Journalism or Communication? Wrong Question
A call to unite against a horde of common enemies
Hi there! This is TITLE-ABS-KEY(“science journalism“), a newsletter about science journalism research. In the previous issue, I mused on what happens when you let machines decide what’s newsworthy (and how computer scientists imagine journalism).
This time, I am going back to the definitional question of science journalism vs science communication: do we need to keep these separate? Does one (scicomm) include the other (science journalism)? I’ve been a part of both professional communities for a while now, and this is invariably the question that sends a panel on the stage into uncomfortable giggles and/or some very charged statements.
Today’s paper: Fisher, R. (2022). The translator versus the critic: A flawed dichotomy in the age of misinformation. Public Understanding of Science, 31(3), 273-281. DOI: 10.1177/09636625221087316.
Why: It’s a classic “two professionals, three opinions“ question, i.e. it can be hard to agree on pretty much anything here, so I never miss a discussion. Also, hat tip to SciCommBites for putting this essay on my radar.
Abstract: The digital age creates new challenges for journalists and science communicators that threaten to undermine their shared goals of providing trustworthy content to audiences. To tackle 21st Century problems such as misinformation, falls in public trust and the diversity of online sources, the traditional models of journalism and sci-comm need to adapt, expanding their approaches and ethics to a new information environment.
Now, before I start, it’s worth pointing out that not only is Richard Fisher a science journalist at the BBC and a former Knight Fellow at MIT, but he also has a Substack newsletter about long-term thinking and a book on this subject that came out in March 2023. Really impressive productivity that also makes me anxious about having to publish my own papers (if not a book; the fellowship I have sorted out already).
I take his argument in the abstract to be a pertinent one: instead of bickering over definitions and classifications, both science journalists and science communicators desperately need to catch up with reality. Short, sweet — I can really tell the author is used to writing nut grafs.
Fisher starts his essay with a recollection of a rather famous 2009 incident with Darwin at New Scientist (here’s the controversial feature itself and a recap with some analysis from SciAm). I say it’s rather famous because in 2009, I was a first year graduate student in Moscow still really determined to become an investment banker. I wasn’t following the science journalism discourse back then and yet I know this story from my learning on the job.
Fisher was at New Scientist back then, and he describes the backlash from researchers accusing the magazine of helping further false arguments about evolution, in particular pushed by the intelligent design movement in the US. (Those grand old times when we were worried about “teaching the controversy“ seem so benign these days.) Here’s his description of the thinking behind that feature story:
I was not directly involved in the decision-making at New Scientist for this feature, working in a different department, but I was aware of the broader journalistic principles in which it was rooted. The editors pointed out that the article itself faithfully conveyed an area of legitimate scientific discussion about the tree of life, and to any reader, it would be clear that Darwin’s overall theory of evolution remained unassailable. As journalists, it was also not seen as the magazine’s role to serve as ‘educators’ of the public about the broader details of Darwin’s theories, nor to act as campaigners in a political debate. The editors had confidence that New Scientist’s audience was evidence-based in their outlook, and therefore fears that people would take the cover at face value were unwarranted. If the cover did use provocative language to attract attention, then so be it: after all, the business relied on newsstand sales to help support its journalism. The cover’s purpose was only to encourage people to buy the issue, engaging with new ideas emerging within science. Finally, the news editors had, in other issues, already published several articles about the tactics of the intelligent design movement.
In the Russian version of this newsletter, I just wrote about unhelpful science journalism, using the BMJ story on Pfizer vaccine trials as one of the cases, and I can’t help but notice how similar the journalistic lines of this argument are in 2021. Except, of course, the reality is wildly different: in 2009, Twitter had just scored Oprah and won a ‘breakout of the year‘ award.
Fisher, however, does not get to these comparisons just yet; for him, the New Scientist controversy is a self-contained example of a clash between two apparently competing worldviews on how science should be communicated, and how each one was, and still is, grappling with the realities of a new media environment. He sees ‘communicators,’ seeking to educate the public, and ‘journalists,’ seeking to scrutinise the findings and workings of science, at odds in some sensitive cases — this is generally what a good faith conversation between panelists can get to after they are done giggling. And then he decides to look at what has happened since to both models in a wildly different reality.
First, he defines the models in question:
The traditional model of sci-comm is that of a translator, messenger or explainer. This pedagogical approach focuses on a ‘deficit’ model, where supposed gaps are filled in the audience’s knowledge, improving overall literacy and understanding about science and the way the world works;By contrast, the practitioners of science journalism often frame their role as being questioners, critics or impartial observers. This view holds that values of independence, balance, objectivity and freedom from vested interests – practised in other realms of journalism, such as politics or business – should also be brought to bear on science. A core purpose of science journalism, from this vantage point, is to hold science to account, expose wrong-doing, articulate dangers and highlight political implications.
Interestingly, Fisher then points to more recent alternative models of science journalism, such as engaged journalism — but does not really acknowledge that science communication has moved beyond the deficit model too. There are legitimate questions over how far it has really moved to dialogue and/or participation in practice, but the thinking is certainly there.
