Boston University recently hosted an “Ask A Reporter Anything” Q&A with “three high-profile reporters”:
Peter Prengaman (Associated Press - AP)
Lena Sun (Washington Post - WP), and
Claire Faculfield (Freelancer).
The event description can be found here, and the recorded session here.
Implicit bias
I found a few of the comments within the session particularly revealing of the way science is reported today, for example:
Lena Sun (18’50”), “News reporters are always trained to like .. ok there is this side and there is side … well, I’m sorry. Vaccines work. Period. Full stop. Ahem … the sky is … the Earth is not flat.”
Peter Prengaman (20’16”), “Similar to what you just said about vaccines working … we’re not going to entertain, in climate stories, climate change deniers … I mean, climate science is clear… we won’t have a story that has both sides in that realm.”
Lena Sun (22’ 20”), “… I often try … I always ask when I am talking to someone, and, they usually … too often they end up being white males, who are the senior authors … I always say ‘is there someone else you could recommend who is a woman, or someone who is in a community of color’”
Lena Sun (52’19”), “.. headlines are really tough … the purpose of the headline is to make you stop and click on that story … you’re constantly trying to find a way for it to get your attention … and to be accurate …”
Peter Prengaman (53’55”), “… at AP we are a little unique in that we put content out to other businesses … when editors look at it from different newspapers, they can and sometimes do… make changes to headlines to fit … their needs … those are harder to fight against …”
The last two points are, perhaps, inherent to any sort of human reporting, where multiple interests are at play. However, the first three represent, to me, an example of a political manipulation of the way that science can be reported.
Takeaways
Political reporting of science can be dangerous, as we saw in the current pandemic, where consequential opinions were censored from public view (and even scientific discussion) in order to fit a political narrative. However, there is also a highly effective mitigation - critical evaluation (by readers) of the content that they read.
The breezy self-confidence of the reporters is more annoying than their lack of science knowledge.