Stilettos and sources: Are the links going where they should?
Ben Goldacre, the estimable British blogger, has pointed out a problem that is so egregious I wouldn’t have even thought to look for it. Too many bloggers and journalists, he tells us, are not linking to primary sources. And what’s worse, many of those missing links are obscuring grotesque distortions of what the primary source contained.
Goldacre is a doctor and the author of the Bad Science column in the national British daily, the Guardian. His bio describes him as “an award-winning writer, broadcaster, and medical doctor who specialises in unpicking dodgy scientific claims made by scaremongering journalists, dodgy government reports, evil pharmaceutical corporations, PR companies and quacks.”
In a post entitled “A Case of Never Letting a Source Spoil a Good Story,” Goldacre rails at examples in the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and the Express in which writers and editors neglected to link to primary stories. With a very quick check of those sources, Goldacre suggests that linking to them would have entirely undermined the stories–because the primary sources did not say what the news stories claimed they’d said.
Here’s one of Goldacre’s examples:
This week the Telegraph ran the headline “Wind farms blamed for stranding of whales”. It continued: “Offshore wind farms are one of the main reasons why whales strand themselves on beaches, according to scientists studying the problem…”But anyone who read the open-access academic paper in PLoS One, titled “Beaked whales respond to simulated and actual navy sonar”, would see that the study looked at sonar and didn’t mention wind farms at all.
And another:
Professor Anna Ahn published a paper recently showing that people with shorter heels have larger calves. For the Telegraph this became “Why stilettos are the secret to shapely legs”, for the Mail “Stilettos give women shapelier legs than flats”, for the Express “Stilettos tone up your legs”. Yet anybody who read even just the press release would immediately see that this study had nothing whatsoever to do with shoes. It didn’t look at shoe heel height, it looked at anatomical heel length, the distance from the back of your ankle joint to the insertion of the achilles tendon.
With examples like this, Goldacre should perhaps rename his blog–Bad Science isn’t strong enough to describe what he’s writing about. I’m thinking something like The Worst Examples of Science Journalism You’ve Ever Seen blog.
These are easy shots. This stuff is awful, and the papers are clearly more interested in displaying pictures of Victoria Beckham or Angelina Jolie’s legs than they are in reporting on science. But Goldacre’s entertaining post made me wonder about other mainstream science journalism. Are newspapers linking to primary sources? And would that, as Goldacre claims, help to keep them honest?
Let’s look at a couple of the best papers in the country, which happen to be two that I read regularly–The New York Times and The Washington Post.
The first science story that popped up on the Times site was this one: “Canine Genetic Wrinkle Has Potential for Humans.” It’s a story the discovery of a gene that appears responsible for both the wrinkly skin of Shar-peis, and also the dogs’ frequent bouts of fever. It’s a serviceable piece, and it does indeed link to the study. It also has links under the words “fever,” and “wrinkles,” among others. The fever link goes to a Times “Health Guide” that tells us that “fever is the temporary increase in the body’s temperature, in response to some disease or illness.” The wrinkle link goes to the same health guide, where we are told that “wrinkles are creases in the skin.”
Who on Earth do they think is reading this story? People who are willing to wade through an explanation of the hyaluronan synthase 2 gene but don’t know what a fever or a wrinkle is? What editor is responsible for linking to wrinkles? Stand up and identify yourself! To make matters worse, the hyaluronan synthase 2 gene link goes to a Stanford University blog that in turn links to the BBC’s story on the Shar-pei gene.
Verdict: The Times links to the primary source, so it meets Goldacre’s criteria. But it also links to a lot of unhelpful nonsense. A reader can waste a lot of time clicking on that story’s links.
How about The Washington Post? The first story I found (aside from the Japan nuclear coverage, for which the reporting itself is the closest we have to a primary source) was about the recent study in Nature in which researchers tallied evidence for the idea that the Earth is now undergoing its sixth major extinction. I was delighted to see that the Post did indeed link to the study, but crestfallen when I got to the end of the story and realized that the Post didn’t write the story. It was a pickup from ScienceNOW, the news service of Science magazine.
This was distressing for two reasons: There was no indication until I got the end of the story that this was not a Washington Post story. Readers need to know that upfront. And Science magazine is a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a pro-science lobbying group. Should the Post be picking up science stories from a politically active science organization? Should it pick up stories on gun control from the NRA? Or on nutrition from the American Dairy Association?
Disappointed by both the Times and the Post, I searched for something that could give this post a happy ending. I looked to see how American papers had covered Goldacre’s stiletto example which was, I should say, about a study done at Harvey Mudd College in California.
Searching Google news several ways, I couldn’t find anything. So the good news is, I guess, that while the Brits did several bad stories, the Yanks didn’t do any at all.
Thanks to Goldacre for pointing out something that we should all be doing as a matter of course in our online copy–linking to the primary sources. And maybe the print copy ought to include a few of those links, too. Shortened links are not too tough to type into a browser by readers who want to follow the trail.
From now on, I’ll be watching. And you should, too.
