Comments on: Ben Goldacre and Science Minister Lord Drayson debate: 16th Sept, Royal Institution, tickets are free on 020 7409 2992

By: wayscj

wayscj — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:36:52 +0000

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By: JohnBailey

JohnBailey — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:04:29 +0000

I assume the real academic big hitters either have it in their contracts or have sufficient power that the press office wouldn’t dare release without approval. Otherwise i expect to see “Dawkins: God might exist” as a headline in the near future. Can you sue your employer for libel?

By: heavens

heavens — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:41:40 +0000

afh,

Here’s one idea, if you’re in academic science: Insist that, as a matter of integrity and professorial prerogative, that the university require pre-approval of any press release they send out that includes any academician’s name in it. Get it written into a formal policy or bargaining contract.

“I won’t sign off on this misrepresentation of my work, and the faculty will pitch a screaming fit if you send it out without my approval” is a fairly powerful lever for moving the publicity office.

Alternatively, if your colleagues don’t mind having their reputations diminished through errors made by their own institution, you can take individual action by encouraging the publicity folks to believe that if you disagree with the press release, you’ll personally post a (very) public correction.

By: afh

afh — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 09:52:31 +0000

Sounds interesting. And it would be good to know what we as scientists can do to promote good science reporting. If the rae rewards press coverage, that puts a lot of pressure on me as a scientist to get my work written up In the popular press. But I know that if I spin my work in a silly and exaggerated way, it is more likely to get coverage. So current policies might make science journalism worse by encouraging scientists to over spin results rather than to counter the spin. Do you think there is anything we can do about this? I’d love to be able to ’say no to spin’ but I fear that could hurt my career.

By: Clemmie

Clemmie — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:15:57 +0000

I’m stating the obvious, but this could easily descend into a game of “look at these examples of rubbish reporting” versus “yeah but look at these examples of good reporting”.

How do you intend to make the general argument, with supporting data (while still giving some juicy examples)?

By: rptb1

rptb1 — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:31:57 +0000

I’ve recently made a proposal for a MySociety project to try to improve science reporting with distributed fact checking. Please see http://www.mysociety.org/2009/08/26/scientists-say/ if you are interested, and do comment with feedback.

By: JoanCrawford

JoanCrawford — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:28:41 +0000

Sounds good, though I’m not clear what the output of the discussion will be, or what is expected to change as a result. I guess as long as the grown-ups start thinking about the issue seriously, that must be a good thing.

PS Can your techie mate not do something to stop the Health Pain spamming on this blog?

By: adamcreen

adamcreen — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:59:01 +0000

from the RI website:
“For people unable to attend in person, this free event will be streamed live on the THE website (more details will follow)”
so vague but promising

By: Health Pain

Health Pain — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:13:45 +0000

It is very important that scientists elaborated on their credibility and in some way to generate confidence about medical issues, because we know that science, evolves and the people who are not aware of it ever learns to understand the differences, which in these times are very important.

By: Dr Jim

Dr Jim — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:00:50 +0000

It could be streamed to Second Life, we managed it at the RI last Saturday during Science Online

By: Moganero

Moganero — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:31:51 +0000

Can’t see that a debate on Twitter would be very useful. Many questions/points worth raising are going to be too long for it. I that a way of censoring questions that might require real answers?

By: Hedonist Rex

Hedonist Rex — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:08:26 +0000

Will video/audio of the event be available online later?

By: macker

macker — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:18:05 +0000

Could be a bit hard to book just now:

http://www.rigb.org/contentControl?action=displayContent&id=00000003507