Two-dozen invited climate scientists and science and environmental journalists met for 1-1/2 days at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in La Jolla, California, in mid-March 2004 to explore hurdles and opportunities involved in communicating science-based news to the public through the mass news media.

The March 17-19, 2004, workshop at Scripps was part of an ongoing series of science journalism workshops. The Scripps participants had the benefit of being able to consider and build on deliberations of the first workshop in the series, held at the University of Rhode Island in November 2003. The Scripps workshop participants, in addition to addressing a number of obstacles impeding more effective science reporting through the mass media, identified a number of potential "best practices" to help scientists and the media more effectively cover science-related news.

As was the case at the initial workshop in the series, participants at the Scripps workshop expressed frequent misunderstandings of the underlying work "culture," practices, and values of each other's field. They also identified a number of similarities in each field’s ultimate "pursuit of truth," and they identified a number of steps that each discipline, working independently, and both disciplines, working collaboratively, could consider in an effort to improve science communication and understanding. The workshop took place in the context of journalists' and scientists' increasing awareness of and sensitivity to commercial pressures facing the news media, increased consolidation of media ownerships, and concerns among many journalists about economic pressures and the impacts on coverage of "serious" and sometimes complex news issues, including declining coverage of science-based news. (See Bottom-Line Pressures Now Hurting Coverage, Say Journalists, The Pew Research Center for The People and The Press, May 23, 2004.)

After initial keynote presentations designed to establish an overall context for the workshop deliberations, attendees considered several individual reporter's and scientist's case study examples illustrating various levels of success or frustration in communicating science-based news through the media. The case studies illustrated, for instance:

• One science writer's evolution over time to having sufficient expertise on climate science to be able to avoid the "on-the-one-hand, this/on-the-other-hand, that" brand of "he said/she said" journalism. Through his own experience over the years in covering the issue, the journalist related how he had been able to convince his editors to take an unequivocal position, in a commentary piece, on the high caliber of the science showing a discernible human impact on the climate.
• One local television reporter's successes in judiciously using independently produced and edited video to complement his own reporting.
• One scientist's frustrations with some media interpretations of the cooling temperatures in Antarctica's central dry valleys as contradicting mainstream science views on anthropogenic "global warming" Scientists primarily see that regional cooling as reflecting a shift in patterns of how the atmosphere flows: "Interesting things, but they don't have a lot to do with global warming ... the whole thing became a train wreck ... because they actually weren't related to global warming."
• One broadcast journalist's explanation of the need to "hook" the listener: "You have one chance with radio – you must engage the audience right off. You can't go back, you can't re-read it. You have one chance to engage the audience."

"Engage" the Media and, Through Them, the Public

One theme touched on repeatedly throughout the workshop was the media's need to "engage" its audiences ... and therefore the need for scientists to strive to have an engaging way to approach the media in an effort to reach the general public.

"We're always looking for sound[audio], and for ways that we can make the science come alive," a broadcast journalist said. "Especially if you can demonstrate something, that's very useful to the public. We're always looking for compelling speakers, even humor, that will work."

Pointing to a perceived "gulf" separating both science and science journalism from the public at large, the participants discussed the need for both disciplines to make important science news relevant and meaningful to the general public. They did so in the context of concern over the apparently declining level of science education and science literacy generally in contemporary American society. At the same time, however, several scientists cautioned against under-estimating the public's appreciation of science information and general ability to understand science at least at some level: scientists pointed to lay audiences frequently being open to and welcoming of lectures and presentations on science. Several participants cautioned against overly simplistic conclusions suggesting that the public is disinterested in science news, pointing to numerous examples suggesting otherwise.

All the same, the scientists and journalists acknowledged important challenges in communicating with the public through the mass media on science news. "The gulf is really with the public," one scientist said, "Even with those people who are reading and are reading widely, it still comes down to what they can see around them. And journalists know this: They know that they have to make things relevant to people's lives." The scientist pointed to what he believes is a common shortcoming among many scientists: they fail to make their work relevant and meaningful to people's day-to-day lives.

"Everybody likes a good story," another scientist volunteered, saying he believes many scientists "haven't framed within our own minds how to tell a really good story, grab peoples' imagination, and get them excited about what we're doing."

