The Sun newspaper staff were visibly nervous. Dressed in black, they looked like they were attending a funeral. The tables had been turned and now they were the ones on the receiving end of the media. They seemed obsessed with what was being tweeted about them.
You don’t expect the editor of the Sun to appear timid or nervous. But incumbent Dominic Mahon certainly did as he sat down to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry on 9 January. Mohan’s expression showed just how worried the entire journalism industry is about what might come of the inquiry.
Lord Leveson was asked by Prime Minister David Cameron to look at the culture, practice and ethics of the press after it was discovered that journalists at the News of the World had intercepted voicemail messages to find stories.
How well is science reported?
But the inquiry is now also looking at the role of newspapers in reporting science. Newspapers are a main source of science news for the public.
In 2011, an Ipsos Mori poll found that one-third of people hear or read about science in newspapers.
Written evidence on science reporting has been submitted to the inquiry from the Science Media Centre (SMC) and a coalition of organisations that include The Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK and the Association of Medical Research Charities.
Submissions from both the SMC and the coalition cites the example of the furore over the measles mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to highlight the harms to the public when the media gets science wrong. In that story, vaccination rates infamously fell following news reports that vaccine use was linked to autism.
Concerns about science reporting include the use of sensational headlines, manipulating statistical data to make claims sound more dramatic and the potential distortion of the truth by seeking journalistic balance in a story.
Citing the MMR example, the SMC stated in its submission that in the interests of journalistic balance, “the 99.9% of scientists who believed the vaccine was safe were pitted against one doctor and his small but vociferous group of supporters”.
Good practice in science reporting
The SMC suggests that newspapers should be encouraged to appoint at least one news editor with a background in science reporting and that “basic science training should be offered as a matter of course for the overall training of journalists”.
James Randerson, news editor at the Guardian, is one such journalist with a science background. Randerson told Elements “having someone close to decision making who is aware of the pitfalls of science reporting is a good thing. The more people who work in the media and understand science, understand evidence and the limitations of evidence, the better”.
Randerson believes that there could be better training available for journalists who come from a humanities background. And scientific skills, he argues, are valuable beyond reporting stories about science. Having people confident with the interrogation and analysis of data and evidence is becoming more valuable. “Some of our biggest stories have come from data,” he added.
Can Leveson make a difference in science reporting?
Nigel Hawkes, a freelance journalist, said journalists need to be more critical about the journal publications they write about, some of which are “full of poor epidemiological studies that shouldn’t be reported”.
Hawkes feels that a major problem that journalists face with the rise of internet and online journalism is the pressure to produce content quickly. “The job is more demanding than it used to be. Some journalists are expected to write four or five stories a day, so there isn’t time to do this very well.”
He feels that Leveson isn’t the right place to be exploring the role of science reporting in the media. “Leveson should have focused on the main issue of phone hacking… Instead it has gone off into a massive fishing expedition covering the whole of journalism.”
Image courtesy of the Leveson Inquiry
Dominic Mohan, Leveson, Scary, Science Media centre, scientific reporting, standards, The Sun, Wellcome Trust, Comment.
Leveson tackles science reporting in newspapers
By Kate AdamsThe Sun newspaper staff were visibly nervous. Dressed in black, they looked like they were attending a funeral. The tables had been turned and now they were the ones on the receiving end of the media. They seemed obsessed with what was being tweeted about them.
You don’t expect the editor of the Sun to appear timid or nervous. But incumbent Dominic Mahon certainly did as he sat down to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry on 9 January. Mohan’s expression showed just how worried the entire journalism industry is about what might come of the inquiry.
Lord Leveson was asked by Prime Minister David Cameron to look at the culture, practice and ethics of the press after it was discovered that journalists at the News of the World had intercepted voicemail messages to find stories.
How well is science reported?
But the inquiry is now also looking at the role of newspapers in reporting science. Newspapers are a main source of science news for the public.
In 2011, an Ipsos Mori poll found that one-third of people hear or read about science in newspapers.
Written evidence on science reporting has been submitted to the inquiry from the Science Media Centre (SMC) and a coalition of organisations that include The Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK and the Association of Medical Research Charities.
Submissions from both the SMC and the coalition cites the example of the furore over the measles mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to highlight the harms to the public when the media gets science wrong. In that story, vaccination rates infamously fell following news reports that vaccine use was linked to autism.
Concerns about science reporting include the use of sensational headlines, manipulating statistical data to make claims sound more dramatic and the potential distortion of the truth by seeking journalistic balance in a story.
Citing the MMR example, the SMC stated in its submission that in the interests of journalistic balance, “the 99.9% of scientists who believed the vaccine was safe were pitted against one doctor and his small but vociferous group of supporters”.
Good practice in science reporting
The SMC suggests that newspapers should be encouraged to appoint at least one news editor with a background in science reporting and that “basic science training should be offered as a matter of course for the overall training of journalists”.
James Randerson, news editor at the Guardian, is one such journalist with a science background. Randerson told Elements “having someone close to decision making who is aware of the pitfalls of science reporting is a good thing. The more people who work in the media and understand science, understand evidence and the limitations of evidence, the better”.
Randerson believes that there could be better training available for journalists who come from a humanities background. And scientific skills, he argues, are valuable beyond reporting stories about science. Having people confident with the interrogation and analysis of data and evidence is becoming more valuable. “Some of our biggest stories have come from data,” he added.
Can Leveson make a difference in science reporting?
Nigel Hawkes, a freelance journalist, said journalists need to be more critical about the journal publications they write about, some of which are “full of poor epidemiological studies that shouldn’t be reported”.
Hawkes feels that a major problem that journalists face with the rise of internet and online journalism is the pressure to produce content quickly. “The job is more demanding than it used to be. Some journalists are expected to write four or five stories a day, so there isn’t time to do this very well.”
He feels that Leveson isn’t the right place to be exploring the role of science reporting in the media. “Leveson should have focused on the main issue of phone hacking… Instead it has gone off into a massive fishing expedition covering the whole of journalism.”
Image courtesy of the Leveson Inquiry
Dominic Mohan, Leveson, Scary, Science Media centre, scientific reporting, standards, The Sun, Wellcome Trust, Comment.