so in 2015 I started the young American
journalist grant I remember my plane
landing in life sees an East German city
not far from Berlin and I was ecstatic I
was fresh out of grad school and I was
here to talk with farmers about how they
use antibiotics or how they feel about
regulations regarding antibiotic I know
antibiotics in agriculture and I was
especially curious whether US farmers
would face similar challenges when a
similar policy went into effect and I
won’t bore you with all the details or
why you’ve done with it but more or less
it would require veterinary oversight so
you couldn’t just give it to your
animals when you want it to it was also
around this time that big newsrooms like
the New York Times in The Guardian they
were publishing their own texts about an
apocalyptic post-antibiotic era a time
when superbugs would run rampant and
common infections would no longer be
curable due to antibiotic resistance and
you can think of antibiotic resistance
as a type of natural stalemate that
occurs as an as pathogens are exposed to
antibiotics over time but for me it was
always a little bit too abstract too
distant we had germs these microscopic
cellular organisms things you can’t see
with the human eye affecting thousands
of people and costing hundreds of
thousands of dollars headlines were
sensationalistic if not dramatic
antibiotic freeze nightmare bacteria
superbugs every now and then I’d find a
paragraph about a pharmaceutical
companies reluctance to pour millions of
dollars into antibiotic research simply
because the drugs are you so sparingly
they don’t turn a profit so zero return
means zero incentive or I’d hear a
little bit about the importance of
making sure physicians prescribed
antibiotics in a proper fashion to make
sure to make sure they retain their
efficacy
but what was missing were pieces of the
puzzle explaining what was happening on
the ground how were these policies being
implemented and how were the individuals
implementing them being affected this is
what drew me to Germany they had
recently made such policy changes and
the EU has a very impressive huge
database with impressive data sets
looking at not only antibiotic
resistance trends but antibiotic usage
and I found myself looking for sources
as I went about my reporting process who
was I going to talk to and I started
with the pig and dairy farmers I started
with farming associations the head of
the FDA in Brussels the head the
president of the FAO
retired employees of the FDA university
researchers and experts who presented at
conferences like the World Health Summit
or the joint programming initiative on
antimicrobial resistance in Stockholm
and I’d like to say that access was easy
but it wasn’t sometimes a source would
take a month and my farmers took five
before they were even willing to talk
with me and I think this is due in part
to a broad definition of media which
makes it very difficult for news
consumers to distinguish between
journalism and entertainment fact and
fiction credible and non credible the
intersections are many they’re complex
and they’re increasingly blurred this
fuels have persistent hesitancy people
have when engaging with the media will
we be fair will we use misuse your trust
are we going to be honest about our
intentions and I think this stems from a
misunderstanding of how to engage with
one another fundamentally science and
journalism actually have quite a lot in
common
it starts with a question I hypothesis
that evolves as more information comes
to light and if you think about the
similarities you also want to make sure
that you can interact with one another
that you feel confident in that
situation in the process of reporting my
stories
I had to rely on what I learned from my
sources and each story was different but
what I learned fundamentally was that
people were very surprised to learn that
journalism is not simply the
presentation or regurgitation of facts
but is instead a process that requires
looking at information skeptically and
critically with the help of experts
which also includes acknowledging your
own biases great journalism occurs when
it informs and contextualizes while
emotionally engaging your audience it’s
not as easy as it sounds if it were
researchers would be making their
journal articles a lot more fun to read
most journalists strive for this ideal
so contextually and emotionally engage
but there are some that report for their
byline for that ego but this is the
exception not the rule most journalists
do this work because they care you don’t
have to look far for great journalism
there’s Carl Zimmer of stat Marin
McKenna of National Geographic and coral
Davenport of the New York Times and
their work if anything has proven that
there’s an appetite for science
journalism journalists need individuals
willing to share their observations
professionals who have spent their
careers studying and focusing on
important issues like artificial
intelligence antimicrobial resistance or
mRNA vaccines and this is true not just
across Sciences but across all fields my
father always said to me people have
stories to tell you just have to listen
and it was exactly these stories that I
heard from my sources and through my own
experiences that helped me note a big
difference in the way that the u.s.
