Don’t you love a good story? One of my favorite satellite radio channels is PRX, which is filled with captivating stories about people’s life experiences. Did you know that journalism involves storytelling? According to the Pew Research Center, the job of a journalist is “is storytelling with a purpose.”[1] That purpose—the framing of the narrative—can have a significant impact on how we perceive controversial bioethical issues.
Let’s look at an example of framing. Last December, Sir John Gurdon, a distinguished scientist, gave a BBC interview in which he said human cloning will be possible in the next 50 years.[2] Other media outlets ran with the story. The story was framed to look as if Gurdon was making a prediction based on his expertise and research in biology. The tone was that of progress within the field that will save lives. Here’s the reality:
Gurdon is a 79-year-old Nobel Laureate whose work with frog clones contributed to the cloning of Dolly the sheep. He had accurately predicted mammal cloning. Since Gurdon was right once, maybe he will be right again. His prediction is not based on current scientific findings, or research in human cloning, just his gut feeling. News stories quoted him mostly about ethical issues, not about his expertise in biology.
How do you think the journalists framed this issue? They ignored Ian Wilmut’s prediction five years earlier that cloning is too inefficient, and that the future lies in induced pluripotent stem cells. Wilmut oversaw the Dolly project, so he would be as well qualified as Gurdon to make a prediction about cloning. Rather than framing Gurdon’s comments within the context of the subject of cloning, the stories highlighted a famous biologist giving his opinion, and reported it as something more significant than it is.
The story was framed as a science story, but the content was about far more than science.
There are ethical standards in journalism.[3] But journalists are human and, like anyone else, they can be guilty of bias and conflicts of interest. We need to practice discernment when reading stories about bioethics.
It’s not easy, and we don’t always live up to it, but at The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity, we try to practice what we preach. Here are four things we all need to be alert for: 1) Quoting a scientist on non-scientific issues, or areas outside their expertise. 2) Reporting on complex bioethics issues as if there is only one perspective. 3) Over-stating the success or implications of a particular finding. 4) Demonizing one side to make a mundane topic seem controversial.[4]
A good journalist can still tell a compelling story. Their job should not be entertainment or advocacy, but information. Our job as readers and listeners is to pay attention, and actively discern rather than passively absorb. We just might learn something that helps us tell a good story.
[1] “Principles of Journalism” Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, http://www.journalism.org/resources/principles (accessed February 15, 2013).
[2] “Human Cloning ‘within 50 years’ by Nick Collins The Telegraph, December 18, 2012; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9753647/Human-cloning-within-50-years.html (accessed February 15, 2013); BBC: The Life Scientific, interview with John Gurdon, broadcast December 18, 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p9ks8 (accessed February 15, 2013).
[3] See journalism.org for The Pew Research Center’s project on excellence in journalism. It lists 9 principles of journalism that were established by the committee of Concerned Journalists, drawing from years of research and interviews from journalists across the nation.
[4] For a good reference on discerning science articles, see the American Institute for Technology and Science Education’s article “The Bunk-Detecting Principles” http://www.aitse.org/the-bunk-detecting-principles/ (accessed 02/18/13).