Enhancing Science Reporting Accuracy

Journalists bring scientific findings to the public, and to policymakers, who often rely on media reports rather than primary literature to provide context for policymaking. However, media reports can and often do distort scientific findings. Reporters with little scientific training, working quickly, and keen to attract eyeballs and clicks, can sometimes misrepresent science. Lara Marie Berger and colleagues created an approximately 7-minute educational video that walks journalists through important elements to report on for any study, including sources of funding, sample composition, statistics, causal interpretations, and illustrations and graphs. The authors then played their video for 130 professional journalists from Germany. These journalists were asked to write headlines for stories about scientific studies that have been found to be especially prone to misinterpretation. Compared to 130 control journalists, also from Germany, who did not watch the video, those who had watched the video were more likely to write an accurate headline. Just 36% of control group headlines were accurate, whereas 64% of the headlines penned by video viewers were accurate. According to the authors, news organizations, journalism schools, and professional associations should integrate similar training modules into curricula and professional development.