Science Reporting in the Media is Mostly Garbage

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I am tired tired tired of ignorant reporters writing garbage about scientific findings. These "science" reporters never mention their own scientific (ie non-existent) qualifications in relation to their ability to comprehend and interpret scientific method, findings, claims. They are increasingly just spruikers catering to populist myths. They give science a bad name when it is they themselves who deserve to be regarded with repugnance and disbelief. These comments are particularly true in relation to reportage on autism studies, sensationalised headlines, moronic misunderstanding of the studies themselves, and a complete lack of critical thinking. I would love to see a group of ASD science geeks formed to counter this garbage in a concerted way...



http://www.badscience.net/2011/01/how-to-read-a-paper/

unfortunately, most of us spend most of our time working for a living. There used to be specialists employed in this kind of work, but they were almost entirely axed a decade or so ago. Even they often got it wrong - hence the claim, for example, that 'scientists' used to be worried about 'global cooling.'

Journalists are smart. They go to Uni to study Media and Journalism and come out good writers who write entertaining articles in newspapers. That is the sum of it. It amazes me that readers accept as absolute truths what journalists write. Science journalists have no particular expertise in science unless they have a background in science and few do, so the standard and quality of their writing comes down to the accuracy of their sources. Why stop at science though as journalists aren't experts in any other fields either. Don't get me going on film reviewers who write for newspapers.

May be true in some cases but you need to take other things into consideration.

Cutting edge research (particularly autism related medical research) takes years before it's finally ready in published form. It's in the interest of funding bodies, researchers, news media and the general public to get results of initial (often premature) findings early in order to report and assess if the direction of the findings are worth pursuing/funding further. The drawback here is initial findings get published in newspapers as "exciting scientific breakthroughs" when in reality they never are. These are of course instances of journalists or editors running away with a story to boost circulation and advertising revenue. However many are responsible enough to report the findings in the correct context as preliminary findings.

I've seen plenty of examples (I've done this myself) of critical assessment of autism related articles or documentaries where it's easy to pick holes in the data. So far there is tantalising genetic patterns, brain patterns. nueral structure, physiological, patterns and even microbial patterns that are associated with people on the spectrum. However association is never proof of causality.

Autism remains a scientific enigma. You need to take a good dose of reality medicine whenever you read news on autism in the media.

I'm not just referring to autism reporting. The problem is much bigger than that..

To quote Sagan, "If we teach (publish) only the findings and products of science - no matter how useful or inspiring they may be - without communicating its critical method, how can the average person possibly distinguish science from pseudoscience?" What use is it having reporters report findings as facts if they possess no skills whatsoever to evaluate those findings? What is gained by misleading people, whether through ignorance or by design? The validity of scientific findings cannot simply be assumed. Science can be done badly (VERY badly in some cases, faked in others, or misrepresented by the researchers (eg leaving out the test results that don't fit the theory, only reporting the tests that do fit).

Unlike you, I would like to see trained journalists name and shame evidence abusers in science, just as they name and shame cheats in the world of finance, sport, business, politics. We expect them to perform exposure of cheats and dodgy operators in other areas of "news" as a public service because it is in the wider public interest for them to do so. The public interest is not served by glib reporting of science as if the findings of often badly-designed experiments were stone tablets handed down from the supreme authority.

The current situation of science reporting in newspapers seems to be written by either the scientifically ignorant or - even worse - the wilfully ignorant. Unless studies are published in full, readers never have enough information to form their own conclusions. And studies obviously - for reasons of time and space in popular media - cannot be published in full; so the public is forced to rely even more heavily on good standards of scientific reporting in newspapers et al - and the public is being horribly shortchanged.

I never said it's ok to have this state of affairs. What I did say is that proper scientific research takes years to publish. Therefore Initial findings are alright to publish in the news media as the population like to know the latest cutting edge work. You cant stop news media and their journalist puppets from sensationalising stories, that's how they make money.




There are plenty of good government broadcasters in the UK, Australia and even NZ who have excellent coverage of scientific news. There is also good news media sources such as Huffington Post and the UK Guardian. It's up to you to use your own brains and criticial thought to sought out the wheat from the chaff. Don't rely on others to do the thinking for you.

