Every one of us knows someone who claims they were misquoted, or who is afraid to talk to reporters out of fear that their work will be taken out of context or somehow misconstrued. Certainly caution before speaking publicly is important, but the public’s misunderstandings about science will only grow if scientists avoid their role as sources of knowledge and explanations.
As a health and science reporter, I was constantly seeking scientists who not only were doing interesting work themselves, but also closely followed the work of other scientific leaders. When writing about neuroscience or any other medical topic, the experts I quoted needed to be:
- scientists whose peer-reviewed work was related to the topic about which I was writing;
- individuals who knew the difference between talking to scientific peers and chatting with their neighbors about something exciting;
- people who believed that the public not only has a right to know what scientists are studying with public funds but also will gain understanding and other value from such information.
Now that I am on the other side of the fence, as a public relations consultant working with scientists and corporations on healthcare and science issues, I am getting a new view of the gap between the media and scientists. One thing that has become crystal clear to me is that the most frequent media “mistakes” as perceived by scientists could be averted if they approached an interview a bit differently.
Preparation Is Key
For example, after weeks of working with one very senior biologist, helping him understand how to boil-down his work into three or four “key messages,” both of us were frustrated when one of the first news clips about his work misstated the affiliation of his laboratory. Of course the reporter, in this case a very junior reporter at a college publication, was responsible for the error. But had the scientist used his “key messages” during the interview, the affiliation would have been clear, since that was one of the key points we wanted to get across.
Other times I have seen scientists frustrated at how little a reporter understands about their work-or vice versa. Few things were more annoying to me as a reporter than a scientist who lectured me about a topic on which I had been writing for a decade. No, my skills and understanding did not qualify me to treat patients or conduct laboratory studies. But I did have a clear understanding of scientific methods and a pretty good sense of current research in the topics that I regularly covered.
What this all means for neurosurgeons is that spending a few minutes, or longer if possible, to prepare before doing an interview is most likely to yield favorable results. A few simple things to keep in mind if a reporter ever calls:
- Find out how much the reporter knows about science and your work.
- Identify your goal for the interview-what message do you want to get across?
- Prepare for likely questions, including those touchy questions that you may dread.
Putting this into action means anticipating what reporters are interested in-and identifying how best to relate your work or your knowledge to the journalists’ audience. If you get a call from New Scientist, you are going to get a different series of questions than when you get a call from the
Chicago Tribune, even if the reporters asking the questions have similar levels of scientific understanding. Think more about the reporters’ audience than the reporters themselves, keeping in mind that translating neuro-speak into layman’s terms is good communication, not “dumbing down” the work. And remember: Journalists are looking for quotes, not only information.
Interacting with the media is not always a part of science, but helping the public understand what science is all about is crucial to continued support of basic and applied research. The more that scientiststake their public information role seriously, the more likely we are to have adequate public funding, support from commercial interests, and long-term scientific capabilities. There’s no need to be afraid of the media. The right combination of caution and preparation is all that’s needed to bridge the gap safely.
Doug Levy is a vice president at Fleishman-Hillard public relations in San Francisco. He covered health, science and technology for USA Today from 1993-1999, and previously was science editor for United Press International and part of the public affairs team at The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. He studied science journalism at Northwestern University and has a law degree from the University of Maryland.