- Paul Raeburn
March 21st, 2011 at 8:31 am
Hello, I think it is worth pointing out that journalists can also get it very wrong when the primary source itself is spectacularly skewed.
http://velo-gubbed-legs.blogspot.com/2011/03/bad-science.html
March 21st, 2011 at 9:59 am
It’s important to call attention to Goldacre’s consistent and valuable work, whacking away at charlatans who try to falsely paste “science” on their pitches and ploys. And it’s a good practice for news stories with bylines to have up top indication whether they are staff reports, freelance (“correspondent” is the usual label for that), or from syndicated or wire services. It’s harder to answer Paul’s question in his post, whether AAAS’s ScienceNOW is as tainted as would be reports on beef from the beef council or in the post’s example, the NRA on guns. I almost always treat AAAS (and Nature Publishing’s) journalism arms as the real thing when I post. They both have incentives to expose instances of bad science – except when it’s something the magazine is simultaneously promoting because that’s where a paper is published. Most of the time they simply explain arcane things that are interesting or important and deserve treatment in plain narrative English. The quality is high, the skepticism appropriate, for most of their stuff. Ann Gibbons’s story in the Post was about a study that was in her employer’s competitor, Nature. There is no incentive to build it up much or tear it down beyond the reporter’s own judgment (no sense piling on some paper that runs in a competitor when your boss hopes, next time, that paper’s author submits to the reporter’s own journal. )
Here’s a silly example, since the Post does not run gun reviews like it does car or computer equipment reviews. I’d trust an NRA-supported news service’s reviews of the pros and cons of a new hunting rifle whose maker does not have a huge advertisement in the same issue. I’d not trust such a service, as Paul suggests, to write objectively about gun registration. Most of the time when I read Science magazine’s news pages I think it’s a shame they don’t get wider circulation. But it’s a good question whether a major general news service should use AAAS reporters’ output. It’s so consistently good I lean toward yes. But the issue merits conversation.
March 21st, 2011 at 11:51 am
Dear Paul,
Thank you for raising awareness about the importance of citing credible sources in a transparent fashion. We always do this in our news articles when the link is available.
However, I need to point out an error in your piece. AAAS is a nonprofit, nonpartisan 501(c)(3). It is not a “lobbying group.” Moreover, ScienceNOW is an editorially independent daily science news service run by award-winning journalists who are strictly firewalled from the programmatic activities of AAAS. Last year alone, Science reporters were honored with the David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism from the American Geophysical Union, two publications in “The Best American Science Writing,” and a National Press Club Award, among other accolades.
Finally, I would like to note that the Washington Post includes full and appropriate attribution each time they republish a ScienceNOW news item.
Best,
David Grimm
Online News Editor
Science
March 21st, 2011 at 2:56 pm
“Who on Earth do they think is reading this story? People who are willing to wade through an explanation of the hyaluronan synthase 2 gene but don’t know what a fever or a wrinkle is? What editor is responsible for linking to wrinkles?”
I think this comes from the fad of inserting hyperlinks into text. Any hyperlinks. It must be an automated thing, because in the usual story, it’s often random-seeming words, and nearly never linked to anything useful.
Furthermore, the Times online has some sort of built-in dictionary that pops up a definition for many unlinked words. As if every readers computer didn’t do a much better job of the same thing.
March 21st, 2011 at 3:26 pm
Thanks to Stephen and Nasim for the comments.
Regarding the Washington Post’s use of copy from the AAAS, here are my further thoughts:
I agree with Charlie that the reporting by Science and ScienceNOW is first-rate. I rely on it for news, tips, and explainers. And I am glad David included the note about the recognition writers at Science have received.
Regarding David’s point about the legal status of the AAAS, I should not have called AAAS a lobbying group without being clear about its legal status.
It would be silly, however, to suggest that the AAAS is not pro-science. Its name says plainly that it is devoted to the advancement of science. Reporters, on the other hand, should not be pro-science. Nor should they be anti-science. They should report on science objectively, as they should on government policy, elections, or the attacks on Libya–without taking a position for or against. I hope the news pages of the Washington Post do not take a position for or against the attacks on Libya. And I hope that they don’t take a position for or against any scientific studies.
David himself notes that Science’s reporters “are strictly firewalled from the programmatic activities of AAAS.” Does that not suggest that there is an issue here? If AAAS does not advocate for science, and if my criticisms are misplaced, why would David feel it necessary to say that there is a firewall between the AAAS and the Science reporters?
If anyone requires further evidence on this point, note the policy alerts that the AAAS sends to its members. On Jan. 5, it sent the following information, along with a lot of other policy news, to its members:
“Congress also extended the R&D tax credit through December 31, 2011, as part of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 (H.R.4853), which was signed into law on December 17. H.R. 4853 also contains several renewable energy credits; it extends an ethanol blenders’ tax credit, an import tariff on ethanol, the biodiesel tax credit, and the 1603 Treasury grant program, which subsidizes commercial renewable energy projects through December 31, 2011.”
The AAAS, as a non-profit corporation, carefully avoided arguing for or against these moves, as it must to retain its non-profit legal status. But does anyone think that this “policy alert” was not intended to urge AAAS members to speak up for policies they favored?
Again, I’m not impugning the AAAS or its news coverage. My target was The Washington Post, which, in my view, ought not to reprint copy from organizations with a vested interest in national policy issues, whether or not those organizations meet the legal definition of lobbying groups.