This entry is part of a series, Bypassing the Press?»

On the 16th of September there was a debate between Lord Drayson, Minister for Science amongst other things, and Ben Goldacre, the Guardian’s Bad Science columnist. The matter under discussion was the quality of science journalism. It stems from a debate at the ABSW meeting where Lord Drayson said that British science journalism was the best in the world. This came as a bit of a surprise to many people. There was a lot of response on Twitter and Drayson agreed to debate with Goldacre about science journalism. Hence the debate on 16th September.

There’s a vote going around as to who won the Science Media debate. Who the ‘winner’ was tends to depend on whether or not you’re a journalist. Goldacre had the much more emotionally attractive position for scientists. All scientists think their work is interesting, but given the space available in the media it’s inevitable that many will be cruelly overlooked. It will be genuinely interesting, even it’s been pitched badly, but being so close to your research will mean you don’t always have the full perspective. Also there’s always someone who’s doing more newsworthy research than yours. There’s mine for a start.

The fact that so many scientists say it was close has to be due in part to Goldacre not going out with the intention of just beating Drayson. It was more like to grown-ups having a sensible discussion about the problem. There’s some very positive points which came out of this, which is why I don’t think it’s a cop-out to say both sides won.

Drayson was careful to qualify his defence of science journalism, it was only journalism by specialised science journalists he wanted to defend. I think that’s not a helpful distinction. There are good science journalists, but that doesn’t matter in the least if science stories are being written ignorant general science journalists. Some people might read who got the byline, but for most people the author is just a name. They’re reading the story because it’s in the Sun or Mirror, not because Joe Bloggs really knows his genetics. Additionally he complained that people would take a sceptical view of a science story just because it appeared on the front page of the Express. This, he held, was damaging trust in science journalism. I disagree. I think publishing Diana conspiracy stories on the front page of the Express damages trust. Science journalism doesn’t exist vacuum and the credibility of reporting matters whether it’s politics or science.

On the other hand there were some very good ideas that came out of the discussion. Drayson confirmed that the next round of UK research assessment, the REF, will include points for public engagement and that will include blogs as well as mainstream media. That’s good but problematic. The plan is to get some respect for academics who talk to the public as well as researchers. But, as Alan Cann said to me, this won’t work if these people cannot get into the assessment in the first place. Previous research assessments have been manipulated by universities so that only the stars get entered. If they hold the opinion that public engagement detracts from a researcher then they won’t get into the REF to pick up points. There’s only so much any government minister is going to be able to do about that. It requires a shift in attitude in academia, but it would be helpful if the value of public engagement could be spelled out in very clear language well before the next REF.

Ben Goldacre raised the point that while scientists should be encouraged to talk and write about their work, their output is improved with editing. He was also very keen to talk up activity on the internet and he and Drayson agreed that a small grants scheme should be in place to support science bloggers. Lord Drayson also encouraged scientists misrepresented by the media to contact him, and pledged to tweet his office email address – which he did.

To some extent the Q&A session was tribal. The journalists felt that uncommunicative scientists were the problem, while scientists thought it would be nice if journalists listened. It reminded me a bit of the prison report – the one which read that the troubles in the jail were not down to facilities, staff or systems but that the smooth running of the jail was hampered by the fact many of the prisoners were criminals. Equally complaining about the wrong sort of journalists or scientists might be right, but it’s not a step towards a solution.

This is where I thought, from the science side, that Drayson’s focus on specialist science journalists was helpful. Journalism isn’t about recycling press releases, so perhaps it’s worth asking how useful the press release is to many scientists which is where I’ll pick up next time.