A Balancing Act
I’m going to nitpick this lament by James Fallows:
One of the basic functions of journalism is to say: This is true, and that is false. There are other functions, but establishing bedrock “world is round / sun rises in the east / 1+ 1 = 2” verities is a big one.
In today’s political environment, when so many simple facts are disputed, journalists can feel abashed about stating plainly what is true. With an anticipatory cringe about the angry letters they will receive or the hostile blog posts that will appear, they instead cover themselves by writing, “according to most scientists, the sun rises in the east, although critics say….”
I assume that Fallows is referring to newspaper journalism, where attribution (in news stories) is embedded in the reporter’s DNA. He knows this but for some reason gives the impression that reporters rely on “false balance” attribution to avoid accusations of bias from angry readers or bloggers.
However, there is a recent example of newspaper journalism where the reporters were not at all “abashed about stating plainly what is true,” and they were hammered–by fellow journalists in prominent perches.
I’m referring to this December 8 story in The Chicago Tribune by Patricia Callahan and Trine Tsouderoson. It’s an unabashed takedown of the so-called “chronic lyme disease” diagnosis and its advocates. So unabashed, in fact, that science journalist Paul Raeburn found it wanting for lack of attribution. Pamela Weintraub, features editor at Discover magazine (and author of this related book), was similarly critical of the article. (That whole comment thread at Science Tracker is worth a read.)
Personally, I’m still a little taken aback by the fierce reaction to the Chicago Tribune piece from Raeburn and Weintraub. I don’t think their criticism (or dismissive tone) is warranted. As Orac notes in his own response to Raeburn and Weintraub:
The bottom line is that Weintraub’s complaint is primarily also about how Callahan and Tsouderos didn’t fall for the “tell both sides” mantra that all too many journalists fall prey to when writing about dubious medicine and pseudoscience.
I think it’s more complicated than that. The Chicago Tribune story was not written in the dry, boilerplate style that characterizes most newspaper stories. If it had appeared instead in a magazine (such as The Atlantic), where writers can write with more gumption and can stake out a position, I wonder if it would have been perceived differently.
Well, definitely not by Weintraub, who, in a comment to Orac, writes:
I don’t want to respond much on the science because to me, this is an issue of journalism, pure and simple: Any story done in this fashion, no matter what the topic, would have the same journalistic flaws and would violate the kind of journalistic practice we require at Discover and most other quality national magazines.
I’d be curious to learn what other science journalists think of this dust-up. And am I correct in thinking that the venue a story appears in perhaps colors the perception of it? Or is this just an unusual exception to the rule, in which, as Orac says, the criticism by some science journalists of the Chicago Tribune article amounts to
the opposite of what we skeptics, scientists, and supporters of science-based medicine complain about all the time about journalists, namely that Callahan and Tsouderos did not fall into the trap of false balance, did not give undue credence to pseudoscience, and did not “tell both sides” as though they had equal or roughly equal credence.
Obviously, this also has much relevance to discussion about climate change journalism.
UPDATE: A reader has made me aware of some excellent commentary on the kerfuffle over the Chicago Tribune article. Which, as another reader points out, prompted this response from Weintraub.
Thanks, Keith!
I’ve spent my afternoon in an internet coma reading about this interesting clash. Science vs. pseudoscience vs false balance vs. classic journalism vs. bloggers vs. conflicts of interest vs peer-reviewed medical science vs. peer-reviewed journalism (didn’t even know there was such a thing).
Did you catch the tidbit about Pamela W’s history? If the subject of the Tribune article was something other than chronic Lyme Disease, I seriously doubt she would have made such a stink about it. This isn’t merely an objective criticism on the quality of the journalism. It completely undermines the legitimacy of her book. Her ego was unintentionally attacked on several layers by this story. It’s no wonder that she came out swinging. Take her opinion with a huge grain of salt. Then again, she’s only human. It’s an important piece of the puzzle, though.
This is a truly awesome post. So many well meaning and educated people and yet they almost all reveal biases and their own personal demands that “the science is settled.” And my guess is they will all vote within 99.999% of each other and yet here they are at each other’s throats.
Pamela’s demand is easily understood as Laursaurus deconstructs it.
James Fallows, JAMES FREAKIN FALLOWS of all people makes a science is settled demand about a legal topic concerning health care! When this issue gets to the Supreme Court we can all look for the 9-0 decision showing that James Fallows is right about how painfully obvious, such a no brainer, the issue is.
Orac makes a reasonably convincing case that there is no Chronic Lyme disease and he should know, he’s a recognized world renowned physician, just not a physician who has ever studied Lyme disease (though he has written a post about Morgellon’s and he does have a blog.) He convinces me. An interesting follow up might examine the docs and the research at the conference what’s her name brings up and to see if Orac’s intuitively obvious to the casual observer science is settled argument holds any water at all.
It’s a beautiful post man. Bloody brilliant.
Hubris.
We need to close 90% of the Law Schools and courts in the Western World. The law was never meant to cripple us. Alas, however, it has. Such is man, always improving beyond perfection and making a real mess of it. Legal jargon permeates everything. We all think in legal terms or we are considered idiots. We have lost much of what makes us truly human. Empires rise and empires fall. The appeal of the anarchist is that s/he is a little right, but then aren’t we all?
I should have posted the link. http://www.lymeneteurope.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=584
The Atlantic’s Daily Dish has this to say about Weintraub’s dissenting comment left on Orac’s blog:
A comment written to discredit the conventions of traditional journalism could hardly do a better job. Strip away all the arguments from authority and you have a woman asserting that the truth of the matter at hand is less important than adhering to the protocol that “credentialed science journalists” have set forth. In her telling, a “peer review” of an article doesn’t assess its accuracy so much as whether its authors met “the standards of good journalistic practice.” It’s a rather stunning confusion of means and ends.
Wow, thanks for pointing that out. I was only looking out for commentary from my fellow science journalists, and didn’t see much.
So I’m glad to see this has been taken up elsewhere. I have to say that the writer of that post, Conor Friedersdorf, pretty much captures my sentiments.
For completeness, here is Pamela Weintraub’s response to Conor Friedersdorf at the Daily Dish:
http://astralgia.com/atlantic_weintraub.html
Apropos comic (NSFW caption)
http://www.chemistry-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/smbc-SCIENCE.gif