More value given to scientific reporting

Financial Times Science Editor Clive Cookson found that the quality of scientific journalism improved when researchers became aware that working with journalists is important if the public is to gain a better understanding of the science.

By Fábio de Castro

Agência FAPESP – A Science Editor for the Financial Times for two decades, British journalist Clive Cookson believes that science is becoming more accessible to and valued by the public as a result of an increased focus on detailed, accurate journalistic coverage.

Cookson says that this transformation is due in part to new technologies that have made journalists’ work easier in recent years. But the main reason that science news has been improving, he observes, is that scientists are beginning to change their attitudes as they realize the importance of communicating their findings.

Cookson, who has worked for over 30 years covering science and technology topics in many countries, media outlets and contexts, participated in the “Science and Media” seminar held by FAPESP on April 16 at its headquarters in São Paulo.

The event sought to encourage those involved in the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge to reflect on ways to create spaces for the exchange of knowledge and to propose new ways to disseminate scientific information. In an exclusive interview with FAPESP, Cookson commented on these endeavors.

Agência FAPESP – You have 30 years of experience with scientific journalism. In your view, how has scientific journalism evolved during this time?
Clive Cookson – Even though there are many science blogs and sites, people still get most of their information about what’s happening in the scientific world via traditional media: newspapers, magazines, TV and radio. Therefore, scientists communicate with the public through these channels, which aren’t specialized in science. This is not a trivial relationship. But I’m very optimistic because, having 30 years of experience, I can see that scientists are getting much better at communicating with the media.

Agência FAPESP – How have scientists’ perspectives about their relationship with the media changed?
Clive Cookson – They are becoming much more proactive, more open. They have lost their fear of talking to reporters. It’s a very big change, if you look at the situation from a long-term perspective. And I believe that it’s happening everywhere, to a certain degree. Here, in Brazil, I have noticed that scientists are very open.

Agência FAPESP – What could the reason be for this change?
Clive Cookson – Scientists have realized—certainly in the United States and Europe but, I believe, in Brazil as well—that the better communicators they are, the more likely they are to get public investment and funding for their research. In Great Britain, the research councils explicitly include communication of results as one of the important criteria for obtaining investment. In general, we can say that one has an easier time getting funding if one is prepared to communicate. This is true for individual researchers but also on a broader scale: researchers know that science as a whole will have more public support if scientists spend a little time and make the effort to talk with journalists. 

Agência FAPESP – Aside from these changes in the scientific community, has there also been an evolution in the media? Has journalism improved?
Clive Cookson – There has been improvement, but nothing that justifies a huge leap in trust on the part of researchers toward journalists. The quality of the journalism has improved, but I don’t think this happened because the journalists got better. What happened is that it has become much easier to write an article about science now that we have access to scientific articles on the Internet, can get comments via email and things like that. When I started out in the profession, if we wanted to have access to an article, we had to go to the library. And to get a simple commentary, we had to get very lucky and catch the researchers on the phone at the right time.

Agência FAPESP – In Brazil, science journalists frequently hold a journalism degree but not a scientific degree. Is it the same with reporters in England?
Clive Cookson – It’s a mix in England. Most scientific journalists hold a scientific degree. I have a degree in chemistry, for example. But there are other great scientific journalists with backgrounds in the arts or humanities who later began working with science and felt called to the field. I think there are pros and cons in both cases.

Agência FAPESP – If you had to hire a reporter, would you rather hire an individual with a scientific degree who writes well but has no previous journalism experience or someone who is a capable and talented journalist but has no scientific involvement and no experience in scientific journalism?
Clive Cookson – If I needed this person to do a report on science for a newspaper, for example, I wouldn’t hesitate: I would choose the journalist with reporting experience instead of the scientist. I think the capacity to be a good journalist really is the most important factor. It doesn’t help to be a good scientist who writes correctly, because science really does require different text, text that’s vivid. I prefer an excellent journalist over an excellent scientist to do that.

