Tim Radford, chairman, greeted the audience and introduced himself and the speakers.

At the outset he stressed that in Britain everything is written according to the audience – they dictate their expectations. 

Nadia El-Awady, Program Manager & Founder, WFSJ & Arab Science Journalists Association, Egypt

She outlined specific case – how the media in Egypt covered the swine flu (May, 2009). This case revealed weaknesses of the Egyptian media. Egypt has a special background which creates a certain state of mind and leads to chaos. It can be illustrated by following steps:

23, April – WHO began reporting cases of N1H1.

28, April – Egyptian parliament called for slaughter of the pigs.

29, April – Slaughter started by presidential decree.

Background:

   1. Egypt is the only Islamic country that has a significant pig population: 100 000 – 300 000 heads. Consumption of pork is prohibited by Islam but there is a large tourism industry and 10 % of population is Christian. Majority of the pigs belong to the Christian minority.
   2. Egyptian government received much criticism in the past few years – there was huge rockslide which killed 100 people, fires which burned parliamentary house, ferry sinking which killed hundreds of people. This created a lot of mistrust to the government.
   3. Plans to remove pigs were here since 2006 already because pigs are not bred on farms but live with people in their homes in slums. People who have the pigs are garbage collectors who bring the garbage to pigs to eat. This creates sanitary problems. The plans though were never carried out.
   4. There exists tension between the Christians and the Muslims in the past few years.
   5. There are concerns over corruption in every section of the society.
   6. As a result Egyptian government involved itself into the drastic response to the imminent threat – they felt the pig flu virus would mutate in the pig and become dangerous.

Media created fear in the community – Al Ahram, largest newspaper in Egypt, wrote that the pork may infiltrate into the meat market being substituted for the beef without people knowing it. A lot of conspiracy theories emerged like there are indications that swine flu is a biological weapon despite WHO insurances that this is not the case. Minister of health made a statement that WHO may by working in the interest of some international companies and is forcing Egypt to make a huge spending without any benefit. Science journalists tend to follow ministers around and cover minister´s statements without balance. This chaos emerged although had not a single case of swine flu at this time Egypt.

Al Ahram also wrote that research has proven over the centuries that the pig is the biggest receptacle of diseases as it holds all the viruses that can be transmitted to the people and causes worldwide epidemics.

Islam on-line suggested to send the pigs to El Alamein to get rid of the land mines. Journalists asked scholars what Islam says to that, scholars saw no problem.

Another magazine reported that a research was made and it resulted to a conclusion that eating pork can infect people with bad habits, e.g. mass orgies like in the western society. The result was panic. Children of garbage collectors were refused admission to schools.

Lessons to learn from this: Have proper sources of information.

Gautam Naik, Wall Street Journal, GB, US

Europe, GB and the US have very similar tradition of journalism, however when it comes to covering certain subjects it is remarkable how they differ.

Mad cow disease – media created feeling that government had really messed up and many people will die a terrible death. Anger led to another set of catastrophic stories in the British press about MMR vaccines – risk of having autism although there was no scientific proof. Therefore we have to think more seriously about scare stories, specially the UK tabloid press.

Evolution – no burden of creation in the UK, but US is different.

Climate change – in Britain many scare stories and very little skepticism, few questioning the numbers. In there was US too much skepticism but is had change recently.

Stem cells, cloning – Britain was justifiably proud about the creation of Dolly, from that research on stem cells was pursued, rules and ethical standards were carefully set up without any political freight. Stories were about the science, abortion was not an issue. In the US writing about stem cells means political story, not a science story, they just don´t let you to write it from that stance. Key is abortion issue. Religious groups have a tremendous power here. Science terms are completely mixed up with political viewpoint. So why is it difficult to cover story on stem cells in the US? You always have to provide another point of view – and there is not one point of view and you have to mention them all. It is also very hard to get your readers to understand various kinds of stem cells. Some journalists confuse their readers by not calling cloning “cloning” but “cell nucleus transfer”. The scale of influencing the public by different wording can be shown in polls given by different groups (Diabetes research – pro stem cells 65 %, Bishops – against stem cells 70 %).

Esther Nakkazi, science reporter, Nation Media Group, Uganda

Spoke about HIV reporting in East Africa region – Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. This region has a lot of problems with reporting HIV. There is a lot of event oriented HIV reporting, journalists follow politicians everywhere. Media love talking about donations, but don´t speak about science behind HIV.

First story. Thousands of Kenyans and Ugandans may have been told they are infected with HIV when they are not (false positives) thanks to rapid 15 minutes test. A journalist had written correctly where the study was done, how many people were involved and what tests were used and that this means that confirmatory tests have to be done. Other media reacted by saying that people cannot trust visitor sites to have their HIV check. Government is trying to encourage people to go to tests. But some may be negative although they are positive and some may be positive although they are negative. That´s why there have been a lot of panic and confusion. In Africa some of the journalists are also editors and subeditors as a station does not have a health editor. Therefore there is nobody to check the information. If journalist gets it wrong editor will not correct it. Radio picks a lot from print and don´t consult scientists a lot. Scientists do not talk to journalists because they often misquote them. Journalists do not understand what scientists are saying. Journalists lack training and therefore don´t know what to ask the scientist. We are all guilty, we follow politician´s agendas, but politicians follow money. The scientists just wanted to say that you need three tests but there is not enough of medical staff to manage visitor centers. With so little money they can give just one test.

