Yeh it's a weird balance. I've seen every element of the process break down, from scientists talking nonsense to really sub-par journalism, but I reckon the press release is the biggest single factor in the process that could actually be changed
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Replying to @GidMK @nevertoocurious and
I would love to see medical research organisations and universities collaborate on a set of voluntary guidelines or standards for press releases, particularly on health and medical research ping
@WEHI_research@BurnetInstitute@BakerInstitute@AAMRI_Aus@uommedia@TheFlorey2 replies 2 retweets 8 likes -
Replying to @dr_krystal @GidMK and
Wasn’t
@AusSMC working on a ‘quick glance’ guide for press releases to communicate things like animal vs human trial, study size etc?2 replies 0 retweets 5 likes -
Replying to @BiancaNogrady @GidMK and
Would be terrific if they were!! I think it's important for the reputation of the research sector to have some agreed standards around how we talk about "breakthroughs"
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Replying to @dr_krystal @BiancaNogrady and
Yes we are! Looking at a press release labelling system and possibly a best practice guide for media teams. Would love to collaborate with interested peeps.
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Replying to @AusSMC @dr_krystal and
It would kill off 90% of misleading articles if all press releases were required to begin, "In research based entirely on Mice/Rats (and humans are different to mice/rats in significant ways)...." or "In a study of 17 people (who might not be representative of all humanity)..."
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Replying to @jpkeates @dr_krystal and
“Clinicians, scientists and press officers can take encouragement that deft caution and clear caveats are unlikely to harm news interest and can penetrate through to news and even to news headlines.” https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-019-1324-7 …
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But a lot of those studies probably *shouldn't* be reported in the mainstream media. The study's caveats may be accurately reported, but people skim past them. The fact that it's covered at all implies "this is important and relevant to your life."
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I think it depends on the significance of the discovery; some animal study findings are so significant (or interesting) that they are worth reporting - with the high-up caveat that it is an animal study only.
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Replying to @BiancaNogrady @AusSMC and
Sometimes they are! It also depends a lot on the publication. "Lifehacker wrote about this" sends a different signal vs "Medscape wrote about this" vs "Scientific American wrote about this"
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Part of what frustrates me is the need to directly link animal studies to a health outcome for them to be interesting. We don't do that in other areas of science, but even a groundbreaking piece of rodent research has to be curing cancer or something to be newsworthy
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Agree. It should be enough just to say 'this is a really interesting piece of scientific research that reveals this'. Sometimes it is - depends on the editor and publication.
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Replying to @BiancaNogrady @GidMK and
That would be enough at a publication that runs "here's some cool science" pieces, but most consumer pubs need to relate their stories more to readers' lives. A catchy hook makes the story readable/clickable/profitable and it's hard to say no to that.
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End of conversation
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