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Communications |
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From Snail Venom
to the Complex Flu Story,
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“What?” he replied, his question laced with confusion. He needed us to come up with a story for the next day’s newscast—fast. The 11:00 news had “scooped” our story about baby boomer health, and we were left with nothing for the next day. The promo department wanted to do an early “teaser” on something, so we needed a story idea on the spot, or be denied our five-minute health segment the next day. I suggested snail venom. It was a fascinating story about the use of venom from a poisonous marine snail as an analgesic painkiller for people suffering from chronic pain, and for whom over-the-counter pain medications do little good. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a proper “pitch” prepared. The promos guy scowled when my answer didn’t come quickly enough. I imagine his mind filled immediately with images of giant snails with big fangs dripping with sticky poison. And, what would that kind of story have to do with health or medical issues? “What else do you have?” he asked impatiently. That was it. I had in one moment utterly destroyed any chance of airing a really interesting, useful piece of science. We spent about an hour working on a compelling venom pitch that could work as a quick catchy promo, but to no avail. He had made up his mind, and there was no changing it. Snail venom was out. It was my first real lesson about working with people in television news. Up until that point I had mainly suggested ideas to my mentor, Max Gomez, and his producer, Cathy Becker, both of whom are open to hearing the ideas of an intern, and who did not require the perfect pitch. They had been the ones to pitch stories to the director, not I. So, I was blissfully unaware of the art of pitching to the real people in charge. The people in charge of the news are normal people, who work in a fast-paced world. They don’t necessarily have higher levels of education than anyone watching the news – and certainly not in science. Hence, they like things made simple, especially their science. They don’t care about the complexities of such issues as the bird flu, evolution, or nutrition. All they want to know is the bottom line, which is in reality what the general public wants to know. I learned from my snail venom experience that to get to the bottom line for TV news there are two main questions a pitch needs to answer: 1) How is this new piece of information going to affect my life? And, 2) if it won’t affect my life, why should I care? In addition, the pitch needs to be concise and easy to understand. If it takes too long to explain your story idea to the news or promotions director, how on earth will it ever be simplified for the television audience? Simplification is an aspect of television news that is irksome to the scientific mind, but necessary for the presentation of information through the television medium. The average television viewer is assumed to have the education of a sixth-grader, which makes it imperative that writing and ideas be simplified as much as possible. An entire scientific study must be boiled down to one take-home message that the viewer can apply to their life. Sometimes stories benefit from the simplification. It makes it easy for the public to digest. One study that we covered found that women who drink regular coffee don’t necessarily have higher blood pressure, as had been implied by some previous studies. That piece of information led to the message that it’s ok for women to drink coffee. There were several other important aspects to the study, like how much coffee per day, and women’s age and lifestyle, but including them clouded the message. In truth, while the additional information may help scientists or medical doctors reach more accurate conclusions, in cases like the one above the public doesn’t need to know everything. However, many times simplification can lead to even more confusion, which I had the opportunity to witness firsthand. The bird flu was a huge story during much of the time I was at WNBC-TV, the network’s flagship New York City station. Unfortunately, the story broke around the same time as the public was being urged to get their annual flu vaccine. Suddenly there wasn’t enough flu vaccine to go around, and that there was a shortage of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu. This confluence of similar stories caused confusion to no end within the news office. And, if the news is confused, the public will definitely be. People in the newsroom asked our little medical unit whether the flu vaccine would keep them from catching the bird flu. Shouldn’t “the flu” vaccine protect them from “the flu”? It was obvious from their questions that there was little understanding of the fact that there are many different influenza viruses. Somehow that simple, important message was not getting out to the public. The use of the generic phrase “the flu” in the public zeitgeist for too many years had oversimplified the concept too much to be useful in informing people about differences between viruses. Tamiflu created further misunderstanding since most people didn’t differentiate between a vaccine and an antiviral medication. The similarity of the words leads to the assumption that they both prevent “the flu” even though they have entirely different purposes. When the reports of a Tamiflu shortage came in, people thought there wasn’t enough flu vaccine. Funnily, even though the government kept saying there was plenty of vaccine, eventually there was a vaccine shortage as well. On top of this the Associated Press newswire reported increases in bird flu deaths in other countries, which prompted news directors around the country to question whether this may become the next pandemic. And, that was the message among all the others that stuck: The next pandemic may have struck. So, the story was covered over and over again by all the networks without enough emphasis on any of the scientific facts about the likelihood of the virus mutating. I watched as reporters in the newsroom (and probably at newsrooms across the country) created something for the public to fear. The bird flu situation likely resulted from the fact that there is a lot of scientific uncertainty surrounding whether or not the virus will 1) mutate into a form that can be transmitted between people, and 2) if so, whether it will actually be very virulent. Unfortunately, in this case, educated guesses and hypotheses were over-simplified, and came out sounding like facts. The example of bird flu serves to demonstrate how important accurate reporting is to public health and well-being. Perhaps a more complex message could have averted some of the public panic that resulted from the reporting. Hopefully, someday there will be a balance found where not all stories are simplified to the same degree. If that day ever comes, it will certainly make scientists more apt to provide information to the press, and make the public more responsible for the information they receive. It seems to me that the lack of responsibility at this point allows the public to be reactionary rather than well informed. Scientists fear a reactionary public, and hate the fact that their work may be simplified to inaccuracy by the press. This relationship between scientists, the press, and the public is an important one that can only benefit from finding new ways to improve communication between the three groups. I think that the AAAS fellowship is an important part of initiating better communication. Sanford spent seven weeks at WNBC-TV in New York, and was asked back for “vacation cover.” She is working on her doctorate at Univ. of California, Davis, and hosts a weekly radio program. |
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