If you think I am saying that others should do my thinking for me - (heaven forbid!! !) - then you have missed the point I hoped to make.

Even in the Guardian, which does have a weekly science column (with sensible and articulate contributions from Ben Goldacre) you get others - like Simon Jenkins - who trivialise and sneer from an anti-science viewpoint without any valid credentials to do so. On a brighter note, and unusual in newspaper science reporting, Goldacre isa scientist! He is an outlier! He has raised the science reporting standards at the Guardian a lot. If they can do it, why can't the others??

Your comment about "even New Zealand" made me wonder though. Why the "even"? What was that about??? Heard of Ernest Rutherford at all???

Do you have a scientific background? if your concern is over the presentation/packaging of science news then you first need to understand the purpose of news media. Commercial media is profit driven and it's primary goal is selling advertising for revenue. Their news is purely entertainment and sensationalism.

This leaves government owned enterprises such as Australia's ABC or the UK's BBC. Individual ABC or BBC science reporters present what is a digestable version. Society demands short bits of manageable information that can be interpreted quickly., There is no market for 2hr documentaries on "string theory" or "gut flora and the brain". It's all pretty pictures of carbon molecules, Depeche mode music and test tubes.

Individual science journalists whether on government run news operations or private, whether they have a PhD in front of their name or alluring cleavage are merely sock puppets. I pay little heed if the person reporting is Ben Goldacre, Simon Jenkins or Kate Upton. It really does not matter.


Yes that was probably unkind

Many many journalists when reporting scientific studies, research and associated in articles will provide references. Therefore- they enable the reader to follow along at home and do the thinking for themselves. If they do not provide this information, one should just pass on that article- this is pretty basic when assessing any information, including any kind of news media: no source, they could be pulling it out of their ass.

If you want the entire article, look it up yourself using said information. it is not a journalist's job to rephrase an ENTIRE research article and offer a blow-by-blow. It IS their job to report on up-to-date findings, offer information on how their readers can follow up on those findings, get further details and make judgements for themselves. Scientific findings in academic journals have already been peer reviewed [and this is not th place for an entirely different discussion about the legitimacy of the peer review process]. If journalists take it upon themselves to the question legitimacy of each and every article, standing alone, that has already been accepted into a legit academic journal- that is has already passed the peer review process- and therefore refuse to report on what would otherwise be relevant scientific news?

...they would be even more fraught with accusations of biased reporting, favoritism, "anti-scientific views", and whatever other nonsense. A journalist should not be expected to spoon feed every single thing that comes their way. They report the salient points, raise legitimate questions within the reporting and provide references, sources, and let the reader decide.

I agree that there are many journalists who attempt to report on science and research matters who do so poorly- but then there are many readers who seem to not know what that may even look like. There are also many readers who expect every daily paper to be a Behavioral Neuroscience or a Lancet. Both parties are at a disadvantage.

When you read whatever Daily Growl you happen to pick up- the vast majority are ultimately in it for the money. That is their bottom line. They need to make a profit to stay operating, so this makes sense. Knowing this, the onus is on the reader to distinguish what is crap or not. Don't blame the journalists if you are under the assumption they don't know what they are doing in the first place, but continue to read that paper [...or wait, actually fail to read it but attempt to critique the reporting regardless, as some may do].

Why not simply read academic/research journals in the first place and "skip the middle man"?

Agreed, there is no point blaming the journalist if the news article is abbreviated or based on preliminary findings. The buck always stops with the editor.



I think B19 is speaking more broadly about the "dumbing down" of the news media as evidenced by the lack of scientific veracity in reporting. But he seems to have missed the fact this phenomena is symptomatic of the western world since the dawn of television. We have learned to expect bite sized pieces of information. We are saturated with bite sized parcels of information, all the while passively accepting peripheral messages from advertisers.

It's up to all of us to decide fact from fiction ourselves.

Most of the science reporting I read in the general press - from the NYT to the Guardian to Fox News or whatever - does not link to the original research they are reporting on. Sometimes it's even 3rd or 4th hand. Usually it is crap, but someone without a background in science won't know to look for the links to original research, much less know how to interpret it even if the author did link to it.


True. However, journalists often misrepresent or even contradict the actual research, or they pick some nearly meaningless aside or speculation dropped into the article off-the-cuff by the researcher and claim, 'New Study Proves X!'