presents antibiotic use data and the way
that the European Union and Germany does
the European Union already provides a
country-by-country breakdown that is
further broken down across region and
state in Germany the you
has yet to break it down across
state-by-state it’s roughly a ten-year
difference if you look at when the
program started and without this data no
meaningful trends can be found you can’t
make a generalization there’s just not
enough information and I found myself
wondering why this was the case and I
was a little bit disheartened to find
that there wasn’t enough data to make an
assumption or an assessment to me this
is fascinating stuff this is the
intersection of Health and Environment
and animals and who else but a
journalist has the resources and the
time to look at these issues in closer
detail journalists believe it or not are
necessary we serve as an outset set of
eyes to look at these issues and it’s
our job to be transparent and I don’t
mean to say that journalists don’t bring
their own opinions or object our
assumptions to the table but through our
evidence through our sourcing and
through the production process there’s
an element of transparency I myself grew
enthusiastic about the way Germany
managed antibiotic use but I was also
disheartened because the researchers on
the ground who were working so hard to
make this data available for us very
rarely had recognition or knew what or
really did it come to light what they
were actually doing and this is a piece
that’s very important and missing in the
focus of making their own advancements
researchers forget to tell their own
stories stories it’s very much need to
be told especially outside of their own
research or research communities and the
scientific field so how can I as a
journalist help researchers share their
stories and how can researchers help us
maybe you’re a farmer a researcher or a
politician and one day you might find
yourself face to face with a journalist
and instead of feeling hesitate
or disinterested I’d hope you’d feel
eager willing to engage with them and
tell them a little bit about what you
know remembering that your experiences
are part of a large complex puzzle
that’s why I have a couple of tips for
interacting with journalists that I’d
like to give you today the first is to
use analogies and metaphors finding a
way to explain complex topics in a
simple way is very effective yes you
have a professional role but you might
also be a nice or an uncle how would you
explain a topic to your cousin or your
your daughter you wouldn’t just say DNA
is deoxyribonucleic acid
you’d say DNA is a blueprint for
creating cells or an instruction manual
and be careful with the analogies and
metaphors you use because sometimes they
can distort you need to really see what
the professional level of the journalist
is when you interact the next is to kill
jargon not everyone knows what you know
you’ve studied so instead of saying
something like this is incredibly so
linic just say it’s salty or high in
salt this is so much more effective the
next thing is to keep an open mind yes
you want things presented in a
particular way but we’re trying to make
it accessible for as many people as
possible some of whom don’t have
scientific literacy work with the
journalists to find a middle ground next
is to provide access whether that’s
access to you as a professional or
access to a study it does wonders I
would often draft 10 to 15 questions
went before I reached out to a primary
investigator and only having looked at
the abstract of their study but once I
had the study I could look at the
methods I could look at who funded it I
could look at a number of different
things that dropped the number of
questions I had down to five or six
essentially saving then
time and me time as well the next is to
say feel free to say off the record if
you don’t want information attributed to
you maybe it’s important contextually
but you don’t really want it mentioned
in the story every one of my farmers
wanted to be anonymous they did not want
to say what they really felt about the
policies but these on background
conversations were very helpful for me
as I move through it in my reporting you
should absolutely feel comfortable to do
that remember that a journalist is not
here for PR it is not our job to make
you look good or your institution we’re
going to talk with your colleagues and
talk with your critics and try to figure
out whether what you said can be
verified just like in an experiment is
it replicable is it verifiable
titrations are really boring but it’s an
idea and lastly keep an open mind
oh let go yeah sorry you won’t be able
to control everything that happens in
the text and I never send a full copy to
my sources before it’s done I don’t know
any journalist who does but you should
go back if a journalist does not reach
out to you and asks to see your quotes
have them read back to you and make sure
that the dates and numbers and all of
that has been accuracy checked this is
beneficial to you and also to the
journalists in my experience when
science and journalism come together
it’s a magical relationship they
mutually benefit one another and it’s a
great way to facilitate between
researchers and the general public I
think that there are so many topics like
genetically modified organisms or cancer
therapies or antidepressants these are
topics which make headlines and they’re
no longer limited to science sections
but find themselves on as the centerfold
of Business and Economics papers this is
true today and will be true in the
future and it’s my job as a journalist
to to facilitate but also garner
curiosity for the
