United Kingdom: Science Media Centre (including Fiona Fox)

Fox and her colleagues also provide expert comment on just about any science or health subject. “There are far less journalists nowadays, but with much more space to fill. By providing them with expert comment, we are giving it to them on a plate—but what they are getting is fair, balanced, journalism”, says Fox
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So why bother with journalists at all then, why not just have the fake news coming straight from the horses mouth and landing in healthcare policy via the media?....oh....erm...hold on.....

:thumbsdown: :unsure:
 
large donner said:
So why bother with journalists at all then, why not just have the fake news coming straight from the horses mouth and landing in healthcare policy via the media?....oh....erm...hold on.....

:thumbsdown: :unsure:
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I think I heard a good while back that much of 'journalism' now is not the real thing anyway. Financial constraints provoking a race to the bottom in terms of professionalism and quality, relying mostly on 3rd party sources without validating what they are regurgitating. Thankfully there are exceptions.
 
Like Jerome Burne for example.... https://jeromeburne.com/
Greetings


“Evidence based medicine” should, surely, mean all drugs have been rigorously tested. But after 20 years as a health journalist I’m still shocked at how evidence for harm can be hidden and evidence for benefit boosted.

We are all being encouraged to take more responsibility for our own health and many of us would like to use non-drug treatments and life-style changes as well. But gathering evidence that it works is more complicated. Even when it is there it can be ignored.

This is the place to check for cases where the evidence is lacking or has been fudged and to discuss what needs to be done to make it better............"

http://healthinsightuk.org/2016/09/...fraction-as-effective-as-experts-claim-it-is/

https://www.meassociation.org.uk/20...atients-still-at-war-over-m-e-15-august-2017/

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2002/mar/30/health.lifeandhealth
 
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There is a dearth of investigative journalism in the UK. Panorama used to be an hour long, there was World in action? etc. The newspapers aren't any better. Hence we have SMC to give journalists sound bites.
 
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obeat said:
There is a dearth of investigative journalism in the UK. Panorama used to be an hour long, there was Man in action? etc. The newspapers aren't any better. Hence we have SMC to give journalists sound bites.
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Some good journo....... and I am aware Panorama journalists and producers are still interested......

M.E. and me | BBC Newsbeat

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/archive/506549.stm -1999
https://www.meassociation.org.uk/2010/01/bbc-panorama-special-on-kay-gilderdale-case-next-monday-february-1/ -2010
https://www.meassociation.org.uk/20...o-4-file-on-4-children-with-m-e-27-june-2017/
https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/meinvestigation

We, the undersigned, request that the Panorama Team conduct an investigation into the conduct of the Department of Health, Medical Research Council and National Institute for Clinical Excellence with regards to the diagnosis, treatment and research of the neuro-immune disease Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)1 - the disease that affected the late Lynn Gilderdale.2
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Putin and his colleagues also provide expert comment on just about any governmental or political subject. “There are far less journalists nowadays, but with much more space to fill. By providing them with expert comment, we are giving it to them on a plate—but what they are getting is fair, balanced, journalism”, says Vladimir Putin.
 
Barry said:
So please keep this thread on track, and post links, with relevant chat if on track, of any reports you come across about the SMC's unwarranted influence on science reporting and debate. Like I say, not confined to ME ... any science, any unwarranted influence.
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Fiona Fox OBE, FMedSci
fiona-fox.png
Doctor of Science
Wednesday 20 February 2019 - Orator: Professor Adam Finn

Vice Chancellor,

Since 2015 just about everyone has woken up to the very real dangers of disinformation – of ‘fake news’. Our anxieties tend to focus on peer-to-peer social media platforms – but they are relevant to more established, top-down media outlets too, both published (now increasingly online) and broadcast. The damage that misleading people en masse can do to our political, social and public health systems is now obvious to us all. But some people woke up to the importance of improving the quality and accuracy of information reaching the public a long time ago – and one of them was Fiona Fox.

The Science Media Centre came into being following a report on ‘Science and Society’ from the United Kingdom House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, published in 2000. Fiona was appointed its first director in 2002. The principle that drove the creation of the SMC was the need for more open, accessible and understandable communication between scientists and journalists and thus more accurate and relevant information reaching the public. To put it another way, the SMC aims to challenge the idea that the default response of the academic, when told they are speaking to a journalist on the phone, should be to hang up!

