ABC Radio National, 24 October  2004 

Ockham's Razor: - Does CRC R&D Spell PR? 

Robyn Williams: Do you know about the Dark Side? It’s what journalists have to do if they can’t report and need to promote instead. A job’s a job. For every science journalist in Australia there are between 10 and 20 working in PR, members of the Dark Side.

It’s their job to ‘sex up’ as it’s been described. Sexing Up is used to justify wars, and in science it’s used to sell you drugs, doctors, breakthroughs, agrichemicals, fears about the environmental disasters, and so on. So you should care about what the Dark Side does.

Rob Morrison cares. He’s presented science on commercial television, been a Professor, and worked in a university press office, and now he’s President of the Adelaide Zoo.

Rob Morrison: Twenty years ago, university scientists were warned that dealing with the media could blight their careers. These days, they are warned that not doing so might have the same effect. So, are science and the media forging a healthier alliance, or is science becoming the prostitute of the PR machine?

In fact, both are occurring, and science communicators are central to the process. They are now often hired not to communicate science impartially but to promote their employing research institutions. The result has been a plethora of science stories in the media, in which exciting promise, rather than demonstrable achievement, forms the substance of the stories.

Concerned by this trend (to which I confess having contributed) I argued on Ockham’s Razor two years ago for a code of conduct to help science communicators in PR units. The talk received some pleasing endorsements. As Dr Peter Pockley wrote in Australasian Science, ‘The level of manipulation is difficult to finger, let alone to quantify, but its creeping influence on the content, nature, style and timing of release of information from the laboratories is, in my experience, unarguable.’

His concern proved prophetic. Earlier this year a war of words about this issue erupted among Australia’s science communicators. Charge that the CSIRO had blackballed Dr Pockley and Australasian Science were levelled and denied, one protagonist bemoaning the self-serving material in current science media releases; another questioning whether these releases even work any longer

In the talk I cited my survey on science stories posted to the internet. It showed how hyperbolic stories, featuring projected advances scored 20% higher in terms of newsworthiness than factual reports on what had actually been achieved.

A Canadian survey has now examined media reports on genetic research in four western countries. More than 80% were largely free from exaggeration or technical errors but again, almost all featured the potential benefits of the research, only 15% talked of risks, and the author concluded that ‘economic imperatives of research may be to blame, with scientists, … urged on by their institutions … fighting an escalating “arms race”.’

He went on, ‘… research institutions are under increasing pressure to make their research sound exciting and immediately applicable … the message is being picked up, surprisingly uncritically, by the media and passed to the public.’ And his co-author agreed. ‘Given the dynamics of science reporting,’ she said, ‘the reporter will probably feature rosy forecasts if the scientist is willing to offer them, yet such forecasts may all too often come to be seen as broken promises.’ Come to be seen? They already are. Analyses like these are questioning whether science reporting is truthful, the science behind it credible and the institution from which it emerges, reliable.

Similar concerns surfaced recently in Adelaide’s Thinkers in Residence program, when a panel discussed science and the media. The capacity house heard that news value and science value are not the same, and that journalists with short deadlines need simple stories, while scientists have complex stories and need lots of time. Scientists complained that the media misreported them; journalists countered that scientists used the media to boost their chances of obtaining funding, and journalists had trouble evaluating whether their work was as important as they claimed.

There was more, underlining again the need for some code of practice that might help journalists, scientists and science communicators find a better common ground, for it is now more than a communication problem; it has become a real ethical problem for CRCs and other institutions which market their science. They need to be seen as top-flight commercial innovators, but also as impartial institutes of learning, where scientific discoveries, even those uncomfortable for funding bodies, will be presented openly, ethically and honesty. Some are losing that credibility. In reporting their science, where should they draw the line, and how should they advise and train their staff?

I’m not naïve enough to think that Codes of Conduct are the strongest documents in the world, but they do have their place. The wider media have them; good journalists are aware of them; ethical ones try to abide by them, they help disparate media outlets agree to cover sensitive issues like suicide decently, and they assist supervising authorities evaluate claims that the media have been excessive or derelict in their coverage. No one code could fit all organisations, but we might find some common ground in exploring principles by which such a code or policy could be constructed. So here goes.

First, it would be good to know that organisations had a considered ethical approach to how they communicate their science. Nothing too precious, but a recognition that science reports should be about valid results. That doesn’t preclude interesting discussions about where research in exciting fields might lead, but the two should not be confused, still less deliberately confused.

A code might also address the language used in releases. However you fudge it, a hypothesis is not a finding, not all findings are ‘breakthroughs’, hoping to discover something is not the same as having discovered it, and whether your results are ‘world-beating’ should be determined by the world, not a PR staff member.

Next might follow written procedures for the organisation’s science communicators, explaining that releases should clearly distinguish between research findings and projections of where they might lead. They should emphasise that laboratory findings, clinical trials, promising leads and so forth are starting points, not end points, and probably years away from practical application. They could stress that staff whose work is being reported should not be encouraged into hyperbolic claims about the potential of their work.