work that’s being done I want to make
the science and technology accessible
for anyone who finds themself interested
in it and it’s my hope that by providing
a small little glimpse into the world of
journalism maybe if you do find a
journalist at your door you will feel
empowered and capable of taking on the
challenge of communicating with them
rather than keeping your own story
behind closed doors thank you
journalist grant I remember my plane
landing in life sees an East German city
not far from Berlin and I was ecstatic I
was fresh out of grad school and I was
here to talk with farmers about how they
use antibiotics or how they feel about
regulations regarding antibiotic I know
antibiotics in agriculture and I was
especially curious whether US farmers
would face similar challenges when a
similar policy went into effect and I
won’t bore you with all the details or
why you’ve done with it but more or less
it would require veterinary oversight so
you couldn’t just give it to your
animals when you want it to it was also
around this time that big newsrooms like
the New York Times in The Guardian they
were publishing their own texts about an
apocalyptic post-antibiotic era a time
when superbugs would run rampant and
common infections would no longer be
curable due to antibiotic resistance and
you can think of antibiotic resistance
as a type of natural stalemate that
occurs as an as pathogens are exposed to
antibiotics over time but for me it was
always a little bit too abstract too
distant we had germs these microscopic
cellular organisms things you can’t see
with the human eye affecting thousands
of people and costing hundreds of
thousands of dollars headlines were
sensationalistic if not dramatic
antibiotic freeze nightmare bacteria
superbugs every now and then I’d find a
paragraph about a pharmaceutical
companies reluctance to pour millions of
dollars into antibiotic research simply
because the drugs are you so sparingly
they don’t turn a profit so zero return
means zero incentive or I’d hear a
little bit about the importance of
making sure physicians prescribed
antibiotics in a proper fashion to make
sure to make sure they retain their
efficacy
but what was missing were pieces of the
puzzle explaining what was happening on
the ground how were these policies being
implemented and how were the individuals
implementing them being affected this is
what drew me to Germany they had
recently made such policy changes and
the EU has a very impressive huge
database with impressive data sets
looking at not only antibiotic
resistance trends but antibiotic usage
and I found myself looking for sources
as I went about my reporting process who
was I going to talk to and I started
with the pig and dairy farmers I started
with farming associations the head of
the FDA in Brussels the head the
president of the FAO
retired employees of the FDA university
researchers and experts who presented at
conferences like the World Health Summit
or the joint programming initiative on
antimicrobial resistance in Stockholm
and I’d like to say that access was easy
but it wasn’t sometimes a source would
take a month and my farmers took five
before they were even willing to talk
with me and I think this is due in part
to a broad definition of media which
makes it very difficult for news
consumers to distinguish between
journalism and entertainment fact and
fiction credible and non credible the
intersections are many they’re complex
and they’re increasingly blurred this
fuels have persistent hesitancy people
have when engaging with the media will
we be fair will we use misuse your trust
are we going to be honest about our
intentions and I think this stems from a
misunderstanding of how to engage with
one another fundamentally science and
journalism actually have quite a lot in
common
it starts with a question I hypothesis
that evolves as more information comes
to light and if you think about the
similarities you also want to make sure
that you can interact with one another
that you feel confident in that
situation in the process of reporting my
stories
I had to rely on what I learned from my
sources and each story was different but
what I learned fundamentally was that
people were very surprised to learn that
journalism is not simply the
presentation or regurgitation of facts
but is instead a process that requires
looking at information skeptically and
critically with the help of experts
which also includes acknowledging your
own biases great journalism occurs when
it informs and contextualizes while
emotionally engaging your audience it’s
not as easy as it sounds if it were
researchers would be making their
journal articles a lot more fun to read
most journalists strive for this ideal
so contextually and emotionally engage
but there are some that report for their
byline for that ego but this is the
exception not the rule most journalists
do this work because they care you don’t
have to look far for great journalism
there’s Carl Zimmer of stat Marin
McKenna of National Geographic and coral
Davenport of the New York Times and
their work if anything has proven that
there’s an appetite for science
journalism journalists need individuals
willing to share their observations
professionals who have spent their
careers studying and focusing on
important issues like artificial
intelligence antimicrobial resistance or
mRNA vaccines and this is true not just
across Sciences but across all fields my
father always said to me people have
stories to tell you just have to listen
and it was exactly these stories that I
heard from my sources and through my own
experiences that helped me note a big
difference in the way that the u.s.