Second story. Science journalists have done a great job on reporting on HIV, but some are not correct. A factory to produce a remedy was to be opened and people celebrated that they are finally free and that they are not going to die. Although we are moving from prevention to treatment we are not putting enough prevention message.

Third story. Fact that male circumcision reduces HIV infection risk in male patient was misinterpreted the following way: If you are circumcised you are completely free of HIV. Circumcised men thought that they cannot catch HIV.

Fourth story. Too much complacency emerged. In the beginning media had been focusing on bad stories about people dying, after that they wanted to focus on good stories to give new vision. Now they have given too many good stories that people had so they have to put scare stories again to help people understand that HIV kills.

Q & A

A journalist from Cairo emphasized misconceptions and the influence of politics. Was in Abu Dhabi two weeks ago and there was a new case of swine flu. The leading newspaper decided that this was not worth reporting on the first page – because it would cause a panic. Only small information was put on inside pages. Job of science journalist in Middle East is very difficult. Many people really believe that by eating pork you become more promiscuous is true. 

A man from India to Gautam: Your paper WSJ is against Kyoto protocol and global warming. How do you as a reporter resolve this difference? To Nadia: How much of the problems in Egypt are due the lack of competition? In proper competition good journalism would shine through.

Gautam: When it came to covering climate change at the Wall Street Journal three years ago I tried hard to give it more attention and they weren´t interested. The reason was they were not convinced by the science. I disagreed, I said the science is very convincing, peer reviewed, replicated, similar effects were discovered. But their point was there is too much disagreement about conclusions, but this came from the political lobby. And they listened to the political lobby. When you try to communicate scientific fact when politics is trying to intrude, it becomes difficult. Listening to various loud groups doesn´t help.

Nadia: In Egypt it is not a problem of competition. I would blame access to information and language problem. Journalists know only Arabic so their sources are limited. The other thing would be training.

A journalist from Mali: In our country we do not know about relation between male circumcision and reduced risk of HIV infection.

Esther: There definitely is a link between male circumcision and HIV. Most of the population in Mali is Muslim so they are circumcised – so they have s very low prevalence of HIV. 

Barbara Gallavorty, Italian National Television: Similar peculiar things as Nadia told happen even in Italy. Some topics are covered by general journalists not specialist journalists. What should be done to create more specialist journalist? Did you find yourself in opposition with your editor?

Patrick Luganda, Uganda: I would like to appreciate the panel for bringing the topics. If you want to be a good science journalist you have to understand the background of the societies you are working for or from where the reports come from. It is evident the science reporter is also driven by the same people´s beliefs, their culture, their religion. The person reporting is not sufficiently trained to tell the difference. Even the editor doesn´t accept the science. So what to do?

Nadia to Barbara: The problem is not the matter of quantity, there are many specialized journalists, but it is the quality. Solution – to Patrick: 1. Journalists need to learn languages, 2. Provide more information in Arabic, 3. Provide more training – we already started in WFSJ and the program is running for three years, it will take some time.

Tim: There is not only problem with science reporting in regions, there is also problem with science reporting in Great Britain and in United States, where half of the population thinks that Darwin got it wrong. The problem is universal and ignorance and fear are problems everywhere.

Daniel Nelson, freelance: Journalists like to think they are independent and I am afraid they are not. They just reflect the prevailing political orthodoxies of their time and often are not questioning. I just came back from Rwanda, where I spent seven weeks of training environmental and health journalists. I agree with Tim – it is the same here. One of the problems is very simple: When science journalist thinks of himself as of science reporter, specialist, they seem to lose some of their skepticism. They seem to be self-conscious and serious and thinking they have got a mission. But they are just journalists looking for stories. And if they do that they have to ask questions all the time.

I am facing another slight dilemma: A lot of funding for training comes from the West. At the moment funder are saying: Go to climate change. Tell people about it, spread the word. When you do to Tanzania or Uganda or Rwanda or India, people say: This is not our number one problem. We´v got much of other problems.

Katherine from France to Gautam: You said that mentioning nuclear transfer instead of cloning means confusing but nuclear transfer means science, not politics, it is more precise, talk about science in science terms and not with political terms.

Ruth Francis, Nature, to Gautam: What is your solution for journalist who is under pressure of editor with whom you don´t agree?

Gautam: Bombard editor with the same or similar story over and over again to the point when the pending will finally drop. How to improve things? Focus on just a few subjects with which you are comfortable with and you can drill really deep down so you are aware of all the science of the story – what the scientists say and what the political baggage is.

Esther to Ruth: Our staff writes what editor says. If your editor says you have to do the story you just go and do the story. Freelancers do not earn much. If we receive funding for writing about climate change, we do it. What we should do to improve science writing? It is definitely about training and building capacity.

Julia, Kenya: There is something called force feeding and I think it’s a big problem. We need to be asking ourselves – who are our audience. At the end of the day it is our public. In East Africa everything we publish in print, TV, radio is for the end user and that are the public. We have to find out what are their questions. It doesn´t make sense to talk climate change in country where first killer is malaria

Nadia: One of the things that really disturbed me on covering swine flu was the fact that suddenly the media were flooded with this coverage. But there are so many issues that are so much more important and really deserve coverage, hepatitis C for example, that effects according to some estimates fourth of our population. But it doesn´t get the coverage like swine flu or climate change.

Tim: We have to do the best as often as we can. Science reporter is not in privileged position, has to address other people´s needs. Science is a moving target and we have to keep with it.

Sarka Spevakova