At the same time, participants expressed concerns that scientists not go "too far" in fashioning their messages for the media and non-scientific audiences. "I'm not talking about salesmanship here," one scientist emphasized. "I'm talking about being imaginative about what we do and how we do it. And about telling a really good story that's going to grab people's imagination. How hard do we think about those things before telling our story when we're conveying stories about our research? I don't think we spend a lot of time there." The discussion explored how scientists and the news media might use suitable analogies to help the lay public understand an important scientific point.

Some reporters shared the concern that the scientific community not become overly focused with public relations aspects of its work.

"I think a goal of reporters is to have scientists who can speak in more plain language about their work," one journalist elaborated. "But if public affairs offices and scientists themselves invest a ton of time in, well, 'How am I going to come up with a story that will describe my work in a way that makes it entirely understandable ... ?'

"Well, I think that's not an entirely productive thing to do. Reporters, through our line of questioning, are going to come up with those analogies. It's good for scientists to think about analogies and to think about accessible ways to describe their work. But if you do that, ultimately your work is going to come to us through a filter. And it's not going to be frank. You know, there's going to be a spin put on it. And that's what I think we want to avoid."

"It's not about 'let's manufacture an event,'" another journalist cautioned. "It's about how do you tell it."

Commenting on the value of visual impact, one scientist said, "It is easier to convey science that is strongly visual and dramatic, even if it is not relevant to society's day-to-day concerns." The scientist pointed to news of the Hubbell space telescope as such an example. Addressing research into causes and implications of climate change, the scientist said, "This is really exciting science. I'm searching, and I've been searching for a long time, for ways to transmit that excitement."

To effectively engage the news media and their audiences, one print journalist said scientists need to be more open in sharing their passion for their work. Given scientifically newsworthy material, "It's your intensity that is interesting to us," he said. "And if you have a message that conveys it, that's fine. But if you just get out there with the intensity, we'll find the story. We're good at that."

Another journalist emphasized the quality, and not just the quantity, of media training for journalists. He said that groups and individuals often described as climate change "skeptics" are "forced more media training than a French goose." He suggested that scientists need to better "learn some of the esoteric ways that the media function, the way decisions are made, who the gate keepers are, whether we're using a Ouija board one day, a rational process the next, or whether we're just attracted to bright shiny objects or what our competitors are doing the third day."

Scientists and the Need to "Go Beyond the Laboratory"

Scientists err, a print journalist advised, in simply assuming they can publish their peer-reviewed studies in respected journals and not more actively involve the media – as the surrogates for the public – in the overall process of how scientific research takes place over the long run. The peer-reviewed published article in a respected journal, a journalist said, is "little more than the period at the end of an intriguing sentence." He said the final printed and peer-reviewed article merely institutionalizes all of the important scientific work that went into preparing it, and that the previous groundwork is itself of interest and value to the media and their audiences.

"Engage the media," this reporter implored. "Don't rely on fairly impenetrable final published reports to do it on their own. Make sure the media and the public feel 'enfranchised,' feel a part of it .... Invite yourselves down to talk with them," he advised, encouraging scientists to go beyond their laboratory research work and proactively reach out to reporters, editors, columnists, and editorial writers.

Throughout the discussion, however, the scientist participants in particular pointed to a number of professional and institutional forces that make it difficult for the scientist to "go beyond the laboratory" and reach out to media and society at large to communicate about their work. (These cultural impediments were also discussed extensively at the Rhode Island workshop.)

Acknowledging the extent of this cultural issue, one scientist at the workshop said his university now has citizenship and public involvement – along with research, teaching, and service to the university – as a criterion in annual faculty performance evaluations. "We need to be doing our citizenship of transferring science into the public arena," he said. Another academic pointed to both the benefits and the challenges in having science graduate students exposed, for instance, to public speaking and writing classes – "to actually learn some of the skills that will help them talk about their work." A journalist urged the science community "to foster, or prod, or force - possibly focusing on post-docs and younger academics – get them out in the community more as part of what they do, as part of what advances their careers."

Which is not to minimize the very real cultural impediments to scientists' taking on a larger role in the "outside world," one scientist reminded the group. Several scientists said that fellow scientists "going public" with their work often face criticism from colleagues within their own ranks.

After one respected marine scientist decided to go beyond the laboratory and his own field tests "to answer the 'So What?' question," he said, "the word on the street was that "[Name] has 'lost it,'" as colleagues challenged and questioned his outreach efforts and motivations.