What Fiona brought to the SMC was a background not in science, but in journalism. That was the subject of her degree. Her prior experience included working as Media Relations Officer for a London-based charity providing reproductive health advice to young people, as Senior Press Officer at the Equal Opportunities Commission, and running media operations at the National Council for One Parent Families. She went on to become Head of Media at the Catholic Agency For Overseas Development, or CAFOD – one of the UK’s leading aid agencies – and subsequently founded the Jubilee 2000 press group which aimed to force serious international development issues onto media and political agendas.

Under Fiona’s directorship, the SMC has become much more than a vehicle for co-ordinating responses to ‘science stories’. Her founding philosophy was and is that ‘the media will do science better when scientists do the media better.’ This is an organisation that works with and exists for scientists as much as it does for journalists. It is firmly established as the ‘place to go’ for the latter when they want a well-informed opinion about a scientific topic or development – whether to run with it and, if so, what it means and whether and why it matters. The SMC has a well-established network of experts it can call on at a moment’s notice to provide such advice. But it does a lot more than that. It encourages scientists to improve their communication skills and helps them do so. It picks up on emerging issues and topics and showcases them. Just as it has a network of scientific experts to call on, including a number here in Bristol, it is linked up to a network of expert journalists in two-way mode, responding to their requests and alerting them to important and newsworthy developments in science. As Fiona puts it: ‘We are not just getting more scientists into the media…we are ensuring the media has access to the very best scientists and the highest quality evidence.’ A testament to the success of the model is that several other countries are now scrambling to replicate it.

I know Fiona and the SMC team because of vaccines, which are my thing. Most, if not all, of those present will be aware of the protracted dog’s breakfast that was made out of some extremely poor science concerning the entirely excellent combination vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella, usually called MMR. We are still paying the price for that mess even now, with outbreaks of measles in this country and throughout Europe, and very serious concerns about the possible re-emergence of congenital rubella syndrome. Awareness of the mass of misinformation that was created then has made most of today’s journalists a lot more careful when it comes to vaccine scare stories, and the SMC has made it a lot easier for them to get things right by providing rapid access to well-informed experts as and when needed.

The University of Bristol is not alone in honouring Fiona’s achievements. She was awarded an OBE for services to science in 2013 and last year became an honorary fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Since she will not be addressing you today I would like to conclude with two quotes from her acceptance address for the latter. As you will hear, she has some important lessons for us in academia:

‘Do not be complacent about the gains we have made. While President Trump, the Pope and Theresa May felt qualified to enter the debate on Charlie Gard, the researchers and clinicians who treat similar children were told not to speak to journalists by their NHS Trusts.’

And:

‘The latest trust polls show yet again that over 80% of the public trust professors, doctors and scientists; trust levels that journalists and politicians would die for. You have earned this trust, you deserve it - but you need to use your trusted voice to good effect. Correcting bad science and fighting for the evidence may well fan the flames of a row, and it might not be the best thing for your institution’s brand. But in these days of fake news and post-truth, we need you more than ever.’

Vice-Chancellor, I present to you Fiona Bernadette Fox, as eminently worthy of the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa.
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https://www.bristol.ac.uk/graduation/honorary-degrees/honorary-graduates-2019/fiona-fox/

That's pretty hilarious given Fox's role in Bristol's SMILE trial (and of course PACE, and the general smearing of CFS patients).

Adam Finn was one of the organisers of the conference that decided Crawley should speak on "Defending Medical Science in the Post-Truth Era":

https://www.s4me.info/threads/crawley-speaking-at-espid-sweden-2018.1753/
 
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"But some people woke up to the importance of improving the quality and accuracy of information reaching the public a long time ago – and one of them was Fiona Fox."

Indeed she did, especially the importance of stifling it, where specific interests are concerned.
 
I think this is more than just ego, but social engineering calculation. The more establishment accolades and baubles they can accrue, the greater access it gives them to the people they seek to influence, and the greater supposed credibility with which to do it. It's all about cause and effect, and to hell with right/wrong, truth/untruth, etc.
 
Ugh, where's a finger-down-the-throat emoji when you need one? A non-scientist media person awarded an honorary science degree for being in with the in-crowd in a little echo chamber where everyone gives each other continual awards and accolades, while not giving a damn about science. Just.....ugh. :yuck:
 
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