When covering science as news, taking the humans who do science out of the story is a bad idea. But journalists should treat scientists with the same respect to which all humans are entitled.
Last summer, what had seemed like a promising technique for stem cell research was rapidly unraveling, along with the reputations of the researchers who had presented it. “Stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency” (or STAP) was purportedly a way to produce pluripotent stem cells by exposing normal cells to a stress (such as a mild acid). Haruko Obokata of the Riken Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan was the lead author of a number of papers on STAP, published in the high impact journal Nature. Doubts were cast on the technique when other researchers were unable to reproduce the findings of these papers and when it came to light that an image in one of the papers seemed to be a duplicate of another (which it shouldn’t have been). Both Nature and Riken investigated the matter. The papers were retracted. While Obokata continued to defend the papers and the research, her coauthor and supervisor at Riken, Yoshiki Sasai, felt the weight of the Riken investigation committee’s judgment that he was responsible for not confirming Obokata’s data; he hanged himself in a Riken stairwell.
Outside of Japan, these events were followed mostly by people with a preexisting interest in stem cell research and science policy. In Japan, they were a top news story for weeks. This July, Haruko Obokata filed a petition with the Broadcasting Ethics & Program Improvement Organization (BPO) arguing that at least some of that news coverage violated her human rights. According to The Mainichi,
Obokata, who left the Riken institute late last year, also complained to the BPO that [Japanese broadcaster] NHK had publicized without her consent the contents of emails exchanged between her and Yoshiki Sasai, one of her coauthors, who committed suicide in August last year.
She was chased by members of the program’s production crew and sustained some injuries as a result, she also told the BPO, a nonprofit, third-party body set up by NHK and the Japan Commercial Broadcasters Association.
Paul Knoepfler, an Associate Professor at UC Davis who writes a popular blog on stem cell research and policy, got some first-hand experience with how aggressive Japanese journalists were in pursuing the story:
During the STAP cell mess last year, it seems because I was covering the STAP cell claims and science here on this blog, many members of the Japanese media emailed and called me. I can understand that they were looking for information and perspectives, but it went out of control in certain cases. Some, including reporters saying they were from NHK, were very aggressive with me. Some persistently called me at work and even at home in the middle of the night.
I had decided not to talk with them because of their aggressiveness and their tendency to focus on negative, personal stories rather than the science and facts, but they wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Several pursued me for comment at conferences too. I don’t have direct knowledge of what happened with Obokata and NHK, but my sense is that the media went way out of bounds on STAP and made it personal.
What are the proper bounds for media coverage of a science story?
A lot may turn on what kind of science story it is. Sometimes the goal is to describe a cool new technique or theory that helps us better understand a piece of our world. Often, to make this a story that connects to an audience of more than just scientists, though, the focus of the coverage is on the “so what?” What do we use this for? What kinds of practical applications will it have, or benefits will it bring, beyond just helping scientists to know more than they did before? How will it matter in the lives of everyday people?
STAP started out as that kind of story, but then the scientific claims didn’t hold up to scrutiny. That didn’t end the story, it changed it.
When questions were raised about the STAP claims, about whether the results published in the scientific journals (and reported by the media) had been fabricated, it was legitimate and important for journalists to pursue the story of just what happened. Was it a matter of honest mistakes, outright fraud, or something in the complicated territory in between? The audience journalists had worked to get interested in the original STAP story now wanted to know why the story had changed. But that “why” wasn’t a story that could be told purely in terms of scientific evidence. It was a story about people.
Even in situations without the twists and turns of the STAP case, scientific evidence is never completely separable from a human element. Human qualities like imagination, intuition, creativity, and persistence shape the strategies scientists use to look for evidence and to evaluate it once they’ve found it. And we cannot escape the human element in the question of whether we can, or should, trust the person offering the scientific evidence in question and telling us what it means.
If we’re going to insist that science should matter to a general audience, we must also recognize that when something in science goes wrong, it will matter to that general audience to figure out why it went wrong. Since science is a human activity, it may be the case that the best way to explain what went wrong will include personal stories.
There are probably also important stories journalists should be telling about scientific communities, about social structures and social pressures. Maybe it would be good for journalists to get better at telling compelling science stories at this level of focus. But trying to tell science stories in a way that excises human beings and their personal stories would misrepresent the human activity that is science and would likely lose the human audience.
So, if Paul Knoepfler was suggesting that it’s out of bounds to include personal stories (which are sometimes negative) in science coverage, I disagree. That said, I think Knopefler is right in suggesting that journalists ought not to hound the scientists whose personal stories are part of the science stories they are covering.
The Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists explicitly recognizes that journalists have duties not only to the public but also to the subjects of their reporting. While journalists have an obligation to seek and report the truth, they also have an obligation to minimize harm. In the SPJ Code of Ethics, this obligation includes explicit duties to:
– Balance the public’s need for information against potential harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance or undue intrusiveness.
– Show compassion for those who may be affected by news coverage. Use heightened sensitivity when dealing with juveniles, victims of sex crimes, and sources or subjects who are inexperienced or unable to give consent. Consider cultural differences in approach and treatment. 
– Recognize that legal access to information differs from an ethical justification to publish or broadcast. 
– Realize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than public figures and others who seek power, influence or attention. Weigh the consequences of publishing or broadcasting personal information. 
– Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity, even if others do. 
– Balance a suspect’s right to a fair trial with the public’s right to know. Consider the implications of identifying criminal suspects before they face legal charges. 
– Consider the long-term implications of the extended reach and permanence of publication. Provide updated and more complete information as appropriate.
These amount to journalists treating their subjects and sources as human beings who are entitled to respect. Haruko Obokata’s claim is that media covering the STAP story didn't live up to this duty, that they failed to respect her humanity in their pursuit of the story.
Of course, subjects and sources may have a maximalist view of their rights not to be bothered by reporters, which can make it hard for reporters to fulfill their duty to the public to seek and report the truth. There is a tension between these duties, and finding reasonable ways to balance them is a continuing process. Journalists should make reasonable efforts to get comment and to obtain relevant information (e.g., by using public records laws), but there are likely to be disagreements about the number of requests for comment (and the circumstances in which they are made) that tips you from “reasonable” to “harassing”. Similarly, there are bound to be disagreements about what properly counts as a public record. (A researcher’s private emails? His deleted tweets?)
Nonetheless, it should be possible to write about a science story like the rise and fall of STAP without going into full paparazzi mode. Journalists can take reasonable steps to obtain the information they need to tell the story, including comments from people involved. They can describe those steps. Then, they can describe the responses they got to their efforts to get the relevant information and comments. If a figure in a story makes herself unavailable to comment, that can provide a certain kind of information, too.
Trying to strip all the personal stories out of coverage of the human activity that is science would be a mistake. But it would also be a mistake for journalists covering science to treat the scientists at the center of science stories — even the stories about science scandals — as if they weren’t human beings deserving of respect.