"Your colleagues have some measure of envy and of resentment. And you're suspected of getting in front of the camera or the microphone because you have a fat ego .... Even if you have tenure, you don't want to go to work every day facing the subtle disapproval of your colleagues down the hall. There are many disincentives to doing that."

"Engage!" But How? Easier Said than Done? A Downside?

Although scientists and journalists participating in the Scripps workshop generally agreed on the need for more open dialogue and on notion of trying to "engage" the media, they differed on how such open exchanges might apply to scientific work in progress.

Scientists need opportunities to informally share their ongoing research work with professional colleagues, conducting a sort of informal and ongoing "peer review" by which they can air and test various hypotheses, the strengths and weaknesses of correlations, and such. It's a normal part of the give-and-take among professional colleagues generally, not solely among scientists, one scientist emphasized.

Having journalists present for these informal give-and-take sessions poses significant concerns for some scientists, who in effect fear a "chilling" impact on such informal scientific exchanges, several scientists said.

The discussions at Scripps on this point led to one of the most significant areas of major differences among many of the scientist and journalism participants. Journalists by and large took a nearly absolutist approach, as typified by the following quotations:

• "If you spoke it at a public meeting, it's public. It's on the record."
• "If you don't want to see it in print, don't say it. That's the only thing you know for sure. If you're going to say it to one person or to a group of people, or whatever it is, there's a fair chance that somewhere, some time, it's going to show up, and you may not like it."
• Cautioned that media might box themselves in to simply being prohibited from attending such scientific meetings, one journalist expressed a view common among reporters: "[XYZ] organization needs the news media far more than the media need [XYZ]."

Scientists' positions appeared somewhat more nuanced. Several scientists agreed and readily accepted that comments shared from the podium with science colleagues at major meetings and in formal settings by definition are "on the record." At the same time, they sought opportunities, in effect, to casually "pick the brains" of groups of expert scientists through what one called "private internal peer reviews with your colleagues."

"When I give public talks to groups such as the Ecological Society of America or the American Association for the Advancement of Science, I assume it's always on the record," one scientist said. "But on a [draft or in-progress] paper, I really want my friends to tell me what they really think about it. Because I'm not sure I'm right. And I'm a foot soldier in a nasty war involving lots of controversy ... and the last thing I want to is give them [critics] something to point to."

Another concern expressed by one scientist on the goal of "engaging" the media: "A lot of us scientists actually are good at story-telling, but in formats we're used to – such as a 45-minute presentation or a seminar setting. But I don't know how to translate that into the kinds of media formats .... I don't know how to make it work on a TV network, with its time constraints."

That same scientist, however, found satisfaction from the off-deadline and informal exchanges with the journalists participating at the Scripps workshop: "There are people out there who want to tap the passion, the energy, and the creativity of what we do, and interpret it to the outside world. Maybe we're not so good at it ourselves, but there are people out there who can really help us. Who don't want to threaten us and hold us out there for public ridicule, but who actually want to draw out the joy of the scientific enterprise, of discovery."

"Teachable Moments" -- Opportunities for Learning From External Events

The journalists and scientists recognized that external events beyond their influence often can provide valuable opportunities for teaching and learning.

With the media interest in noting and observing particular anniversaries, holidays, and seasonal events, for instance, the group noted that an event such as an anniversary of the Three Mile Island or Chernobyl nuclear accident, of the Bhopal, India, chemical tragedy, or of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, for instance, can provide environmental scientists and the news media an opportunity to inform and educate on related issues.

"Ordinarily, no one wants to hear about an 'ecological community,'" one journalist said. "But a crisis like Valdez or Alar [on apples] can change that. Without conflating climate and weather, you can use severe weather events as an opportunity to teach.” They pointed to the then-upcoming release of a motion picture, "The Day After Tomorrow," as an opportunity to provide responsible information on global warming and climate change, the focus of the movie. While expressing concerns about some of the movie's scientific underpinnings of the movie, the scientists and journalists agreed that the increased public exposure to the subject of climate change could provide timely opportunities for information sharing.

One scientist made the point this way: "People don't know about dinosaurs because of the Discovery Channel. They know about them because of "Jurassic Park."

Noting that crises and disasters sometimes help focus public attention on serious issues and solutions, a reporter volunteered that "Disaster tends to bring the attention back. So what we're hoping for is something that we're not hoping for."

