the-BA : Irish Times report

Vikki Burns, Media Fellow 2005

The question on everyone’s minds at the BA (British Association for the Advancement of Science) was “Could ten scientists fake it as journalists?” Would we learn to ditch our technical jargon and engage with the general public? And what on earth would we make of the real journalists?

The BA Media Fellowship scheme aims to promote a greater understanding of the media among practising scientists. It organises three- to eight-week placements as science reporters in some of the most prestigious media institutions.

The main feature of the scheme is that these placements throw us straight in at the deep end of the media pool. Our only flotation devices were our host journalist, our BA “mum”, Alice Taylor-Gee, who looked after us all, and a (fleeting) belief that we must have learned something useful during our PhDs.

In my real life, I’m a research fellow in Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Birmingham. My work focuses on how stress affects the immune system. As this is an area that receives great public interest, I had had some experiences with the media before, but nothing to prepare me for this!

I was placed at the Irish Times under the guidance of Dick Ahlstrom, its Science Editor. Dick had warned me before I arrived that he believed there was no point in him treating me like a work experience student. I had listened excitedly as he told me that the only way to learn was to get going on my own articles.

However, when I found myself four hours into my placement with two full-length articles to write, I began to question whether Dick’s faith was misguided. Could I actually pull this off? Writing in academia is something that generally takes months, and gets put off until I’m in the right, albeit ill-defined, “mood”. Now I had two days to finish two articles that would, in theory, be read by hundreds of thousands of people.

As it turns out, and this will be no surprise for those of you who know him, Dick was right all along. This really was the best way to learn, and with his helpful hints, we managed to beat both articles into shape. As I moved on to the rest of the journalistic challenges that Dick had in store, I soon began to feel like a (very new and inexperienced) journalist.

Just as I thought I was getting the hang of this media game though, it was time for the biggest challenge of all: the BA Festival of Science. This is always the highlight of the Media Fellows’ experience, but it was a particularly special year for the Irish Times as the festival was in Dublin.

As it was local interest, the news desk was really supportive and gave us loads of space. This proved both fantastic and exhausting. Dick and I divided the press conferences between us, and I wrote three 400-600 word articles every day. The canapés and wine that I lived on all week are definitely not sufficient to support this workload!

It was fascinating to see the other journalists at work and to watch how they interacted with the scientists. These were scientists that were actively interested in the dissemination of their work, by virtue of the fact that they were involved in the festival at all. While many were great models of science communication, a few were still vague, included too much or too little detail, and left us with no clear message. It became apparent to me that scientists can still do much more to make their work accessible, just by understanding what the media need from them to do their jobs well.

I also found that one of the main criticisms that scientists level at journalists is largely misplaced. In my experience, it didn’t seem to be the journalists who wanted to sensationalise, trivialise, or misrepresent science. Instead, they seemed to be under pressure from their news desks to find a story to “splash”. As scientists, we rely on you to stand against these demands and to sell the stories based on their true scientific worth. In turn, we must try harder to present them to you in a way that makes their relevance to the public more apparent.

More than anything, I learned that, contrary to the opinion of some scientists, all the journalists I met were extremely knowledgeable and had a genuine desire to engage the public with science. Dick in particular restored my faith in the media by being everything that a scientist could want in a journalist.

I would recommend the Media Fellowship Scheme to any scientist, as it was a wonderful, eye-opening experience. For journalists, I believe it’s an opportunity to train a new generation of scientists to communicate our work effectively; that investment of time should, ultimately, only make your job easier. My thanks go to all the media hosts and to the BA for making this amazing scheme possible.

This article was published in the Science Reporter, November/December 2005.

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