A policy might also help organisations handle risky stories. Risk has two independent factors: hazard, (the real danger of something) and outrage (the perceived danger). Smoking is hazardous, but people who choose to do it have little outrage and don’t see it as risky. Statistically, radioactive depositories carry miniscule hazard but invoke huge outrage and are viewed as extremely risky. And the media echo those popular evaluations in their stories.

Failure to manage these two factors of hazard and outrage has probably lost science the argument about genetically modified food because of the way it was foisted on people without proper consultation. They were outraged and decided the stuff was risky, hugely exaggerating its real hazard. Media coverage of that fear made it the general perception, and media terms like ‘Frankenfood’ cemented it. Now, scientists arguing for GM food in the media sound defensive.

In contrast, when human embryonic stem cells were introduced to South Australia, scientists responsible were asked to imagine the toughest questions they could think of, then answer them directly and honestly. All went into the initial media release. There were no hidden secrets to uncover. There was controversy, but no conspiracy. Ethical issues were raised by scientists themselves, not by others against them. The potential benefits of stem cells were accompanied by proper cautionary reserve, and there was plenty of interesting science, which is what journalists wrote about.

If you work in controversial areas, there is much to be gained by being on the front foot with the media. Once on the back foot, you are defensive, and in the media that can sound like a cover-up. A policy that made this plain might assist not just PR staff, but also organisational managers, who are sometimes the most timid in releasing sensitive news.

One could go on about content, but a policy or code would have other benefits, discouraging science communicators from writing inflated stories, but also protecting them from administrators who want those stories written for dubious reasons, or who insist on positive output when there is little to say. It might also help PR staff get their media releases approved in-house more quickly. Some are held up by cautious administrators for so long that they pass their use-by date, and the staff are then blamed for being ineffective.

Such a policy should also cover broader media training. Given the challenges of today’s research institutions, it seems extraordinary that at least basic media training is not required of all staff and PhD students. It doesn’t have to be complex or arduous, but staff and students should all understand what journalists require, how the media work, whether television, radio or print is the best outlet for them, and how to convey their own message, not simply be fodder for someone else’s idea of a good story.

It is unreasonable to expect scientists to be proficient science journalists. It is a complex skill in itself, but surely, all should be able to compile a serviceable media release about their own work.

Learning how to write one encapsulates many things, how to reveal a study’s interest or importance quickly; the realisation of what makes a good story’; how to reduce a complex issue to a brief, simple account, without distorting the science, and awareness of how to show the science is newsworthy without extrapolating its significance.

Armed with that understanding, and a sense of what to say and when to say it, the institutes’ scientists and students can all be effective and ethical commentators about their own work and science in general. It is important that they be so, for science needs good communicators whose word can be trusted. Science does not need reports that create excitement and anticipation today, but retraction and disillusionment tomorrow.

Such a policy should also advocate building appropriate relationships. Some scientists are aggrieved when they think their expertise is ignored by the media, but few of them can tell you who are the specialist science, medical or health journalists in town. Journalists need scientists, but it’s a two-way street. Scientists should equally treat journalists, unless they show themselves undeserving, as professionals, the end for both being stories about real science, good research and important discoveries.

In my experience most journalists want to get it right. Specialising journalists need to. Knowing who they are, understanding their difficulties and deadlines, and working with them all the time, not just when a self-interested pitch is to be made, can produce excellent long-term coverage that suits both parties well.

I’d also add a section on internal communications. ‘Communications are not just about the press and external constituencies,’ says Donald Eastman, President of Eckerd College. ‘If your own people don’t know it or don’t believe it, neither will anybody else.’

It’s a refreshing view when you look at the attitudes that some administrators and scientists display towards their communications staff. These vary from contemptuous labels such as ‘spin doctor’, and excessive interference in their roles, to regarding them as professional colleagues who can convert a complex or sensitive research story into a form suitable for the public, and are given both responsibility and authority to do it.

Policies need periodic revision. In the swiftly changing era of electronic news distribution, this one would be no exception, and useful appendices could be added and updated frequently. They might cover aspects of style that are important in science reports but frequently inaccurate; things like how to write species names with upper and lower case letters and italics in the right places; how to pronounce ‘kilometre’ correctly; how to distinguish a single bacterium from plural bacteria, and so on.

I’d also argue for a procedural appendix, revised frequently as technology changes, on how to post releases through emails and the internet. Too often these go out with complex headers, logos and attachments, even unsolicited photographs. They clog the electronic mailboxes of journalists, who discard them unread in any case, for fear of unleashing a virus.

Today’s scientific research will have a great impact on the future, but the way in which scientists and science communicators deal with the media now will decide the research that a future public allows them to do. GM food, cloning, global warming, stem cells, deforestation, evolution, radioactive depositories and much more already attract public debate and political intervention in which accurate science takes second place to social, religious, economic and other concerns.

That is troubling in an age so dominated by science and technology, but it is partly because science has already failed to protect its own credibility and get its message across in the media on a number of important issues. It is essential that it do so, and the cause will not be helped either by withdrawing from the public arena or by being manipulated within it. It will require the development of a scientific communication culture that is understood by, and acceptable to, both scientists and the media.

Robyn Williams: It’s in the public interest, after all. Rob Morrison and The Dark Side, a code of conduct. Something those in Downing Street, Canberra and Washington might think about as well.