The Science Media Centre bucks the trend, says Fiona Fox

Oscar Wilde's aphorism ‘there is only one thing worse than being talked about…and that’s not being talked about’ is not something that Nick Davies, investigative reporter on the Guardian, has had to worry about since publishing his groundbreaking new book on journalism. If Davies had any fears that his book, Flat Earth News (1), may come out with a whimper and sit on some shelf gathering dust, these were soon dismissed by an outpouring of anger and outrage from the world of journalism. Hardly a week goes past without another editor, journalist or entire news organization weighing in to accuse Davies of delivering a book which is itself guilty of everything he criticises – falsehood, distortion and propaganda.

Fewer journalists, more space

There are inaccuracies in the book, but in my view they do not take from the strength of his thesis – that having fewer journalists with significantly more space to fill in ever-tighter timeframes is not conducive to the kind of independent, investigative and truth-telling journalism that we should all aspire to. The pressures result in otherwise excellent journalists forced to ‘churn’ out stories from press releases, and that means that some of the biggest stories of our times end up as ‘flat earth news’ with little truth or substance at all.

Figures from the Cardiff University School of Journalism show how the exponential growth of news media means that the same number of journalists now have three times as much space to fill. They used to file one report each day, or at most two or three, for the main TV news bulletins. Now it’s not unusual for these journalists to be tied to their desks filing four or five stories per day: for their 24-hour news services on TV and radio, as well as a piece for the website and even the now obligatory podcasts, video-clips, blogs and so on.

Role of PR

Davies’s withering critique of contemporary journalism relies heavily on an equally scathing attack on the role of the PR on which ‘churnalism’ feeds. The time pressures on modern journalists leave them more vulnerable to the inevitable institutional spin in press releases and stage-managed press conferences.

The time needed to interrogate every story, check for conflicts of interest, question other experts to identify unexplored angles simply evaporates when a journalist has to file four or five stories a day. Add that to the fact that the Editor’s biggest fear is not a partial or inaccurate story, but missing a story that a competing newspaper gets, and we all need to question how much of the news we are consuming is ‘flat earth news’.

Bucking the trend

Where I do diverge from Davies is the extent to which some journalism and some PR manages to buck these trends. I think the Science Media Centre (SMC) is one of many examples of a ‘truth-telling’ PR activity as opposed to a spin PR activity. Yes, we do package science stories to fit the huge time pressures on today’s journalists. But the objective of packaging science in this way is to adapt the best, most accurate, evidence-based information to meet the needs of the hungry 24-hour news machine.

Of course it would be stupid to say that the SMC has no agenda. Good journalists should be aware that everyone giving them stories has agendas. I always ensure that my first encounter with any journalist involves me spelling out our aims and objectives, sponsors and relationships. All our documents say we are ‘unashamedly pro-science’, and since we only take scientists onto our books if they work for respected institutions and publish in peer-reviewed journals, we effectively represent ‘mainstream science’.

However, with those limits understood, the SMC is about working with scientists and the media to achieve exactly what Davies aspires to: accurate truth-telling journalism on the most controversial science stories of the day.

Nick Davies’s book is a hugely important one and should not be dismissed in the way that many media organisations have done. However it should be the beginning of a discussion which now needs to become more sophisticated and nuanced – acknowledging and building on the more positive developments in science and health PR that make many of us Davies’s key allies in his campaign for better journalism.

Reference

1. Nick Davies (2008) Flat Earth News. Chatto & Windus (London), ISBN 9780701181451

Fiona Fox is Director of the 
Science Media Centre