Source: Tarrytown Meetings, YouTube, Center for Genetics and Society
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyjsUu-_BvQ
Date: 24/07/2012
Event: Connie St. Louis: use the media "as your tool" to "change policies"
Credit: Tarrytown Meetings, Center for Genetics and Society
People:
[Connie St Louis, Director of City University's Science Journalism MA, provides reflections on "Communications for a New Biopolitics" at Tarrytown Meetings, 23-25 July, 2012.]
Connie St. Louis: So my comments come to you, not as a communicator but as a journalist. And anybody who knows me knows I live and breathe journalism. And so I put my journalist's hat on, unashamedly, to you. I think we've had some really interesting - and you've been able to do some really interesting work about framing and your values, and I think [break in the recording] - for their science and for everything else. So, whilst it's important - I'm not taking anything away from advocacy groups and talking to policy-makers - the media is incredibly powerful - please do not ignore it, and please learn how to use it as your tool. And so in the UK, where I exist most of the time - I've done a lot of stuff over in the States, as well - you can change policies by using the media really well. Because the politicians are really scared of the media. So if you want to shift attitudes, think about the media more, and don't be frightened of it.
Um, and so I - I want to just talk about where the media get their stories, and a lot of you are academics, in the room, so you write things. And the media are looking at what you write. So you publish things, you publish your blogs, you do what Jonathan said yesterday, you distil it into ordinary media, and people are looking at those kinds of stories, and you need to make sure that the stuff that you're writing is out there.
The second thing you need is your facts and your figures, which Jane just said. Make sure that you've got the research behind you, because we love figures and it's really important. Um, the other thing that I think you're missing is the "follow the money". Um, so there are two things in journalism, we say: "if it leads, it bleeds" [sic], "follow the money", okay? And none of you have talked in terms about money. How much money is being spent on this? Who is spending the money? What are - I was talking to a guy called Tim yesterday, who's looking a little bit at this, but you need to do more. Where are the conflicts of interest? Who is funding who? Who is looking at what? Um, because when you start to put these stories out into the media, they are - these are the stories the media care about it, care about.
You may have seen ProPublica recently, looking at the funding of doctors in this country - hugely important website that they've looking at who's funding and who's giving the doctors money. Very important, so it's incredibly, um, strategic for you to think about where the money is going. And you're going to have to dig a little bit, because a lot of people don't want to show you where the money's going. But if you can start to find out where the money is going, you then start to find stories that the media is interested in.
So the other thing that I would encourage you to do is a really complicated issue. And you all have your little bits that you're really interested in but you have to learn to keep your bit very simple. Keep it stupi- Keep It Simple, Stupid - KISS. Keep it simple, so that your media can get a hold of it. And you say "Oh, for goodness sake, Connie, you don't understand the nuances and the complications of what I'm saying". They don't care. They do care about a simple message, that is backed by figures and accuracy and all those kind of things. So that's, that's what you have to bring. And you have to give a little, you have to go into a negotiation of how much complexity that you can, you can pass on.
So, if the NIH is funding a whole pile of unregulated synthetic biology, how much money is the NIH funding? How much - how little regulation is there? Those are the facts that you go with, and you just tell that simple story. I love storytelling, because that's what journalism is about, and so you have to learn to tell stories. Um, the media's not interested in campaigns, because the media itself likes to think of itself as a campaign, but it's really interested in stories about people's lives.
So, we were talking about some really wonderful stories, on our table, about what happens to women when they are trying to produce eggs, what happens to eggs when you get older, just real stories, because those are the connections that you make with people and with their lives. So keep remembering to find the human interest stories, the stories that make a real difference, the things that will draw people to the page.
And finally, perhaps a little more controversially, I want to talk about the way that science is being used and is used here, and I find this really, really interesting, because um, I think you have a bigger problem in the States, where your science has been, sort of, um, delineated into a right-wing kind of - the stem-cell people are making people sceptical about science. I think you have to be smarter about the way that you use and ask for regulation of science, because you do need to ask. And I was - I was talking to Gina yesterday and I can't count - we couldn't count, I think Gina said it was about four times that people said "We must not touch science", "We must not criticise science".
