Press: Big thrusters
Authors: Sally Carter
Journal: BMJ (2006)

If you found yourself drawn in by the headline to this article you are not alone. Apparently “big thrusters” are two of the most popular words in headlines, along with “rocket,” “gun,” and “explosion,” for attracting men to read New Scientist. In a speech entitled “Frankenstein researchers create bunny monster” (a headline taken from a newspaper story), Alun Anderson, a researcher, writer, publisher, and former editor in chief of New Scientist, told the Royal Institution last week why science reporting in the popular press can drive scientists crazy, and about the pressures on the editors of magazines, journals, and newspapers.

Portraying science in the media is not easy. Publishers wanting mores sales and advertising, a demanding readership, journalists competing for space and working to tight deadlines, and scientists themselves make for a complex mix of pressures.

Newspapers, journals, and magazines are a business, so the product must sell, and on the news stand it's the cover that sells it. Dr Anderson likened people choosing magazines in newsagents to bees searching for nectar in flower beds (he did postdoctoral work on honeybees). In the same way that flowers need to stand out from the crowd for bees to visit them, magazine covers need to have visual trappings that will make potential readers take them off the shelves: the size, shape, and colour of the cover image; the headlines; and the “right” cover story all matter. Mentions of alcohol or marijuana as well as lists of top 10s usually make for good sales figures.

People will have inbuilt positive or negative reactions to all these things. Using examples of front covers of New Scientist, Dr Anderson tested the audience to see if they could pick out a bestseller. The results were mixed (when the same test was done on art students they picked the winners and losers more successfully despite not knowing much about the subjects on the cover). Covers that sold well often used big, colourful images and, strangely, often had eyes in them. A cover image of a man wearing a carnival mask covered in peacock feathers that looked like a mass of eyes, however, proved this theory wrong. The cover story was about how same sex relationships may not be a biological dead end, but the glue that holds many animal societies together. Perhaps it was the subject, but the magazine was one of the worst selling issues. Certain “hot topics” seem to sell better: black holes, the origins of time, and the paranormal—not exactly things that are taught in science at school.

Advertising is crucial for magazines and papers to stay profitable, and conflicts between the editor and the publisher about advertising content are not uncommon. In the case of New Scientist the editor could easily decide to ban adverts on smoking and religion—but what about adverts for gas guzzling sport utility vehicles (SUVs), in a magazine that is more likely than not to contain articles about global warming?

Readers also want to be entertained, informed, and told something new. Subjects and stories need to be targeted at the public, who often disapprove quickly of a scientific study if it is not immediately clear why the research is being done and how it is of benefit. When a story is about some “blue skies” research then people may believe that the scientists are “playing God” and distrust them.

But why would the public distrust scientists—who are, after all, the experts? Perhaps it is because scientists are people too but don't like to admit it. Like anyone, scientists sometimes get things wrong (Dr Anderson cited an estimate that 98 000 deaths a year in the United States are caused by medical error (BMJ 1999;319: 1519. [PubMed])), and heretics are sometimes right (Marshall and Warren's isolation of Helicobacter pylori from clinical specimens in patients with stomach ulcers launched revolutions in gastroenterology and microbiology). Some want to promote their work above all else, and some cheat. The Journal of Cell Biology has started to test for alterations to digital photos. According to a survey of 3000 scientists, 15.5% had made changes to their study under pressure from a funding source, and 15.3% said that they had dropped data points from analyses because of a gut feeling that they were inaccurate, Dr Anderson said.

So the public may distrust scientists—but that is nothing compared with the distrust some scientists feel for journalists, who they feel often misuse scientific terms and feed the readers the “sexy” bits of science without giving them the processes behind them.