October 27, 2005
The Journalism of Science
It Ain't Necessarily So made a case for the uncanny ability of Journalists to be absolutists. That's fine, but when reporters try to report on scientific statistic--which is by no means absolute--they run into a problem: the facts become misleading. The irony of this situation is: the objectiveness of the news becomes compromised by being objective.
The conventions of research lend themselves to being convoluted and based tremendously in context. For example, if you've browsed journal databases, you may find the abstracts that come up read something like, "study on the effects of aspirin on pregnant women age 20-35 in Belgium (1980)." Although the example is made up, it shows the preciseness and context of a research study.
There are too many variables that can have a severe impact on the accuracy of the research. Therefore, researchers must limit the sample based on which variables they wish to consider. This limit puts the study in a certain context. The context of our example would be pregnant women age 20-35 in Belgium during the 1980s.
The problem occurs when the relatively subjective work of researchers is published through the objective paradigms of reporters. There is nothing wrong with reporters being objective. Crime stories, articles on the campaign trail, and natural disasters need to be reported objectively without much consideration for issues of race, gender, class, age, etc.
However, in the research world, these can all be variables which affect the methods of research and the scope of research. That being said, when reporters remove these variables from the statistics in fear of being biased, they damn themselves in terms of accuracy and clarity. By removing the details of the sample the researcher selected, they have--as the book said--"made a journalistic mountain out of a research molehill."
If a reporter were to take a statistic from our example, say, 1 out of 3 women in the study experienced a miscarriage while taking aspirin (made up statistic), and removed the context, it would sound like every woman would be affected by this. We know better because the make-believe researcher only studied women age 20-35 in Belgium during the 1980s.
Although there is a possibility that this could affect every culture and age the same throughout time, we don't know because it hasn't been proven by research. Thus, we see a clash of conventions. The reporter wasn't overtly lying; however, the information that she gave was not put in context and has the potential to be misleading.
Posted by EvanReynolds at October 27, 2005 7:43 PM
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Comments
In Chapter 2, which is what I am assuming that you are writing on, there is absolutely a number of variables to be considered when given a scientific fact. The amount of testing, whether the testing was equal to both sides, and what types of testing should all be considered before being thrown into a particular news story. One thing to note Evan, is that when a journalist is unbiased, not only does it keep them out of trouble, but it usually supplies the highest amount of important and accurate facts. Objectivity is absolutely crucial to a journalist, and a scientist too. In the one example about sperm counts, (which was also in my presentation), over 88% of the testing that was completed was done in one era. Almost 90%! That is absolutely ridiculous because not only is the scientist considered to be inaccurate now, but the journalists has now scared the entire population, and has completely given unbiased research. Here’s what it said in Chapter 2:
“Of still greater importance, it is hard to generalize from study samples the entire mature male population. Getting your sperm counted isn’t like getting your blood tested, which almost everyone does routinely.” (Page 44).
This is clearly one of those variables that need to be considered before being placed into an article. I don’t think that scaring people, unless 100% well known, is really good for a business. Last time I checked, you want to inform a reader with good facts, not scare the crap out of them with flimsy research. I understand that journalists are not scientists, and I also understand that they have deadlines, but they still should take more time to get their facts straight, and make sure that the variables considered are fair and unbiased.
Let me know what you think, and check out my blog.
Posted by: Jason Pugh at November 10, 2005 7:00 PM