Press Releases

The NHU "are the best in the world"
but there's room for improvement

Last week, the BBC released the review addressing the impartiality and quality of its science coverage. Overall, the corporation fared very well. To satisfy one peculiar British duality, we subject the BBC (along with the NHS) to equal measures of scorn and adulation, and most reviews commissioned by the Trust offer juicy reading. 

The review, conducted by UCL’s emeritus professor of genetics Steve Jones, offers up lapping praise for the corporation’s output but with the flattery, he highlights several weaknesses. It is a sprawling piece, so this post addresses one area which (to our knowledge) hasn’t been reported widely elsewhere in the mainstream press: namely, the failure of journalists to utilise sources of science beyond press reports. 

Admittedly, the press release can be a useful tool to rely upon for finding scoops. But Jones doesn’t place as much emphasis as he should on the dangers of such a dependency. An analysis which the report cites suggests 75% of news stories cover only material listed in press releases. It is painfully apparent to the industry insiders when journalists haven’t searched any further into the story than the veneer represented by the press release, even if lay readers are unaware.  

One danger of depending on a press release science reporting is that by not looking further into a study, journalists miss important limitations and caveats to the research which the authors themselves offer up, before the fierce scientific community take intellectual toothcombs to it.  Moreover, a press release may be a product of a PR employee who jumped the gun and reported work that has yet to be published or presented at a scientific conference. Work that has not been subjected to the peer-review system by which papers are vetted may well be robust analysis, but could also be error-riddled or even offer a fool’s paradise for readers.

A sympathetic bod would say that journalists are bound by editorial time constraints. More vicious critics would argue that this is flagrantly shoddy reporting. Taking music journalism as a somewhat excessive comparison, depending on a press release to gauge the quality or potential impact of a band’s work would hardly be sufficient. These can be as lavish as they are ridiculous (see here) and often give no decent reflection of the original work. Journalists should be evaluating and critiquing information rather regurgitating what they have been spoonfed, regardless of the subject at hand. 

Jones points out that many journalists, particularly those from a humanities background, may not have not have knowledge of, or access to, big science databases and search engines which we use to trawl through the staggering production of the scientific community (e.g. Web of Science, PubMed and for the gung ho scientist, Google Scholar). More fundamentally, scientific language and concepts can seem impenetrable to the uninitiated, and journalists with little experience of science may find delving into the original research a barrier, and so become more reliant on the insufficient summary of information in a press release. Since journalists are generally sharp and trained to be flexible when extracting information from various sources, these difficulties are easy to correct with experience. 

However, one further issue which Jones does not mention is the career ambitions of journalists: those who are seconded to science departments after a display of opportunism may not have (or be willing to invest) the time to bring their understanding of science up to scratch before moving on to new posts. That said, many great journalists have an inherent love for science and some who stumble upon it whilst mobile find it alluring enough to stick around for. 

Nonetheless, in addition to firming up the skill sets of journalists who lack in-depth experience of the science publishing industry, another solution (also suggested by Jones) would be to coax scientists out of their rather insular industry and communicate in the media more directly. The review references many programmes aimed at increasing the ability of scientists to communicate with a lay audience, and there are plenty more besides. Ultimately, having a media team split between those who specialise in relaying information to the masses and those used to debating in the scientific community would surely be of mutual benefit.  Public understanding would be the beneficiary of great communicators of either stock. 

If you have any comments on the piece or criticisms/advice (we’re new to this!), please let us know below.