Journalism 1: fleas on the back of democracy

It can be argued, and often is, that free and open journalism is a key function for the effective working of a democracy. News of national and international political and economic affairs is presented by journalists as a truth lieing somewhere between contextualised fact and informed opinion.

It is a disappointment, therefore, the underwhelmingly poor quality of popular (as distinct from specialist) journalism in the UK makes it easy to assess as very poor value - a high price to be paid in public attention (as well as the invasion of privacy) for such insubstantial fare. The focus on sport, celebrity, royalty, reality television shows and soap operas is bad enough. However, the self-satisfied - sometimes self-congratulatory , insular - sometimes jingoistic, ill-educated - sometimes mocking the mre highly educated, illiberal - sometimes sneering at those who try to understand people who transgress social norms, grub dollopped into porcelain and melamine dishes alike, makes it all-too-clear why "Support our Boys" and "Help for Heroes" have become national slogans regardless of the immorality, the geopolitical stupidity, and the financial burden of stationing trained killers and their support staff in a far away country called Afghanistan.

Prize-winning US journalist, writer and philosopher, on the other hand, "held no assumption of news and truth being synonymous. For him the “function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them in relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act.” A journalist’s version of the truth is subjective and limited to how he constructs his reality. The news, therefore, is “imperfectly recorded” and too fragile to bear the charge as “an organ of direct democracy.”

'Public confidence' is a euphemism for the opinion of journalists, fat cat editors, advertisers, and phalanxes of well-funded lobbyists. Public confidence in science and scientists is not a direct response to scientific findings, but is directed by journalists / lobbyists.

My comments above are (reworked Twitter) responses to the following Twitter posting that refers to a BBC so-called-news item: "Does the world of climate science need a radical rethink? Susan Watts reports on IPCC blunders: http://tiny.cc/WuwiS "

The entire article appears to me to be scurrilous, intending to create and foment the doubt it purports to report. My 'evidence' is an extended interview given by Sir David King and broadcast on Night Waves, BBC Radio 3, on the evening of Tuesday 26 January 2010. Here is the programme blurb:

"As part of the BBC Year of Science, Radio 3's Night Waves is running a special series of extended interviews with leading scientists from Britain and the rest of the world. Each month a complete 45 minute edition will be dedicated to a single scientific figure talking to him or her about their research specialism, their wider scientific views, their personal background and their involvement with broader cultural and political questions.

"In the first interview Anne McElvoy talks to David King, the UK government's chief scientific officer from 2000 to 2007 - a job which put him at the heart of one of the burning issues of our time: the relationship between scientists, the government and the general public. On his watch David King faced foot and mouth, the GM foods debate, the ratification of the Kyoto protocol and the Stern Report.

"South African born and a physical chemist by training, David King arguably did more than any other scientist to put the issue of Climate Change onto the UK's public and political map. Anne gauges his opinions on the failure of the Copenhagen summit and asks about the nature of scientific orthodoxy after the furore over the climate change emails from the University of East Anglia, where he used to work.

"And what does he think about the status of scientific knowledge in the political process, an issue brought sharply into focus by the recent resignation of David Nutt, the chairman of the government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs?

"David King is a self confessed optimist, his personal style is that of the quietly spoken diplomat but he is no stranger to controversy. He publicly criticised the Bush administration over its environmental policies and has himself been declared an embarrassment by those with different opinions over climate change."

I was fascinated to listen to the interview. I studied the history and philosophy of science at university, and still often read popular science and science history books. Therefore it was good to hear a scientist talking meaningfully about the business of doing science, the philosophy behind and theory of the scientific method, and what it was like to interface with politicians (and journalists) who had little understanding of, and even less sympathy for, the on-the-ground realities of science.

In stark contrast to my comfort with the feet-on-the-ground reasonableness of what David King had to say, I experienced the interviewer, Executive Editor of the (London) Evening Standard, Anne McElvoy, to be extremely irritating in the perpetual slant of her questions. I was unclear whether she had a specific agenda (probably partly to do with David Nutt's recent falling out with the government, but also to assert the role of journalists in the debate about climate change); was trying repeatedly to goad him (which succeeded on several occasions, and I also noted that the interview simply stopped - it did not come to an end), or was just plain ignorant (both meanings of the word). I dislike it when an interviewer is not actually interested in the answer given by the interviewee.

In one section of the interview, David King gave a clear message, supported by clear examples, that the pressure from climate change skeptics is extremely well organised, extremely well funded, and has an unswerving aim of derailing political attempts to limit climate change. There is no respect in which it would be possible to suggest that the man is paranoid. His observations, explanations and arguments were persuasive beyond assailability - which is why I wondered if the journalist was simply stupid (which she cannot possibly be) when she refused to acknowledge the absurdity of some of the positions she took.

All that said, the interview was well worth listening to, and I am disappointed that it is not available online. In contrast, Susan Watts' piece (linked above) is mere scurrilous junk!