Why researchers and reporters mistrust each other
Scientists in surveys mistrust how the media convey their findings, accusations of distortion run in both directions, and the mistrust leads some scientists to avoid reporters altogether, though communication between them also fails through a simple lack of understanding. Surveys nonetheless find scientists mostly satisfied with their media contacts, while the pull towards visibility in the media brings its own risk to what reaches the public, and a communicator speaking to reporters should expect to be misread.
How large the mistrust is
As of 2010, scientists had identified communication and public education as significant challenges for science. In a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reported in 2010, 85% of scientists said the public's low level of scientific knowledge is a major problem for science, yet in the same survey they expressed mistrust of the established methods of communicating that knowledge. Seventy-five per cent criticised reporters for failing to distinguish between findings that are well founded and findings that are not, and 48% said the media's oversimplification of scientific findings is a major problem. One author writing on scientific illiteracy observed that, rather than spurring greater efforts at communication, such mistrust and resignation have further motivated some scientists to avoid talking to reporters.
Where communication breaks down
Medical communicators are the crucial link between researchers at one end of the continuum and journalists at the other. Yet communication between the two ends can fail: in one case a story hit a roadblock and Reuters Health killed it because communication failed between a researcher and a reporter, although both were medical communicators who presumably shared the goal of disseminating medical findings. The reporter never heard back from the researchers, who, unless they happened to catch his earlier tweet or read a health journalism critic's comments on the incident, might not even know the story had been killed.
It is not always mistrust that causes such breakdowns; sometimes it is simply a lack of understanding. In planning and preparing manuscripts and presentations, medical writers may overlook that their audience stretches beyond the scientific community, and may not recognise the importance of presenting results within a broader context, so that their meaning and implications are clear to the general public and not just to experts in the field. In the view of one author writing on scientific illiteracy, scientific training continues to turn out researchers who speak in careful nuances and with many caveats, in a language aimed at their peers rather than at the media or the public, and many scientists can scarcely contemplate framing a simple media message for maximum impact, because the very idea sounds unbecoming. Medical journalists are generally well equipped to translate academic jargon for public consumption, but that does not absolve medical writers from the same goal of journalistic clarity.
More than a decade before 2010, a journalist and a space physicist writing about science's inability to get its message across to the public placed both the root of the problem and the heart of the solution with those who control the flow of crucial information about the value of basic scientific and technological research: the scientists themselves and the journalists who communicate their triumphs and failures to the American public. They found both groups jolted from complacency by threats to their professional existence: scientists, whose caste system of language and vocabulary isolates them from the public at large, feared failure in the politically charged funding arena, while journalists, whose increasing tendency to sensationalism had weakened their credibility, feared obsolescence in the fast-changing world of communications technology. One medical journalist judged in 2010 that their account still rang true and that the lack of communication between researchers and journalists still threatened the public's access to information. Significant obstacles continue to hamper medical communication, alongside shared challenges that might be tackled with greater collaboration between researchers, writers and journalists.
Sensationalism, in both directions
One medical journalist who went on to teach journalism and bioethics holds that accusations of sensationalism, sloppy reporting and less than rigorous standards can go in both directions, and that it is important to remember that and perhaps not to become defensive about it. In her experience scientists and physicians very often accuse journalists of sensationalism and of writing to sell more papers and attract more attention, and she cannot say journalists were innocent of it, but scientists share these limitations. At the Harvard School of Public Health, many professors flocked to her rather than to her accomplished classmates because they wanted media attention: many of them had biotechnology companies and understood that media attention could help them attract investors, and at USA Today a doctor she interviewed asked whether she could get him on Oprah. She had been told that at USA Today any scientist she called would call back immediately; that was not her experience, but scientists did call back because the paper then had a large circulation. In her view, seeking attention is not wrong if it does not interfere with the accuracy and ethics of the work.
How scientists regard their media contacts
Multiple surveys of scientists, reported in 2012, found them in general satisfied with their media contacts and expecting those contacts to give their careers more advantages than disadvantages. Science organisations such as research institutions and universities were also satisfied with their contacts with journalists, because visibility through mass media channels helps secure their legitimate roles in science research, and both individual scientists and science organisations thought that enhanced visibility would increase their chances of funding.
On the basis of that research, its author highlights three points about public science communication:
- When scientists have contact with the media, they are subject to more influence from organisations than from the science community.
- Organisations and scientists are willing to help increase communication resources for science journalists, and more organisations are conducting media training for researchers to improve their competence.
- Public information departments and scientists now worry more about their visibility in the mass media than about the scientific truth delivered to the general public, a shift that in the long run could be a risk to scientists' credibility.
Because the media expect science to be relevant to society, scientists may also try to increase their visibility by focusing more on the application aspects of their research, and the same researcher warns that the result may be an overemphasis on the practical aspects of research and a neglect of scientific truth.
Speaking to reporters
Interacting with the media is sometimes a necessity for a medical communicator who wants to expand the audience's reach, and it involves its own skill set. One speaker on communicating science to the public advises that a communicator should assume that if there is a way for the media to misinterpret the information provided, it is likely to happen, because the media world moves very quickly, journalists have a variety of sources at their disposal, and news organisations in general are not good at covering long-term issues. To overcome these hurdles, the information provided should be accurate, clear and concise: the communicator should get to the point as soon as possible, try not to provide extraneous information that could muddle the topic or be misconstrued in edited sound or video clips, and make sure to point out the big picture of the topic or research, and the points can be preplanned and even rehearsed, depending on experience and comfort with public speaking. Nothing should be said that the communicator would not want to hear, see or read; there really is no such thing as off the record.