Reporting on Scientific Uncertainty
... in a Highly Politicized and Volatile Atmosphere

An important recurring theme among the Scripps participants was the nature of uncertainty in scientific enterprises, particularly in a scientific issue so politically charged as the climate change issue.

"Every significant advance comes from some previous scientists' commissions and omissions," one scientist emphasized to the group, underscoring also that scientific research is an incremental process.

Another scientist's perspective: "We live, we breathe, uncertainties, caveats. The thing that distinguishes us from the critics is that they have no error bars. They have certainty about the way the world works. That's a big difference."

Some scientists at the Scripps workshop faulted some media reports for misrepresenting the role of uncertainty in the climate change science field, sometimes portraying uncertainty as undercutting broad areas of scientific consensus.

Some critics "are motivated simply by the unspoken assumption that if we can show that there is something uncertain, or maybe wrong, and we can poke a hole in that line of evidence, we have essentially destroyed the whole thread on which this uncertain science depends," said one scientist. "Then the whole evidence for anthropogenic climate change collapses. No scientist thinks that way, and I think a responsible reporter, and the scientist talking to the responsible reporter, ought to stress the complexity and the many threads of evidence."

A Journalist's Perspective: Uncertainty a Strength
– not a Weakness – of Science

Another scientist: "There is this polemic out there that science falsifies .... If you find one exception, then throw out the rule. That is not how science works: Science is Bayesian. That is, it is a subjective probability where you have a prior probability based on multiple lines of evidence, and a new piece of evidence doesn't change you that much unless it's truly compelling that you have made a fundamental mistake. And then there are people who grab these little bits and pieces and say, 'Oh, this proves or disapproves.' Which is in fact not how the science community forms a judgment."

A science writer at the workshop: "Uncertainty is the story .... Really, uncertainty is the strength of science. In dealing with climate change, you can ask the question: 'What is more important? Is it what scientists don't know about the climate system, which I think is enormous, and we should admit that? Or is it what they DO know, which is considerable?' And I think what we DO know is enough to say, 'Hey, wait a minute! We've got a problem here, and we ought to be dealing with it.'"

A second journalist agreed that scientists and the news media must address scientific uncertainty accurately, fairly, and in context and said uncertainty should not be portrayed as undercutting expert scientific judgment. At the same time, he cautioned, addressing scientific uncertainty and incrementalism can lead some editors to under-play the significance of the overall story and give it less prominence than it may deserve: "Uncertainty equals incrementalism, which means a story goes to Section C, page 31," he said.

Yet another journalist: "Science is a trajectory, just like journalism," each steering ultimately toward the "truth" as best it can be determined while understanding that ultimate truth in the end may be beyond the reach of either discipline.

A Climate of "Post-Normal Science":
Defending One's Science, Defending One's Self

Because of the highly politicized nature of the climate change issue in America, scientists at the Scripps workshop said, advocacy has become a major concern for some scientists.

"The game has changed so that it's so ugly and so nasty that you just have to play it that way ... stuck in a nasty political world of spinners." "You're not used to having your credibility, your integrity, your scientific integrity challenged, to be called a liar, a cheat, a manipulator of data," one scientist said. "Unfortunately, in the political climate that this whole debate is embedded in, when we raise our heads above the trenches, you have to deal both with scientific criticism and with ad hominem criticism. People who try to take you out, who try to destroy you personally, and your credibility as a scientist.

"That's a very difficult position, and nothing in your university career, nothing in any atmospheric sciences course, prepares you for that," a scientist said.

He continued: "It can be a black hole for your time if you really want to spend all of your time addressing misconceptions, misrepresentations that emerge almost daily in the press. We would do nothing else, we would do no science whatsoever. There's always this balance between doing the science and explaining the science and defending it and countering unfair criticisms and attacks."

One Galileo for Every 5,000 Charlatans

How can responsible scientists best deal with persistent "myths"?, another scientist wondered. "You cut off one head, and it immediately grows back another."

Notwithstanding how much time scientists might have to spend countering such unfounded criticisms and "myths," a reporter advised, "It's implicit on the science community to defend its turf on an issue like climate change or creationism." He pointed to efforts by some scientists to have a quick-response "swat team" rebut efforts on creationism and wondered if a climate change parallel effort might be effective.

A broadcast journalist advised scientists to prepare over the long haul to dispel popular "myths": "It has taken me a year to wrestle the Raelians to the ground," he said, referring to a UFO organization claiming, without verification, to be the first to have cloned a human being. "I don't have much optimism that those myths are easily going away, especially since they have had years to take root."

