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I don't agree that the media is deliberately malicious, for the most part. But there are things which are useful to keep in mind when talking to the press.
1) Reporters are trained to find two sides of everything. They really don't care if one side represents 99% of opinions and the other side only 1%, they want to have a 'story'- to sell the paper/magazine/etc. This generally makes for very bad science reporting. Good science reporting often makes a story by following a thread of development, following the conceptual evolution of an idea over time and different groups involved, how the idea gained consensus; kind of like a mystery story.
2) Reporters automatically assume that you are lying. They assume everyone is going to lie or bend the truth to their own advantage or otherwise say things that are self serving. You are not an authority to them, just some other shmuck trying to get them to present your cause in a favorable light. You can help reporters believe you if you can point them to corroborating information (books, web sites, other professionals, etc.). They are going to fact check you anyway so help them out.
kyle
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Message: 11
Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:31:13 -0700
From: John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>
Subject: [Phys-l] dealing with the media +- evolution
To: Forum for Physics Educators <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Message-ID: <47F52271.10801@av8n.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
On 04/03/2008 04:57 AM, Rick Tarara wrote:
saying
you 'believe' something can easily be misinterpreted.
Yeah.
I used 'believe in' in my original post in the way the media would pose the
question.
I figured as much.
But still we have a responsibility to give a good answer,
even when confronted with a bogus question.
The media often -- very often -- ask questions of the form
"At the blackjack table, should we switch from betting on
red to betting on black?"
This utterly begs the question of whether we should be gambling
at all. It frames the discussion in the wrong terms.
Yes, people ask about belief and disbelief. No, we should not
directly answer the question. Dealing with the media is a lot
like dealing with students who have misconceptions ... except
that the students are usually not so mean and sneaky. A big part
of the job is to recognize when the question is the wrong question,
and to answer _the question that should have been asked_.
IMHO, a better terminology for scientist would be 'accept'.
Well, that doesn't solve the whole problem, because acceptance
versus rejection is still too categorical, too black-and-white
.
For years, the media and the politicians have been poisoning
the well with their Manichean fallacies. Just because they
frame the discussion in black-versus-white terms doesn't mean
we need to take the bait.
Especially when dealing with public policy issues, it is a fact
of life that many of the questions are loaded questions. It's
an intelligence test: If you accept the premise of the question,
you fail.
1) Don't perpetuate or propagate loaded questions. Ask more nuanced
questions. Constructive suggestion: rather than asking about
belief/disbelief or acceptance/rejection, ask about the weight of
evidence and the range of validity.
2) When someone foists a loaded question on you, don't take
the bait. You can /respond/ to the question without directly
/answering/ the question. Say what needs to be said, even if
it does not directly answer the question.
There's a rule in poker: When you sit down at the table, if
you can't figure out who's the fish, it's you.
A similar rule applies to dealing with the media: If you can't
figure out who's being manipulated, it's you.
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