There is something I have to agree with Ben on this topic here,
Any good journalist would spend time to research the subject to see if there are any other studies to back up the claims and not just rely soley on press releases.
Also many journalists do take the time to contact the scientists to interview them and get more information depending on the angle they want to make for their news articles.
That was my 2 pennies worth,
Sotira
www.sciencenewspaper.eu
--- On Sat, 21/3/09, Ben Goldacre <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Ben Goldacre <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] Ben Goldacre shoots the messenger again
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Saturday, 21 March, 2009, 3:07 PM
##apologies, my last message was garbled formatting, this shld be clearer ###
Hi Bob Ward.
" # I see that Ben Goldacre has yet again aimed at the
wrong target in his 'Bad Science' column in today's edition of 'The
Guardian'"
Oh hang on, but the last time you accused me of this you were simply… wrong…
http://www.badscience.net/2009/01/the-telegraph-misrepresent-a-scientists-work-on-climate-and-then-refuse-to-correct-it-when-he-writes-to-them/
I said that the telegraph had invented a claim that greenhouses gases could
cause an ice age. You said the Telegraph simply repeated this error from the
press release. But this error did not occur in the press release. This was
therefore such a pointless and baffling discussion that I’m a bit reluctant
to get involved in another one with you.
# , blaming science and medical journalists for poor
coverage of a journal paper published this week on the success or otherwise
of screening tests for prostate cancer. He also called out the coverage by
'The Guardian' on his website, but the newspaper's subs clearly couldn't
stomach the criticism of his paymasters and edited it out before publication
(assuming that Ben didn't censor it himself).
They took it out, fair enough, up to them, it was a bit long I suppose.
# But the point is that all the problems about which he
complains seem to have arisen from the media release that was distributed by
the European Association of Urology and posted on AlphaGalileo, rather than
from sloppy reading of the source, a paper published in the 18 March issue
of 'The New England Journal of Medicine'.
So the story came from one press release? Journalists are just parrot
mouthpieces? Then they should link to the press releases, and tell us that.
There were lots of press releases on that subject, though, including many
sensible ones (and even some fairly accurate coverage from news agencies, I
haven’t checked the timing but I think lots were available before UK papers
went to press).
# He also complains that UK journalists "deliberately
ignored" another paper by US authors in the same issue of the journal. I
rather suspect that the paper was simply missed because it was not promoted
through a media release to UK journalists.
When you write an entire piece about one study it seems very reasonable to
look at the evidence context with a quick pubmed search, or a scan of the
most up to date systematic review. This wld take a few minutes. People do it
millions of times a day. This is not technical and difficult. It is a very
basic skill.
# The fact is that journalists working to daily newspaper
deadlines have to rely on media releases rather than on wading through
technical journals.
There is nothing very technical about the papers in the NEJM, these articles
were free to access and their abstracts actually expressed the risks as
“numbers needed to screen” and used natural frequencies, which have been
repeatedly shown to be a more comprehensible way of expressing risk than the
rather unhelpful “20% less” figures used by UK journalists. They were also
eminently readable.
Here is one.
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMoa0810084
Here is the other:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMoa0810696
I think they’re very clear.
# They have just a few hours to write their articles, not a whole
week like Ben has for his column.
I think we've discussed this before as well Bob. I don’t spend a week
writing my column, it is a hobby, on top of my day job.
But furthermore, the media coverage on prostate screening came out on
Thursday, and my column deadline is Friday morning, so I only had a day, as
it happens I didn’t notice the newspapers until Thursday evening. The column
took from about 8pm til midnight since you ask, I certainly didn’t want a
late night because I knew I was going to be on call all day and then all
night on Friday.
But my nerdy life is irrelevant. More importantly, the things that
journalists failed to do simply do not take long. As I said, when you write
an entire piece about one single study it seems very reasonable to look at
the evidence context with a quick pubmed search, or a scan of the most up to
date systematic review. This wld take a few minutes. People do it millions
of times a day. It is very very normal and very very easy.
# And by making journalists solely culpable for what he considers
to be bad reporting, he ignores the role of bad media relations by
universities and scientific organisations, and promotes further ignorance
and misunderstanding of how the media works.
I have also previously written about both scientists and press releases
misleading the media. If you have any more good examples of that do please
send them to me, [log in to unmask], it just goes straight to my
gmail like all my other email addresses.
--
dr ben goldacre
[log in to unmask]
http://www.badscience.net/
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