Goldacre vs Drayson: RI, Weds 16 Sept

Ben Goldacre and Science Minister Lord Drayson are squaring off for a debate on the state of science reporting by the UK media, at the RI on Weds 16 Sept (1900-2030h). The event is fully booked, but they are taking stand-bys (click here for details).

Goldacre (for any who have not come across him?) is the author of Bad Science, the Guardian column and now book commenting on examples ranging from lazy churnalism to claims of alternative-therapy quackery. Many of the failings of science reporting that he highlights are symptoms of a generic decline in standards of journalism (nicely covered by Nick Davies in his book "Flat Earth News"). There are also particular problems when non-science specialists cover science stories, as they tend to equate opinion with evidence.

That said, the UK's specialist science journalists (who are a diminishing population) generally do a good job, day-in day-out. But I suppose a column often entitled "Mostly right science" wouldn't attract many readers. And as an anecdotal observation from training courses, the "Goldacre effect" (a resulting impression that all journalists are useless) does seem to put some scientists off interacting with the media about their work, which is unfortunate.

So there I was marshalling these reasoned thoughts in some defence of the media - when I came across this utter shite in the Daily Telegraph:

Can psychics be good for your health?

...and could only despair! It's not just the uncritical treatment of the subject in this example, and failure to ask the most obvious questions in the minds of readers, but the simple misreporting of basic yet important facts, such as the NHS involvement in the project.

Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater, however, or damn all journalists by association. Specialist science journalists get things right most of the time. And they try hard to make that all of the time. That's pretty much the point that Lord Drayson made when he spoke to the World Congress of Science Journalists in London earlier this summer, which prompted the debate with Goldacre.

But there are admittedly some deficiencies in how all media work. The job of a newspaper editor is to sell newspapers, which can lead to selective presentation of facts rather than balanced reporting. Dare I suggest it, erm, rather like cherrypicking journalism's failures to sell an entertaining book? :)