Misuse of Public Relations Departments to Hype Science is Contagious. (December 27, 2004)

    TFW reported last week that a piece by Peter Pockley in Australasian Science has taken CSIRO's Chief Executive, Geoffrey Garrett and his 'communicators' to task for extensive use of hyperbolic spin in reporting CSIRO's activities.

    It will hardly come as a revelation that the disease isn't confined to CSIRO or Australia. Nature considers the matter of sufficient seriousness to devote a 375 word editorial to "Spinning out of control" in its December 9 issue.

[I]t is unsurprising that large companies often demand that their researchers be chaperoned in interviews by press officers.

 

It is more disturbing when government-funded research agencies, such as the US National Institutes of Health, erect PR screens between their scientists and the media, so that all correspondence is mediated via e-mail by a press officer. One result is that scientists might come to believe it sufficient to respond to enquiries about publicly funded research with chunks of management jargon.

 

A recent set of questions from a journalist was sifted by this mechanism to elicit the following response, doctored here to spare some blushes: "Based on past and current progress, the NIH believes that mouthwashology is a key enabling technology platform with the potential to transform the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of halitosis. NIH's recently announced Alliance for Halitosis is designed to facilitate and accelerate the progress of the twenty-first century research teams needed to realize the promise of these and future mouthwash technologies for halitosis sufferers."

According to Nature an attempt by the reporter to get rather more meaningful comment went unanswered and the journal concludes, "It will be a sad day if scientists start to believe that this sort of bland and meaningless corporate-speak absolves them of the responsibility to tell people what they are actually doing."

On the local scene it would be a relief if for example the CSIRO board would take a hand in the way the organisation interacts with the media to elevate its status so that CSIRO would retrieve its reputation for "telling it like it is."

Perhaps it might be viewed as a Big Hairy Audacious Goal for 2005.