Scientists and(Issue 10 ? posted June 13, 1997; archived July 11, 1997)
In my last Press Box article I argued that it's important for scientists to be willing to talk to reporters. I've interviewed somewhere near a thousand scientists in my career, and I'm pleased to say that virtually all of these interviews have turned out to be enjoyable for both parties. This, I believe, is generally true of most interactions between scientists and reporters. Yet many scientists, especially those without much experience dealing with the news media, still regard the interview request with fear and dread.
There are a few things that scientists can do to make the process go smoothly and to increase the chance that the resulting article or broadcast will be accurate. Most of this advice comes from my own experience as a freelance science journalist and as a former university public relations officer. You can find additional advice in a pamphlet called "Communicating Science News: A Guide for Public Information Officers, Scientists and Physicians," prepared and distributed by the National Association of Science Writers. This pamphlet can be found online, and copies of the printed version can be ordered.
Be AvailableReporters almost always have deadlines, and some deadlines are very pressing. Please return phone calls from reporters promptly, even if you're calling to decline an interview request. Reporters love to trade stories about scientists who finally return phone calls three weeks after the deadline has passed.
And please instruct your assistants to be helpful when reporters call. Journalists find it very frustrating when overprotective assistants seem reluctant even to pass along interview requests. Often they'll say, with an air of finality, "No, you can't interview Dr. Smith because she's at a conference out of town." Just because you're out of town, it doesn't mean you're unreachable. The conference isn't on Mars, your hotel most likely has at least one working telephone, and most reporters are willing to call anywhere in the world and at any time of the day or night to reach the right person. Of course it's a different story if you're on vacation and have asked not to be bothered with work-related calls.
Know What You Want to Say, and Make Sure It Gets SaidBefore the interview starts, determine your main message. Try to boil it down to a single, pithy statement in lay language. Reporters love good quotes, and if you take care to supply them, the story will be told in your words. When you speak in long, convoluted sentences filled with jargon, you're forcing the reporter to paraphrase, which increases the likelihood that errors will creep in.
Coming up with a good "sound bite" is especially important when you're being interviewed for television or radio. The typical item on the local or national news runs 90 seconds or so, and no more that 10 to 15 seconds of that will be of you talking.
It is your responsibility to make sure your point gets across. If necessary, make your point repeatedly, saying it in slightly different ways in answer to different questions.
Know Whom You're Talking ToSome science journalists have Ph.D.s and will understand your research as well as any of your colleagues. Others may have had no scientific training, but may be extremely knowledgeable as the result of long experience. Still others may be general-assignment reporters who just barely got through their Science for Poets class in college, and who covered a carjacking yesterday, and will be at the city council meeting tomorrow.
Even when you're talking to an experienced science journalist, try to avoid jargon. Remember that while the reporter may appear highly knowledgeable, his readers, listeners, or viewers may be less so, and you're really talking to them. Even when you're being interviewed for a publication read mostly by other scientists, it's rare that they will all know the issues and the jargon of your particular subfield.
Don't be afraid to use analogies and colorful language. Most important, try to appear excited and passionate about your work. Too many scientists use the passive voice and a boring monotone. If your eyes glaze over when you're discussing your work, everyone else's eyes will glaze over when they're hearing or reading about it. More likely they'll simply turn the page or switch the channel.
You're Always on the Record, Unless You Establish Different Ground Rules in AdvanceAlmost all your interviews will be entirely "on the record." That means that a reporter can quote anything you say. Of course he or she has the responsibility of quoting you accurately and in context. For that reason many reporters use tape recorders, and the ones who don't may ask you to speak slowly so they can take accurate notes. It is courteous - and required by law in many states - for reporters to let you know when they are tape recording your comments.
In my opinion, it is unreasonable for a scientist to object to having his or her comments recorded. However, it is permissible to elicit an agreement from the reporter on how the recording will be used. Since I'm a print journalist, for example, I'm happy to agree that my recordings will only be used to ensure that the quotes I use are absolutely accurate, and will never be broadcast.
Whether or not the reporter uses a tape recorder, if you would rather that some or all of your comments not be quoted, you must discuss the ground rules in advance. You can't blithely chat away for a half hour (or even a half minute) and only then say, "But of course all of that is off the record." It's only off the record if you and the reporter agree in advance. Many reporters refuse to conduct off-the-record interviews.
And you should make sure that you and the reporter agree on the meaning of the terms "off the record," "on background," or "not for attribution." I've defined these terms as generally understood below, but not every reporter has the same understanding of these words, so I advise you to be explicit.
