Dodgy science headlines: PR can share the blame

Two weeks ago I was called to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. It was a nerve-wracking ordeal but also an incredible opportunity to say what needs fixing in our newsrooms to improve the quality of science coverage. Despite telling me to slow down no fewer than four times, Lord Justice Leveson summed up my breathless evidence by suggesting that it appeared to him that there is not too much to fix. This conclusion is bound to exasperate some observers, but I was relieved that he got my point that we owe a massive debt to the skilful science journalists who convey complex and important science to mass audiences on a daily basis.

Leveson also grasped that my real beef is with the non-specialists in newsrooms who get to make the decisions about what constitutes a good story, where it appears in the paper and under what headline. A lot can go wrong between the accurate copy of a science reporter and these three decisions. Yet it is the overinflated headlines and the front page billing that raise unnecessary fears and hopes, and damage the public interest easily as much as the hacking of celebrity voicemail.

Most of the reactions to my appearance at Leveson were positive but one science reporter pointed out that when Leveson has finished scrutinizing the press, he could do worse than looking at the press officers who collude with the worst instincts of news editors in order to get their institutions’ name in lights.

People know that I am a huge champion of science press officers and it’s the combination of their work and that of great science reporters that creates all that is good about science in the media. But as with our newsrooms there is still stuff to fix. I am not sure if anyone has ever done any research on this but I have a horrible feeling that if we took the worst newspaper headlines and traced back their origins – we may find the press release was to blame in far more cases than any of us would care to admit. We’ve now got to the stage where not only do the best science journalists have to fight the perverse news values of their news editors but also to try to read between the lines of overhyped press releases to get to the truth of what a scientific study is really claiming. Quite right too you might say – it’s their job to see through PR hype – maybe – but no press officer should be proud of the fact that their press release had to be toned down by reporters.

Just days after my evidence to Leveson came one classic example to join the many shockers I have seen over the years. A science journalist called to alert us to a press release about a new study investigating whether silver compounds can be toxic to cancer cells. We do not record the number of calls we get like this but maybe we should start to. The reporter was asking us to get comments from third party experts to help him convince his newsdesk that this press release was overhyping the study being published. Under the heading ‘A silver bullet to beat cancer?’ the top line of the press release stated that ‘Lab tests have shown that it (silver) is as effective as the leading chemotherapy drug – and may have far fewer side effects.’ Far from including any caveats or cautionary notes up front, the press office even inclulded an introductory note claiming that the study 'has confirmed the quack claim that silver has cancer-killing properties’.

It was already fairly late in the day and the story was for immediate release – already bad practice for a press release on a peer reviewed publication, but we managed to get a comment from the wonderful Professor Edzard Ernst which we sent out immediately. It read:

“This is an interesting test-tube experiment demonstrating that various forms of silver can kill cancer cells. While this line of inquiry is certainly worth further study, it would be very premature to draw any conclusion in terms of the treatment of human cancer. A plethora of compounds have similar activity but, for a range of reasons, cannot be used clinically. Any recommendation to use silver in any shape or form to cure cancer patients would, at this stage, be wholly irresponsible.”

The quote confirmed what my colleagues had first thought – that this was a nice piece of inorganic chemistry showing what scientists show all the time – that compounds do interesting things to cancer cells in a petri dish. Last week it was a compound found in tomato sauce, this week it’s silver, next week it will be something else. We should be glad that researchers are testing these compounds and even happier when, as in this case, their studies identify interesting and potentially promising lines of enquiry for future research. But none of us should be glad that these small, lab-based studies are described by anyone as proof that silver is ‘as effective as the leading chemotherapy drug – with fewer side effects’. As Professor Ernst states clearly, any such a leap is ‘irresponsible’.

The next time those of us in the scientific community criticize the ‘the meeja’ we should remember that most of our newspapers did not run this story, despite the opportunity for a great headline. But some of the tabloids ran it with headlines mimicking the top line of the press release, including ‘Silver safer than chemotherapy and just as effective’ and ‘Silver bullet for cancer: Metal can kill some tumours better than chemotherapy with fewer side effects’.

Of course none of us should be naïve here. Papers need to be sold and entertaining headlines sell papers. Institutions need profile and name checks. When I was a press officer for an overseas aid agency it was nigh on impossible to get the name checks my bosses wanted in a media that cared little for the developing world. It led to desperate measures. I once commissioned a MORI poll asking the British public if they would prefer the government to mark the millennium by building the dome or cancelling third world debt. No other options were offered. The poll results came in on the very day that Mandelson appointed a 10-year-old boy to decide on parts of the content of the ill-fated dome, a move ridiculed by the media who were kind enough to reference CAFOD’s poll and debt relief campaign in their coverage: bingo! At my leaving do, one of my colleagues at CAFOD told how I reacted to the Policy Team’s decision to award 9 out of 10 to a long-awaited new White Paper on Development. I angrily pointed out that the media would be wall-to-wall Oxfam and Christian Aid unless we brought the marks down to below 5. CAFOD, being CAFOD, refused but the fact that I would do anything to get a name check was not lost on my colleagues.

So I know plenty about dodgy PR and the desperation to get a mention. And I don’t question the motives of the press office for a minute. Their job was to get media coverage for this study and a bland press release stating ‘Small interesting effect noted in petri dish’ was unlikely to deliver. Furthermore, the very same press team kindly cooperated with us when we were scrambling for a copy of the paper and gauging interest in the story - so this blogpost is not intended to single anyone out. But there are things I think we can learn and I do think that science is different to other subjects. Plus, I think within science anything that appears to offer patients real hope of cures and treatments for killer diseases should ring massive alarm bells and be handled with special care. If newspapers and press officers could follow the credo ‘Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence’ we would lose much poor science coverage overnight. I’m not sure we need a Leveson for PR but I do think if we are asking newspapers to clean up their act and stop over-claiming for small provisional studies, we should do the same.

Churnalism: demonizing PR is too simple

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.