[Update 10/25/12. I asked the BBC for a comment, and this is what I received, from a spokesperson who asked that I attribute it to "a BBC spokesperson":
“Katia Moskvitch’s article about the VLT was produced in accordance with the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines. Her visit to the ESO’s facilities in Chile was taken during a period of leave from her internship at the ESO and was paid for by the BBC. For the duration of the visit, Katia was contracted to the BBC after pitching a range of stories to the Science and On Demand teams. A note disclosing Katia’s prior secondment to the ESO is published with the story.”]
On Oct. 4, I expressed disapproval of new science-writing prizes in Europe that provided reporting trips instead of cash or plaques to the winners. I said the awards too plainly served the interests of those sponsoring them and that such awards should be avoided. I called them awards junkets in another guise.
On Oct. 9, in a post entitled Press Junkets, part two, I reported some of the comments that the first post had stirred up, some favorable, others critical.
Now the plot, already thick, thickens again. The winner of the astronomy prize was a journalist-in-residence at one of the organizations that sponsored the prize and that helped to pick the winner. And here's the icing on the journalistic cake: Her story was about that same organization.
The 2012 winner of the new European Astronomy Journalism Prize was Katia Moskvitch of the BBC. Her prize is to be "ESO’s guest at the inauguration of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in the Chilean Atacama desert next March 2013," the press release proudly announces.
This was the first year for the prize, which is run by the British Science and Technology Facilities Council "in conjunction with the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the Association of British Science Writers (ABSW), and the Royal Astronomical Society," according to the STFC website.
Comments
Paul,
Thanks for the prompt response, it's always good to have some healthy debate!
Regarding Moskvitch, she was not an employee when she wrote the winning piece, nor when she was considered for the competion. The terms say that current employees are not eligible, but makes no mention of past employees. I agree that awarding the prize to Moskvitch was a bad call, but not because of a T&C breach.
No competitions are truly fair or objective, despite the best efforts of judges and organisers. There are many aspects to consider, and many inherent biases floating around judges' minds. Personally, I find the award to Moskvitch pretty unfair to the other candidates for the simple fact that she's already visited the bloody telescope! With the grand prize being theopportunity to visit the place, the fact that she'd been already and written about it makes the decision very curious indeed.
If I were a self-serving member of the ESO judging panel, with the prize in mind, Moskvitch would be the last person I'd award it to. I may commend her, to support and encourage coverage, but I wouldn't fly her off to Chile. The likelihood of her writing another piece on the same place would be very slim indeed - and indeed, we see that she hasn't. I would want to fly over a compelling writer who hadn't covered the ESO at all, to widen coverage of the institution. I don't know which ESO representative was on the panel, but I almost hope for their own sake that it wasn't an experienced press officer! I think it's unlikely that Moskvitch was given the prize in a particularly tactical fashion. I'd be more inclined to believe that the judges were simply inherently biased towards her article, which I'd describe as 'flattering' to the ESO.
On the subject of relationships with sources, I would argue that no journalist can ever be truly indendent. If you call up a press office and the person on the other end has a confrontational manner, you're probably going to be biased against them. You may be inclined to look a little further for a negative view. If they're consistently very friendly and helpful, on the other hand, you're far less likely to distrust them or the organisation they represent. It's simply human nature - as you say, people are generally kind to people who have given the gifts; yet gifts are not always financial in nature. We could be talking gifts of information or even - excuse the cheesiness - gifts of compassion. Just as we don't like to offend our hosts, we also don't like to offend the lovely person on the phone! So I ask you: where would you draw the line? Should journalists be obliged to publish the telephone manner of all sources at the top of every article? I would argue that subtleties like this have a real influence on the tone of a final piece, yet no-one ever talks about it.
With this in mind, I think that a tagline at the end of a story is transparent enough; it's more than readers normally get! If a journalist is best friends with someone from a corporation, this is almost never declared. Every fortnight in the Private Eye, I read countless tales of articles written by people with various undeclared connections to stakeholders. Compared to all that, I think the ESO tagline declaration is a positive step. With a more controversial topic - a matter of public debate like GM crops - I would probably like to know if the author is a Monsanto employee at the top of the article, but would settle for a closing tagline over nothing! The distinction is that the ESO article isn't likely to change anyone's mind about any issues, and most readers who got past the first paragraph would probably get to the end. George Monbiot argues that all journalists should declare their interests, and I'm inclined to agree with him. I believe that the tagline on the ESO article is sufficient for this purpose.