That cannot be a frame that you're working in. You've got to find a more sophisticated frame to work with. And the frame is this. The frame is very simple. Okay? The scientists regulate themselves - should they be allowed to? "Trust me, I'm a scientist". I am a scientist, actually, and I wouldn't ask you ever to trust me, if I was doing this research, I would be asking you to look externally at what I was doing. And I - so you've got to think, because a lot of the technologies that you're talking about are based with people, scientists doing the science.
I'm going to talk about this a bit later this afternoon, but I was at a conference last week in Dublin, and I was at a press conference with Craig Venter. And I was sitting talking to Craig Venter, and I asked him one question. And I knew it was the right question to ask because in the media, I know what the nuances around scientists are. You may not, or some of you may have not seen the - there's a very fabulous blog called Retraction Watch, which I would encourage you all to look at. And Retraction Watch does a very simple thing - it's set up by a friend of mine called Ivan Oransky, and he simply counts the number of times a blog, a piece of science work, has been retracted. And he uses this as a window on science. So all he does is every time there's a retraction on the net or on the - in the journals, he writes about it.
And by doing this for a few years, you can see that the number of retractions is escalating. Scientists are cheating. We know that scientists cheat. Do we? Yeah, because they're human beings. But actually, scientists don't want you to know that, science wants - science wants you to trust them. They're telling you "Trust me, trust me". Somebody just sits there and counts the number of times a scientist cheats. It's a brilliant piece of reporting. Very simple.
So I'm sitting there with Craig Venter. And I say to him "So, Craig, can you tell me how many times somebody in your lab has performed any scientific misconduct?" And all of the science journalists in the room look at me as if I've lost my mind. Because I'm sitting there and I'm asking Craig Venter about misconduct. And they think "Does she not know who he is?" "Does she not know who he's discovered [?]" "Does she not know how much money he's earned?" And - and I don't care, because that's the most important thing to be asking Craig Venter. 'Cause you have to find the clink [sic] in his armour. And the armour is there. Scientists are cheating - not all scientists, I'm not saying, you know, don't run away thinking I'm anti-science - remember I'm a scientist, so trust me. Um... [Audience laughter.] Just, just remember, that there is - there are things going on out there, and you need to learn to piggyback on some of that stuff.
So I asked the question "How much misconduct has there been?" And he looks at me. "We've had ethical approval". And this is his answer, he gives me that answer for three minutes, and later on I'm going to play the answer to the next session I'm doing. And then the - then he goes on and then he eventually - and I say to him "So tell me about the misconduct in your lab". And he says "We've had some financial misconduct". And I think "Yes!" There's a clink. There's the clink in his armour. I'm sitting in a room full of about a hundred journalists, and science - in that room, Craig Venter says there has been financial misconduct. He doesn't say what it is, and he says "I don't want to talk to you any more about this". [Audience laughter.] Which is great. Course he doesn't, 'cause I'm recording it and he's full of [sic] a room full of journalists.
And then the next question - wait for it, 'cause this is not how journalists should behave, but there's something odd about science journalists - is "Er, Craig, when you looked at the picture of the synthetic picture of the bacteria, er, how did you know that it was alpha-gamma-something di-da-di-da-di-da?" Let me show off my science knowledge to you, Craig Venter. And I think "Somebody's going to pick this question up", because that's what journalists do, they pick up a question. When there's a glint, they pick it up and they work in the room. Nobody picks it up. Next person: "It's an amazing piece of research you've done, there". And on and on we go, with this whole thing, and I'm thinking "Nobody's going to ask him. He's not going to let me ask him another question, but surely..."
It's quite a big story, that he tells me that there is financial misconduct, because "follow the money". Journalists, follow the money. And we need to learn to do that, we need to learn, in this area that we are really interested in, to find subtle and different ways of finding, of raising the profile of this stuff. Because sure as eggs is eggs, if you can demonstrate these things in subtle ways, then your public, the people that you're trying to reach, will suddenly think "Ah, we can't trust them, even though they're scientists". Thank you. [Audience applause.]