False dilemma. 'Journalists only reporting crap,' and 'Journalists not reporting at all' are not the only two options available.


Even for active scientists, anything outside of their realm of inquiry is going to be very difficult to understand in the raw. A neurologist isn't going to understand a raw astrophysics paper, and an astrophysicist isn't going to understand a raw neurology paper. There has to be someone, somewhere, to translate the findings into lay-speak for non-experts if the findings are going to be understood by the general public. The problem is not only in that translation, but in the understanding of that translation - something that may be monumental to the scientists might seem trivial to the general public, for example, and something that seems monumental to the public (because they have never studied the subject) might be the 100th 'meh' report of the same thing this year, that coincidentally happened to land on an editor's desk this time.

Go LKL! You nailed it

LKL does bring up some really good points, which I'd be interested in responding to and discussing.

However, B19, ^this^response^ is so bizarre, I literally paused and tilted my head to the right. Were you seeking actual discussion or a contest? I feel like you have some unreasonable expectations of the general media, and for my part it could be possible I have some unreasonable expectations of... anyone who consumes news apparently. I don't tend to do the equivalent of a fist pump if someone makes a better argument than someone opposing my point. That response certainly brought the discussion down a few levels.

I will respond to one of LKL's points [though there were at least a couple decent ones]:



That's a good point. So I guess my question is: even if a journalist is specifically trained to understand and report on science, how can they be expected to have such a broad knowledge base as to accurately and effectively relate this information on the level that is being discussed in this thread? [Though actually there doesn't really seem to be agreement on that, I could be mistaken] Am i just misunderstanding your meaning here?

I think the trees have started to obscure the forest, in this thread. The forest, as I choose to see it, whether anyone agrees or not, is that the media as a whole has a duty to ensure that journalists who report on science are at least capable of discernment to the extent that they avoid and cease to write damaging hype about breakthroughs, scares et al.

My core point (the forest) is essentially that science deserves an equal standard of reporting, just as for example finance pages are written by people (at least in New Zealand) deeply versed in financial matters and laws pertaining to them. They are hired (the trees again) because they are qualified to spot, research and point out to readers things like say serious omissions in the balance sheets, in public companies - which, if not reported, would be to the detriment of the average investor.

Agree or disagree, no problem. Over and out.

So you are saying science should be written by scientists...not journalists....

Actually, no; equally I wouldn't support an argument for economists or bank managers to write financial columns. I am not anti-journalist, that's not my stance at all. I am opposed to poor journalistic standards, and the standard in science journalism is the qualitatively poorest of all topics the media cover.

Perhaps others find it idealist, but I sincerely believe that good, accurate, non-sensational and informed science reporting is important because:

1) truth matters;
2) science, misrepresented by media, is used as a political tool by unscrupulous politicians (of all persuasions), quoted by them as fact;
3) science, misrepresented by media, has terrified people quite unnecessarily (happy to provide examples on request)
4) misrepresentation in the media unfairly tarnishes the scientists whom they misrepresent - whether carelessly or not

Perhaps to make my position clearer, this example will be helpful:

Newspapers employ reporters/critics to cover the arts: music, theatre, ballet, film, art. They don't send the film critic to report on ballet, nor the music critic to write reviews of art. Nor do they expect - and nor do their readers expect - the film critic to be a film maker, the ballet critic to be a dancer..etc. This is not necessary. What is necessary is a dedicated interest in their specialist subject, integrity, and proven knowledge and expertise on the discipline they are writing about. Science (with notable exceptions, like the Times specialist coverage) is not accorded the same status or respect by the media. This imbalance is strange when you pause to consider that science affects us all, all the time, far more and far often than the arts. It affects everything we do and are.

Sports writers who have never played a game in their lives are expected to provide accuracy and balance in their coverage, or they are going to be out of a job. I am only asking for the same courtesy to science reporting: accurate and responsible coverage. We aren't used to that as readers, and I can appreciate that the very idea might cause some cognitive dissonance to those who have become totally acclimatised to the status quo. But, in my view, they too are badly served by it. We all are. (PS: I am a woman, Cyberdad, no sex change accomplished nor planned!