It makes you sound like every sleazy politician who's ever been caught with his hand in the till. If a reporter asks you a question that you can't or won't answer, there are many other things you can say, such as, "I'm sorry, I really can't talk about that," or "It would be premature for me to discuss that right now."
Checking Facts and QuotesScience journalists are more likely than other journalists to be willing to phone their sources to confirm that the quotes are accurate and the facts are correct before their articles appear. However, not every science journalist will agree to do that, and some publications have firm policies specifically prohibiting this practice.
If you'd like the reporter to check back with you before the piece appears, you must negotiate this at the beginning of the interview. If the reporter declines, your only options are to choose to trust the reporter anyway or to terminate the interview.
If the reporter agrees to read back your quotes or part of the article, you've got to be willing to make yourself available on short notice, since the reporter will typically be calling immediately before her deadline. Remember that you're only looking for inaccuracies. If you've been quoted accurately, but you said something you wish you hadn't, you may request that the reporter make a change, but she's under no obligation to comply.
Expect the Occasional Error or MisquoteIt's my experience that I find errors whenever I read a news article about a subject I really know something about. Sometimes they're errors of fact, sometimes they're errors of interpretation, and sometimes they're errors of emphasis, but there are almost always errors, though they're usually minor.
There are some errors that reporters have no control over. Scientists often object to inaccurate headlines, but reporters virtually never write the headlines placed over their articles. If they're lucky, the headline writer will actually read their articles. More often, unfortunately, headline writers only read the first paragraph or two, and then they have to boil that down to a single short phrase.
Other errors creep in because few articles can be as long or as detailed as their subjects require. When a writer distills ten years of complex research to 800 words, many nuances are likely to be lost.
I will conclude with an amusing story from my own experience from my years working in the California Institute of Technology's public relations department. Caltech has a major seismological laboratory, so I frequently dealt with the media on the subject of earthquakes. I was often quoted as a Caltech spokesman, and I swear I was misquoted in print at least 40% of the time. Almost all of the misquotes were inconsequential, inserting words I didn't actually say but keeping the meaning the same. But occasionally a misquote would have me saying the opposite of what I actually said.
On one interesting occasion I was misquoted (sort of) in a local TV report, with the misquote coming out of my own mouth. I'll explain. In 1988 there was a flurry of interest in an earthquake prediction that Nostradamus, the sixteenth-century French astrologer, was supposed to have made. A "documentary" film from the 1970s starring Orson Welles claimed that Nostradamus had predicted an earthquake in Los Angeles for May 10, 1988.
As the Caltech PR guy I was fielding literally hundreds of calls from worried members of the public asking about this. I would patiently explain that we were seeing no unusual earthquake activity, and that even if you believed in Nostradamus's predictions, there was nothing to worry about since the producers of the movie had mistranslated his veiled quatrains. He hadn't predicted an earthquake, it was something like thunder. He hadn't said that it would be in LA, he said it would be in the "new city," and virtually every city in North and South America would be new to Nostradamus. And finally he never said that it would be May 10, 1988. He said it would happen during a certain planetary alignment that was not in fact happening on that date (the movie's producers got that one wrong too).
At some point the story became not the prediction, but my response to all the calls. I was interviewed by a number of national and local TV news operations. At the end of one of the local interviews the reporter asked me, "In one word, how would you describe the prediction?" I thought about that for a moment with the camera rolling and couldn't come up a single word. She asked, "Would you say it was poppycock?" and without thinking much I said, "Sure, poppycock." Now that's a word that sounds silly to me, and I'd never normally use it. But when the piece was broadcast, it was edited so that the reporter's narration went, "Finn sums up the Nostradamus prediction in one word . . ." and then there in living color was my smiling face saying, "Poppycock." She opened my mouth, inserted the word she wanted, and I obligingly spit it back out.
What I should have said was, "No, that doesn't quite capture it. I just can't put it into a single word. But I think it's a shame that people are being panicked by such a ridiculous and unfounded prediction." She certainly would not have used the first part of that quote, but she may have used that last part. In any case, I wouldn't have been embarrassed by that flip and silly word. So my concluding advice on being interviewed: don't let yourself be bulldozed into saying something you don't want to say.
In Issue 13 (to be published on July 25) I'll discuss how to work with your institutional public relations office.
Robert Finn is a contributing editor for The Scientist who has written for many publications including Discover, Science Digest, Nature, and the Los Angeles Times.
Andrzej Krauze is an illustrator, poster maker, cartoonist, and painter who illustrates regularly for HMS Beagle, The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, Bookseller and New Statesman.
