For scientists, encounters with the media can be both uplifting and deflating. At best, Brown researchers have found that reporters can help spread important public health messages, educate people about the importance of research, share a passion for science with an interested audience, and even prompt collaborative inquiries from colleagues and industry
When the call came from Time magazine, David Cane was flattered. Seems an old friend working for Newsweek had recommended the Brown chemistry professor for some questions about tetrodotoxin, a deadly poison found in the livers of puffer fish, which had apparently been tested at universities in a CIA-funded research program.
Time was running a cover article on the secret program, the Newsweek reporter explained, and Newsweek was rushing to catch up.
As the reporter led up to his first question, Cane silently reviewed what he knew about the chemical so he could utter an articulate and accurate answer in his role as chemistry expert for the prestigious news magazine.
"In which James Bond books is tetrodotoxin used?" the reporter asked.
For scientists, encounters with the media can be both uplifting and deflating. At best, Brown researchers have found that reporters can help spread important public health messages, educate people about the importance of research, share a passion for science with an interested audience, and even prompt collaborative inquiries from colleagues and industry. At worst, campus sources have witnessed reporters turn careful interviews into fabricated quotes, garbled facts, gross oversimplifications and inane soundbites.
Ted Goslow, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, knows the harmony and headaches of the media dance. He recently enjoyed several days and many follow-up hours with National Geographic writers, photographers and fact checkers who were devoted to understanding his group's work on bird flight for an upcoming story, yet he was frustrated by a short visit from an insensitive camera crew that filmed cadavers during an anatomy lesson tailored to a visiting high school class.
Serving the research community
Despite the risks of being misquoted and misunderstood, Brown scientists and their colleagues across the country are taking the time and trouble to communicate the details of their research to reporters. For good reasons.
In 1995, the U.S. scientific community was surprised by a congressional budget-balancing resolution that would have cut federal research dollars 33 percent by the year 2002. The resolution eventually died, but scientific societies, reeling from the threat to their future funding, quickly rallied to encourage scientists to work with media to help the public better understand and support research.
"We've traditionally kept a low public profile, perhaps believing that trumpeting our successes was somehow unseemly," says physicist Neal Lane, director of the National Science Foundation. "But we're not properly serving the research community or the public if we don't help make the case about why science and technology matter in people's lives. With only one interview, we can reach people across the state or nation."
Like it or not, the adult public learns about science mostly through the television and newspaper. Brown researchers want to see that they're getting the straight scoop. For example, Dr. Martin Weinstock, research director for Brown's dermatology department, welcomes the seasonal opportunities to encourage people to prevent skin cancer by protecting their skin from the sun. Geneticist Marc Tatar was a little apprehensive about working with the media for the first time last fall when his paper in the weekly journal Nature generated publicity, but he decided that talking about his work would help counteract misconceptions about claims for the fountain of youth in each announcement about new aging research.
News coverage also helps disseminate research results to the scientific community. A clever study a few years ago showed that research publicized in the New York Times earned nearly double the number of scientific citations in each of the next 10 years compared to their unpublicized counterparts. The study looked at papers published in five of the most prestigious science and medicine journals: Science, Nature, The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association. Research covered by Times reporters during a three-month strike when a reduced edition was published but not distributed to the public produced no citation boost.
Edith Mathiowitz, an associate professor of medical science and engineering, discovered this firsthand. Last year, she published the first animal study showing that tiny polymer spheres that stick to the small intestines someday may be able to deliver to humans drugs that cannot now be given orally, such as insulin. Three months of news coverage began with the British Broadcasting Service and ended with the Chicago Tribune and prompted many speaking requests from interested colleagues and research partnerships with several drug companies.
Reporters on deadline
Scientists may hope to spread goodwill about their institution, raise the science literacy of the public and advance the cause of publicly funded research, but reporters are on the job for other reasons.
"It's not my job to make sure you get funding, it's not my job to help you win a Nobel prize, and it's not my job to help you get tenure," says Time magazine science reporter Madeleine Nash. "My job is to report news that's important, unusual and interesting. We are in the business of selling magazines, and science stories are blockbusters at the newsstand."
Beginning with those different agendas, the communication gap between researchers and journalists widens to rival that between men and women. If scientists are from Pluto, then reporters are from Alpha Centauri. At least men and women speak the same language. Geologists and geneticists cannot understand each other's professional jargon, let alone a journalist whose educational career may have been devoted to avoiding math and science classes.
"The specific vocabulary of chemistry is a powerful way of thinking about things, but it doesn't translate readily into everyday language," Cane says. "It's hard to explain a new way to make double bonds when people don't even know what a bond is."
Yet, like science, journalism is not a monolithic culture. There are different personalities, different approaches, different levels of scientific expertise, and most importantly different deadlines.
Most scientists report some of their least satisfying experiences with what is sometimes known as "crash-and-burn" reporting, where a reporter has a day or less to master the scientific field, interview the experts and write a story. Other reporters have the luxury of time to write a feature story for a newspaper or magazine or produce a documentary. A producer for a cable channel science show, for example, might spend a day in the lab learning more about ongoing research before she brings in a camera crew.
Different kinds of reporters can ride in on hourly or monthly deadlines. Some reporters specialize in science. Most of them like science the way sportswriters like sports. Other reporters may cover city hall and traffic disasters more often than science and medicine.
Cane, for example, has worked mostly with writers who have specialized in science for such publications as Chemical & Engineering News and Science magazine's news section. Sleep researcher Mary Carskadon, on the other hand, has been interviewed by reporters with a wider range of scientific literacy, from high school newspapers to parenting magazines to the New York Times.
Regardless of the nature of reporter who seeks information, there are good reasons to work with all kinds of journalists. "My research is funded by taxpayers' dollars, and most taxpayers don't read the journals where I publish my findings," Carskadon says. "I work in a field that touches everybody's lives on a daily basis," she says, and working with reporters "is part of the payback."
By some reports, the public appetite for science and medicine news is at an all-time high. This means researchers will continue to receive requests from the media to discuss their work, serve as spokespeople for their research communities, and answer questions about double bonds - or a single Bond.
The Newsweek magazine reporter who called Cane was able to obtain what was needed: It turns out that Cane was sure of his James Bond books. Tetrodotoxin shows up in "From Russia with Love" (the novel ends in a cliffhanger, with Bond having been kicked by a spike-tipped shoe laced with the poison), in "You Only Live Twice" (the villain offers this option on a suicide island he maintains while hiding and waiting to take over the world), and in one of the short stories in "For Your Eyes Only." (Bond keeps mum when an abused wife stuffs a spiked puffer fish down the neck of her wealthy but violent husband.)