On how the media might sort-out serious scientists from policy advocates lacking proper scientific standing, one scientist offered this advice: "Who's talking in truth, and who's talking in subjective possibility and ranges? If you know nothing else, that's your first clue that for 90 percent of the time, the range guy is probably telling you the truth. Once in a while there are true iconoclasts who are really bright. But not very often. For every Galileo, there are 5,000 pretenders.

"And the problem is that these little incremental proofs about why the mainstream is wrong are just incremental little bits, and you don't hang a peg on that. Unfortunately, we now come back to a culture that is looking at pegs, and we who are looking to probably over-hype the importance of our little increment, whether on purpose or just accidentally. And those two conspire to give the mis-impression that everything new is a radical change, when rarely does it move the body very much."

The Two-Way Nature of Journalism and of Media Interviews

Journalism as "a two-way street" is a concept that seemed to strike a more familiar chord with the media representatives than with many of the scientists. Reporters encouraged scientists to reach out more aggressively to news departments, and to be aware of various distinct points of entry – reporters, editors, columnists – within a single news organization.

"When you're being interviewed," a reporter advised, "play professor at the end of the conversation. 'Can you just kind of play back for me what it is that you heard?'

"Not what you're going to quote me on," the reporter continued, "but what it is that you got from this conversation. What do you understand? It's a conversation. An interview is two-ways, and you should be able, at the end, to recapitulate: What is it that you see now?"

Another journalist at the workshop echoed that approach: "It's a teaching trick," he said. "You go, 'Did you understand?' And the student says 'Yes.' And you say, 'Good, explain it.'"

While steadfastly opposed to submitting specific copy or language to a news source for pre-publication review or approval, another journalist illustrated by dialogue:

The scientist interviewee: "Come back and double-check with me, because this is pretty complicated stuff. Please do that."

The reporter: "I certainly will go back and say something like, 'Is this a good analogy?' Or, 'Have I gotten this right, or have I really screwed it up?'"

Still another journalist at the workshop: "The exchange is often that you'll say something to us, and we'll say, 'Well, the way I understood it is this .... Or I'll rephrase it. And you'll say, Well, it's really this way. And you have that kind of exchange during the interview. And you end up having a common understanding."

A scientist cautioned his science colleagues against assuming that they can simply say something once and quickly and blithely move on. "Scientists think that if we've said something once, we've said it. I always say it four different ways.

"And I'll often try to put it into a question and answer format. Rephrase your answer with the beginning as a question. These are techniques that scientists know almost nothing about. Very few people will feel manipulated when you do that. They're glad you do it. They'll even give you feedback."

Putting the dialogue into a Q&A format "just makes their job easier," the scientist advised. "Most reporters are NOT trying to trick you. There are a few, but most are not. The suspicion gradient doesn't help .... Trust is the best way to have a good story" from both the scientist's and the reporter's perspective.

Emerging Concepts of "Best Practices"

Beyond the issues discussed above, the journalists and scientists at the Scripps workshop discussed various approaches to strengthening science journalism and thereby improving public understanding of science-related news as reported by the media. Some of the approaches are relatively short-term, others long-term:

• Work within university science and journalism departments improve the level of understanding of science among journalism students and to bring about increased understanding of the news media and the importance of communications among science students. Such an approach at the university level would lead to making specific journalism and science courses and training more accessible to both communications and science majors;
• Work with professional organizations of scientists and journalists to more actively support continuing education opportunities and cross-fertilization between working journalists and scientists;
• Encourage continuing and ongoing off-deadline communications among scientists and journalists to better understand each other’s work culture and "modus operandi";
• Develop mentoring programs both within and between the journalism and science disciplines to foster improved awareness of the value and techniques of communicating effectively with the general public on science-related issues;
• Consider the feasibility of strengthening and expanding, with the benefit of modern information technology, means of making responsible scientific authorities broadly available to a wide cross section of the news media, going well beyond just the largest national media with the most internal resources;
• Consider having leading scientists and scientific organizations collectively highlight to top media managers the critical importance of more effective reporting on science, including ideas on how best to achieve that goal in a competitive news media economy.

These and other ideas from the first two workshops in this series will provide fuel for additional workshops, involving new sets of journalists and scientists, envisioned as part of this multi-year effort. Specific plans for additional workshops in the series will be announced in coming weeks.