The appliance of science

Cahal Milmo explains why it is unreasonable of scientists to expect the media to do their job for them

Scientists have been known to throw up their hands in despair when careful years of research are translated into lurid tabloid headlines. Rows over genetically modified foods, cloning and vaccinations have led many to blame the press for a growing scepticism of science among the public.

But last week, Pallab Ghosh, the BBC's science correspondent, walked into the scientists' den to warn them that they were doing science a disservice by stifling public debate on controversial research and by trying to control newsgathering. At a festival of science in Cheltenham, he delivered an uncompromising defence of journalists' role in analysing the leaps and bounds of global science. While the media are sometimes guilty of getting it wrong, he says, scientists are too ready to blame journalists for their own communication failures.

Ghosh suggests that, in the worst cases, medical charities are puffing up research to gain newspaper coverage, and hi-tech companies are exaggerating findings to push up their share price. And even when journalists genuinely do get things wrong, what scientists need to do, he says, is argue their case.

Concern among scientists does appear to be widespread. A coalition of august bodies – the Royal Society, the Royal Institution and the Social Issues Research Centre – recently attempted to impose a code of practice on science journalists. But the guidelines, aimed at raising perceived low standards in health and science reporting in some quarters, were quietly dropped by the Royal Society this month after they caused uproar among journalists.

Ghosh, the chairman of the Association of British Science Writers, says: "The guidelines were patronising and unnecessary and ultimately lacked credibility. It was clear from the start that they would go down like a cup of cold sick."

But that does not mean that there are no problems. There are clear cases of the science media bandwagon heading off in the wrong direction. Ghosh questions, for example, the prominence given to the research of Dr Arpad Pusztai, who suggested that GM foods could stunt growth, research that was later criticised by his peers. But, he argues, science needs to engage more fully in the debate about issues from GM to BSE instead of retreating into a state of injured frustration like a "petulant footballer who has been wrongly booked".

Ghosh says that the public is far more scientifically literate than it used to be and, disillusioned by débâcles of the recent past such as BSE, it relies on journalists to question scientists. "These are not exclusively scientific issues. The reporting of research into genetically modified crops triggered a national debate, which the scientific community could not see," he says. "It acts like an indulgent parent with a difficult child. We have a society where people are concerned about these issues and have the intelligence to debate them. The media report on these things and scientists have to expect awkward questions."

The Prime Minister recently suggested that disruption caused by animal-rights protesters and campaigners against GM crops could lead to Britain being overtaken by the developing world.

But blaming animal-rights activists and campaigners pulling up fields of GM crops for the malaise in British science is missing the point, according to Ghosh. "They are not the people who are enabling India or anyone else to leapfrog over us. The fact is, we have far fewer people studying science and becoming scientists."

Ghosh, who has a degree in physics, says he believes that scientists cannot expect journalists to act as the unquestioning "cheerleaders" of everything done in the nation's laboratories.

Highlighting grumbles about reporting of issues such as GM foods or embryo research, he says the media are not the scientific community's propaganda tool. "Our job is to question, for example, whether it's right to reduce the moral status of the embryo in order to find new cures and make money. Or whether we want or need the so-called benefits of GM crops in return for loss of control of our food supply. Our job is to reflect the debate that's going on both within science and a wider society." And scientists need to remember that.