presents antibiotic use data and the way
that the European Union and Germany does
the European Union already provides a
country-by-country breakdown that is
further broken down across region and
state in Germany the you
has yet to break it down across
state-by-state it’s roughly a ten-year
difference if you look at when the
program started and without this data no
meaningful trends can be found you can’t
make a generalization there’s just not
enough information and I found myself
wondering why this was the case and I
was a little bit disheartened to find
that there wasn’t enough data to make an
assumption or an assessment to me this
is fascinating stuff this is the
intersection of Health and Environment
and animals and who else but a
journalist has the resources and the
time to look at these issues in closer
detail journalists believe it or not are
necessary we serve as an outset set of
eyes to look at these issues and it’s
our job to be transparent and I don’t
mean to say that journalists don’t bring
their own opinions or object our
assumptions to the table but through our
evidence through our sourcing and
through the production process there’s
an element of transparency I myself grew
enthusiastic about the way Germany
managed antibiotic use but I was also
disheartened because the researchers on
the ground who were working so hard to
make this data available for us very
rarely had recognition or knew what or
really did it come to light what they
were actually doing and this is a piece
that’s very important and missing in the
focus of making their own advancements
researchers forget to tell their own
stories stories it’s very much need to
be told especially outside of their own
research or research communities and the
scientific field so how can I as a
journalist help researchers share their
stories and how can researchers help us
maybe you’re a farmer a researcher or a
politician and one day you might find
yourself face to face with a journalist
and instead of feeling hesitate
or disinterested I’d hope you’d feel
eager willing to engage with them and
tell them a little bit about what you
know remembering that your experiences
are part of a large complex puzzle
that’s why I have a couple of tips for
interacting with journalists that I’d
like to give you today the first is to
use analogies and metaphors finding a
way to explain complex topics in a
simple way is very effective yes you
have a professional role but you might
also be a nice or an uncle how would you
explain a topic to your cousin or your
your daughter you wouldn’t just say DNA
is deoxyribonucleic acid
you’d say DNA is a blueprint for
creating cells or an instruction manual
and be careful with the analogies and
metaphors you use because sometimes they
can distort you need to really see what
the professional level of the journalist
is when you interact the next is to kill
jargon not everyone knows what you know
you’ve studied so instead of saying
something like this is incredibly so
linic just say it’s salty or high in
salt this is so much more effective the
next thing is to keep an open mind yes
you want things presented in a
particular way but we’re trying to make
it accessible for as many people as
possible some of whom don’t have
scientific literacy work with the
journalists to find a middle ground next
is to provide access whether that’s
access to you as a professional or
access to a study it does wonders I
would often draft 10 to 15 questions
went before I reached out to a primary
investigator and only having looked at
the abstract of their study but once I
had the study I could look at the
methods I could look at who funded it I
could look at a number of different
things that dropped the number of
questions I had down to five or six
essentially saving then
time and me time as well the next is to
say feel free to say off the record if
you don’t want information attributed to
you maybe it’s important contextually
but you don’t really want it mentioned
in the story every one of my farmers
wanted to be anonymous they did not want
to say what they really felt about the
policies but these on background
conversations were very helpful for me
as I move through it in my reporting you
should absolutely feel comfortable to do
that remember that a journalist is not
here for PR it is not our job to make
you look good or your institution we’re
going to talk with your colleagues and
talk with your critics and try to figure
out whether what you said can be
verified just like in an experiment is
it replicable is it verifiable
titrations are really boring but it’s an
idea and lastly keep an open mind
oh let go yeah sorry you won’t be able
to control everything that happens in
the text and I never send a full copy to
my sources before it’s done I don’t know
any journalist who does but you should
go back if a journalist does not reach
out to you and asks to see your quotes
have them read back to you and make sure
that the dates and numbers and all of
that has been accuracy checked this is
beneficial to you and also to the
journalists in my experience when
science and journalism come together
it’s a magical relationship they
mutually benefit one another and it’s a
great way to facilitate between
researchers and the general public I
think that there are so many topics like
genetically modified organisms or cancer
therapies or antidepressants these are
topics which make headlines and they’re
no longer limited to science sections
but find themselves on as the centerfold
of Business and Economics papers this is
true today and will be true in the
future and it’s my job as a journalist
to to facilitate but also garner
curiosity for the
work that’s being done I want to make
the science and technology accessible
for anyone who finds themself interested
in it and it’s my hope that by providing
a small little glimpse into the world of
journalism maybe if you do find a
journalist at your door you will feel
empowered and capable of taking on the
challenge of communicating with them
rather than keeping your own story
behind closed doors thank you
Please follow and like us: