interest. And then there’s the small matter of 'peer review', described by one scientist as "the best bullshit detector ever invented", which ensures that research doesn't get published unless it passes a number of quality control tests applied by independent experts.

Of course many journalists will argue that irrespective of any hard evidence it goes without saying that individuals and institutions benefiting from industry funding will not be keen to bite the hand that feeds them. Yet however counter-intuitive it may seem to journalists, whose default mode is rightly to be sceptical and questioning about motives, the charge still requires proof. For the Science Media Centre, the impulse to earn the trust of news journalist and build a reputation as an independent source far, far outweighs any desire to be popular with sponsors (and that includes our media sponsors!). Similarly for scientists who have spent 30 years building a track record of research to simply sell their science to the highest bidder is extremely unlikely and would bring a rapid end to a scientific career.

Of course the media's role is to expose corruption and bias in science and if and when the media find evidence that scientists have allowed commercial pressures to influence their research it should be headline news. Indeed there are many fine examples of that kind of investigation – not least in exposing the role of the tobacco industry's dodgy dealings in the past. But sadly investigations like these now seem to be outnumbered by the variety that opt for guilt by association.

Ironically there are other issues in this area that are crying out for investigation but have been largely ignored by the media. These include the concerns raised by a number of leading scientists like Nobel prize winner John Sulston and fertility expert Robert Winston, that the commercial collaborations with our Universities may be having a long-term impact on academic freedom and blue skies research. Or whether the rush to create spin out companies is turning innovative scientists into businessmen with more of an eye on the share prices than the public good. But these topics demand serious journalistic investigation - a thing in short supply in our fast moving 24 hour news environment.

However, having spent most of this article casting aspersions on this aspect of journalism I suspect that, as is often the case, the answer lies amongst the scientific community ourselves. After all the Science Media Centre philosophy is "we can get the media to 'do' science better by getting the scientists to 'do' media better". The truth is that these kinds of stories will continue to be popular with editors as long as the public are largely blissfully unaware of the fact that much UK science is a product of a collaboration between academia and industry and are therefore shocked to hear 'revelations' about the close links between the two.

The fact that - to paraphrase Blakemore - the truly independent scientist no longer exists would I suspect come as a shock to the public and commentators. Christina Odone in her passionate defence of Richard Doll in this week’s Observer argued that these days scientists steer well clear of big business. In fact the opposite is the case – but I suspect Ms Odone is not the only journalist out there who is not up to date with the realities of how research takes place today - something for which we surely have to take responsibility. With some notable exceptions many scientists still prefer to stay in the lab than address public concerns about the more controversial issues in science. At least with the attack on Richard Doll the scientific community fought back with a brilliant open letter to the media defending his integrity - but previous attacks have been met with complete silence from scientists and even press officers taking the 'if we stay quiet this will hopefully go away' approach.

And Government should be questioning their role here too. Anyone who has heard Dave King or Lord Sainsbury or indeed Tony Blair’s recent science speech will know that these people are immensely proud of the new ways that industry and academia are collaborating. Whether or not this closer collaboration is a good idea is not for this column but my point is this - have the enthusiasts for this policy actually come up with a way of making the case to the public? Where is the much loved government 'communications strategy'? Either it’s non existent or ineffective - either way it needs urgent attention. All the public opinion polls on who we trust show that independent scientists come out with a high trust rating, government scientists less so and industry scientists are right down there at the bottom (although perhaps reassuringly still above the media!). For me it’s blindingly obvious that if you want to move towards ever closer links between independent and industry science, you need to go out there and explain why it's a good thing and why it doesn’t inevitably lead to the kinds of compromising of good science implied in the Doll story.

I suppose the really big question is why it matters. So what if a few scientists are suffering from bruised egos – surely it's the price they pay for supping with the corporate devil? Well, yes, I think it matters hugely. Media attacks on the independence and integrity of scientists working with industry threaten to undermine the kind of expertise that is absolutely crucial to public debate around controversial issues like childhood vaccination, the safety of GM crops and so on. If we cannot hear from the very people who have built up a huge body of knowledge based on painstaking research and enquiry – then we as a society lose the ability to have a truly informed debate.

"Just good journalism"?

2006-11-22T15:48:00.000Z

My e-mail informing journalists that Celia Hall, the Daily Telegraph’s health editor has been removed from the Science Media Centre’s contacts list for two months after an embargo break prompted a huge number of responses spanning every conceivable reaction. The majority congratulated us for taking a stand – these came mostly from other print and broadcast reporters who had either been yelled at by their newsdesks or had pre-planned filming and features spiked. Others, admittedly a minority, pointed out that removing one journalist rather than the paper itself was a rather lame sanction (this latter group usually ended their comments with ‘but don’t tell the Telegraph I said that!’ which of course I will not).

But the responses I wanted to address here are those that argued that the Telegraph’s front page splash was not ‘an embargo break’ but good journalism. Had these only come from our friends at the Telegraph I would have let the matter go but this argument came from several key journalists with whom we work and one member of our Advisory Board so I think it’s worth using my inaugural blog to explain why the Science Media Centre (SMC) stand by our decision.

For those not familiar with the story, let me give you a brief background. Over the past few years the SMC's reputation for running press briefings has meant that we have been approached by a variety of respected scientific bodies to jointly launch their stories. Occasionally these stories are hotly awaited by journalists and the embargo assumes centre stage in the media strategy – stories like the Farm Scale Evaluations of GM crops, the launch of Bio-Bank and, last week, the findings from the Nuffield Council for Bioethics’ working group on the treatment of premature babies.

Given that the expert group was looking at such emotive issues as whether the UK should adopt a Dutch style threshold on the age at which medics should attempt to resuscitate very premature babies – we knew there was a high risk of embargo breaks and worked with the Nuffield press officer to ensure that everything was set up to avoid it. Having ‘survived’ the Sundays we then sent a reminder on Monday for the Tuesday briefing emphasising the Wednesday embargo and (at the request of one Celia Hall from the Telegraph!), organised a ‘lock-in’ to allow journalists time to read the full report before the briefing. The Nuffield press officer then started lining up working party member to do key broadcast interviews on the Wednesday morning.

Thinking we were home and dry I went out for a few congenial drinks on Monday night only to arrive home to see my mate Paxman holding up the Telegraph with the story splashed across the front – including the ‘top line’ that Nuffield was recommending that babies of 22 weeks and under should not automatically be given intensive care. When the Today programme and other broadcasters called to say they planned to lead on the Telegraph story there was no option but to lift the embargo. Suddenly the Nuffield Council’s control over the communication of this controversial and important story was seized from their hands with all the obvious consequences. The much sought after prime-time slots on the Today programme went to interviews with people who were not even on the working group; print journalist reported furious news desks offering less space and spiking long planned case studies and feature ideas; and the leading viability expert on the panel arrived late to the briefing because he had been rushing around TV news studios. There is no doubt that the quality and quantity of the media coverage for this report was adversely affected by the Telegraph splash – as of course was inevitable. Nuffield staff and working group members were angry, journalists were angry and what should have been yet another successful, enjoyable SMC briefing was dominated by recriminations over the embargo break.

But I am not writing this to tell my sad story – after all the best laid media plans regularly go awry for a variety of reasons and on this occasion we salvaged more than we often do because of the strength of the story itself. But there is one aspect of the reaction that I want to engage with and that’s the notion that because this wasn’t a traditional embargo break we should have let it pass.

For those of you who don’t live in the land of journalism – bear with me here. Celia Hall explained that she did not get the story from any embargoed material she received but instead received a phone call from a contact outside Nuffield and therefore not subject to embargo. In the eyes of Celia’s colleagues and a handful of other journalists, Celia was just doing what any good journalist would do and that’s running a story early based on a leak. The argument from this group can be summarised as “everyone one of us would do the same and anyone who says otherwise is lying”.

So let me be clear here – I absolutely accept the distinction between two ways of getting the story and that is reflected in the sanction we imposed (if she had taken it from an embargoed press release it would have been more like 6 months!!). But ironically it was the ‘anyone of us would do the same’ cry that persuaded the SMC of the need to take some form of action. If the embargo on a major story like this is so fragile that any journalist can ignore it on the strength of one phone call the day before, then all the more reason for us to protect our embargoed briefings by letting it be known that doing so will have consequences.

And how are press officers meant to protect embargoed stories from anonymous tip offs? One journalist politely suggested I would be better spending my time finding the culprit responsible for the leak rather than sanctioning the journalist – but how do we do that? Since Celia wouldn’t reveal the source, and presumably no journalist would, then we are powerless to act. Conversely, a lack of reaction from us merely serves to send the message out that the SMC is happy for journalists to run embargoed stories early as long as it came from a tip off rather than the embargoed press release. Is that really what journalists want? After all the embargo system is as useful to journalists as it is for press officers. Making it this elastic will have consequences for us all.

And I have to add that I do struggle with the notion that Celia's splash is a model of great journalism. Had she got the tip off 3 weeks earlier, than in a very real sense it would have been a coup. But getting her call less than 24 hours before the briefing, by which time embargoed press releases were circulating widely – sorry, but Woodward and Bernstein it wasn’t.

The Science Media Centre’s remit is to ensure that controversial science stories get the best possible coverage in the media. Journalists who undermine that by running a story known to be under embargo early – will face the only sanction open to us – removal from our lists.

Celia Hall got a tip off and made a judgement. That’s fine – she got her front page splash and she also got a 2 month ban – it’s a fair cop!