In any case, the next point still holds I think: in a new information environment, effectively without any kind of monopoly on mass communication, the dichotomy does not work, although I wish we got into more detail on why exactly science journalists cannot any longer simply define themselves as critics and impartial observers. For instance, could it be that impartiality had been a fraught concept all along and the digital era exposed the inconvenient fact that journalism is also a human-political endeavour, just as science is? Or could it also be that journalism became much more vulnerable to organized attacks from those with an interest in undermining it? (Probably a little bit of both as well as many other reasons).
As for science communicators, who may find the pedagogical approach falls short when attention is scarce, I’m also not quite happy with the brevity here. It’s not just the scarcity of attention, to me; it’s aaaaalllll the reasons why the deficit model is now considered obsolete plus the same issues of organized attacks on the credibility of science.
Fisher goes on to describe four particular challenges that both scicomm and science journalism are facing.
False balance: Here at the very top, I enjoyed a quote from Sharon Dunwoody where she very eloquently draws and explains the distinction between validity and accuracy that arises in complex issues where the journalist “cannot declare what is most likely to be true.“ It’s a distinction that is easily missed in conversations on journalistic responsibility: is it about claims being supported by evidence or about the “goodness of fit between what a source says and what a journalist presents”?
Leading with the example of climate change, where false balance, i.e. giving undue weight to minority or pseudoscientific opinions, has arguably done a lot of damage, Fisher nails the point I think. Delimiting legitimate controversy, where journalists as critics are supposed to work, was quite hard even before we had actors of all kinds profiting from controversy and/or determined to “reframe controversial political issues as ones of consensus or deviance” (the example in the essay is Extinction Rebellion, but I’ll refrain from delving into this here as climate comms is what I do, so there is a clear conflict of interest.) Now it’s a damn wildfire.
Context collapse: This is about the digital space making weaponized cherry-picking, and stripping ideas of their crucial context for your own purposes, really easy, really cheap and really effective. Not much to add except this is, ironically, where we get some important context about the New Scientist case: as a UK magazine with minimal US presence, they truly had no intention to reach the American audiences and could not conceivably factor in the US intelligent design activists and their intentions. Yet in the age of Internet, nothing is truly local anymore.
The peer-review problem: This is more interesting I’d say, because even though Fisher doesn’t seem to go there explicitly, this issue sits at the overlap between even the most traditional views of science journalism and scicomm.
Take the politicians’ favoured phrase ‘we’ll be led by the science,’ which Fisher brings up in the COVID-19 context, of course. Science communicators take ‘the science’ there as something to be translated and delivered to the audiences; science journalists are geared to identify and report the messiness in legitimate controversy, but there is still a core ‘consensus’ area which is not supposed to be controversial and which journalists have to accept (after reporting and fact checking) because it’s about established facts.
Yet with the pandemic, we all saw the fact sausage in the making because, as Fisher puts it, we experienced science at its frontiers — scientists were literally mining the world for policy relevant knowledge around us, in real time and under a lot of pressure (not to mention lockdown constraints and their own risk of getting COVID).
I imagine it’s a bit like looking at a satellite video of a hurricane and standing near one. In this situation, whether you are an explainer or a questioner, you may be blown away. (And of course, seeing the “border of the hurricane”, i.e. where consensus ends and legitimate controversy starts, is not any easier from the ground).
The oxygen of amplification: This is yet another common problem brought about by the digital environment and a much larger and more diverse disinformation market. It’s not just the tobacco or oil and gas companies anymore, rejoice! (not). Using the great example of a frankly bonkers idea — drinking bleach to cure COVID — Fisher explains how debunking it, which is what both science communicators and science journalists like to do, can actually help it trade up the chain all the way to the White House.
I really like this example because I can confidently say that, in 2010, when I just started as a newswire reporter, this would be the kind of abject nonsense that even our general newsroom editors, normally eager not to miss out on traffic and views, would quickly dismiss. And in most cases, this would break the chain of amplification. But I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore :(
In conclusion, Fisher once again goes through the ways in which these challenges interfere with the traditional models of science communication and science journalism he described. There’s no question addressing them is urgent. And then comes his call to action:
Science communicators and science journalists sometimes like to point out their differences. Incidents like New Scientist’s Darwin Was Wrong controversy only entrench each tribe in the belief that their own approach is the one true route to communicating or reporting science to the general public. But in the digital setting they all now operate, where a post-truth age of misinformation looms, it would be prudent to focus much more on shared values and how to adapt to the realities of a wholly different media environment.
Right, I think this essay was somewhat light on the how, i.e. what to do with all of this, but it can work as a rallying cry to put aside the differences, at least until we’ve got more clarity on the how. It’s also an alternative way of tackling the “scicomm vs scijour“ question. My students and I tend to differentiate these via primary beneficiaries, i.e. whose interests the work serves first and foremost; Fisher’s approach would be deflecting, yes, but into a much more pragmatic discussion of reality rather than theory.
That’s it! If you enjoyed this issue, let me know. If you also have opinions on science journalism research or would like to suggest a paper for me to read in one of the next issues, you can leave a comment or just respond to the email.
Cheers! 👩🔬🗞