Agência FAPESP – Has the public’s perception of the importance of science also changed?
Clive Cookson – My impression is that the general public’s knowledge about science has improved, yes, though not enough. But I think that, in general, the population today is more literate about science than it was a few years ago. People have more familiarity with the central topics and terms used by the scientific world. The Internet has contributed to this to a certain degree, but I don’t know if there is much potential for further improvement because there is a lot of noise and incorrect information on the Internet as well. 

Agência FAPESP – Journalists try to make science more attractive to the public. At the same time, they tend only to publicize success stories, leaving the process of scientific production in the background. Doesn’t this run the risk of mystifying science in the public mind?
Clive Cookson – You are completely right; this is an absolutely fundamental problem in the relationship between journalism and science. There isn’t time or space in the news to describe all the steps of scientific production—to show the public that it’s not magic but a difficult process; to show the difficulties and momentary weaknesses. What makes the situation worse is that even if you publish about quality research in prestigious magazines, those scientific articles won’t give clues to the processes that science follows either. You will manage to give the public a scientific education only if you can follow the work in the laboratory for months at a time. Normally, this is impossible. 

Agência FAPESP – And aside from this, the failures are rarely published; isn’t that true?
Clive Cookson – Yes, that’s the other question. Publishing, especially in the health field, usually shows only the positive results. Negative results almost never receive attention in publications. We have to address this so that we don’t give the impression that science is made only of wins.

Agência FAPESP – When you report the results of a new study, it can be difficult to get comments about the findings from other scientists because many times they say they have never seen the article. How do you deal with this situation?
Clive Cookson – It’s an extremely difficult situation, in the first place because scientists usually won’t recommend competitors working in the same field who could contribute a comment. Aside from this, it’s usually hard to get a comment on an article that’s just come out and that’s hardly been read by anyone. In England, we have an organization that’s very useful in this way for journalists from the health field: the Science Media Centre.

Agência FAPESP – How does it work?
Clive Cookson – This service was created exactly 10 years ago. It brings together scientists who work as if they were advisors to the press. They take any study and evaluate whether it’s controversial or interesting enough to deserve a headline. Then, we use their contacts, who are available to give high quality commentaries. I think the Science Media Centre  does more than any other institution to improve scientific journalism in England. They have excellent databases and an incredible list of specialized contacts. It is very efficient.

Agência FAPESP – Many people consider science reporters to be translators, converting a specialized language into a common-sense language. What do you think of this analogy?
Clive Cookson – Part of what we do can be seen as a type of translation, but I hope that our work is something more creative and complex than this. I think journalists are capable of presenting new ways of looking at science that the scientists themselves can’t provide. It’s something more than simply translation. We can generate images—comparisons that scientists wouldn’t conceive of. It’s not just a question of simplifying a language but of providing a new interpretation of ideas, contexts and views. And even in the field of language, I think this work surpasses simple translation: we should be authors capable of making knowledge more vivid, more interesting to the public.  

Agência FAPESP – How did your career evolve? What made you interested in science?
Clive Cookson – I was always interested in science and earned a degree in Chemistry at the University of Oxford. But two factors changed the direction of my career. One was that I perceived that scientific journalism in England wasn’t good. At the same time, I realized that I wasn’t brilliant enough to do a good doctorate in chemistry. I knew that if it wasn’t brilliant, a doctorate in chemistry could turn into something very un-creative, something that would be laborious for an advisor. I knew that I really wasn’t good enough to become a great scientist. But I realized that I could write well about science.

Agência FAPESP – And how did you begin your career as a journalist?
Clive Cookson – I was accepted into a training program at a local newspaper in London. After two years, I had the opportunity to go to Washington, in the United States, for four years and write for the Higher Education supplement of The Times. It was a fantastic experience; I wrote about the North American universities and research institutions. Afterwards, I came back to London to become the technology reporter for the Times. I began to work at BBC radio in the 1980s as a health correspondent. And from there, I went to the Financial Times, where I’ve been the science editor for the past 20 years.