Apologies for the length of this comment, I got a little carried away! I agree that I would not have awarded Moskvitch the prize, for the reasons outlined above. I would also agree that the article itself was pretty standard science writing, not notably exceptional - but the decision to give the award was the prerogative of the judges, not you or I. If I were to list every judging decision I've ever disagreed with, this comment would be even more outrageously long than it already is...
Harry
Yes Paul, the video of Pallab Ghosh is quite cringeworthy, he's obviously gone native and has ceased to be a 'journalist,' he's into advocacy - a voice for hire.
I worry about what I see of BBC science reporting. Recently whilst in the UK I saw its environment editor David Shukman reporting from Svalbard about Arctic problems. Then I read other journalists doing the same. Turns out it was a Greenpeace funded trip. Now the BBC may well have paid Greenpeace for travel etc but even so the TV reports should have said it was ORGANISED by Greenpeace. It didn't.
Pat,
Thanks for letting us know about this. I would add that the video you linked to features Ghosh in what is essentially an advertisement for the MS Society. Noting that others have millions of pounds to spend on research, he says, "The MS Society has just got a few million and is putting it to such great use."
There's nothing wrong, as Harry says, with writing a positive story, but being videotaped praising the folks one is writing about crosses a line.
Harry,
Thanks for the long, thoughtful post. I appreciate the opportunity for a dialogue.
On the question of eligibility, what happened in the jury room is not relevant, in my view. The terms of the award say employees are not eligible; it couldn't be clearer.
The problem with trips paid for by sources is that people--even journalists!--are generally kind to those who have given them gifts. We don't like to offend our hosts. That's why stories written in such circumstances are suspect. Journalists' independence is of paramount importance, and accepting gifts form sources compromises that. I agree with you that transparency is important, but a tagline at the end of a long story saying a writer was on secondment with the ESO is going to be missed by many readers--and is therefore not transparent.
Regarding negativity in the media: That is entirely beside the point here. The point of view of this story doesn't change the problem of financial entanglement, or address the terms of the award. We have no evidence whatever that Moskvitch set out to investigate the ESO and failed to find anything. And I didn't say Moskvitch's piece was "bad journalism." I said it was clear and unremarkable--and should not have won a prize.
But on the question of negativity, science journalists might do well to be a little less credulous and more critical in their reporting. Maybe then we wouldn't be so often fooled by studies that turn out to be meaningless or are later retracted.
Hi Paul,
I disagreed with your first post, and my comments were published (a week later) here.
I stand by my previous words, but would like to add a few new comments about your more recent articles. On the subject of eligibility, you raise a good point; the winner was recently on placement at the ESO. Yet I was not in the jury meeting which discussed this in depth, so I don't know the details of how the decision was reached. We could argue all day about the eligibility of the winning entry, but I would be inclined to trust the jury.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I don't have a problem with journalists accepting expenses-paid trips, as long as they are open about it. In the case of the BBC article, I see nothing wrong with the publication of an article by an ex-staffer. Surely you support the publication of stories by whistleblowers? If an ex-employee of some organisation has recently resigned, or left for other reasons, then their story is more credible as an insider. Is it not possible that Moskvitch had the opportunity to spot malpractice in the ESO, but there simply was none?
This brings me to my wider point about negativity in the media. Moskvitch's piece was 'soft' and descriptive, but that doesn't mean it's 'bad journalism'. The media seems to have an obsession with catching people out and exposing negative stories. Sometimes, a piece that looks uncritical is simply the most accurate one. I've written several stories, as I'm sure have you, where I've pursued highly critical lines of enquiry which came to nothing. There have been aspects of stories which I've been suspicious of, but which further research revealed to be benign. The result of such stories is either an uncritical piece or no story at all. That doesn't mean that I set out with the intention of writing a puff piece, but rather that my journalistic methods uncovered nothing to criticise!
I don't think that the media's obsession with negative stories is a healthy one at all, and this is especially evident in politics - at least in the UK. Many positive stories over here are sidelined or simply go unreported, whereas 'scandals' often get front-page treatment. William Lewis, the Telegraph reporter who broke the parliamentary expenses scandal, was named "Journalist of the Year" in the 2010 British Press Awards. Arguably, all Lewis did was accept a disk full of files from a parliamentary insider who sold them to the paper. Is this the paragon of good journalism? In my personal view, probably not, although you may disagree. My point is that within journalism, negative stories are often the award-winners, and journalists yearn for a juicy exposé.
Science journalism has traditionally been spared the appetite for negative stories and scandal, at least in the UK. A story which explains scientific concepts clearly and concisely to the reader is generally considered to be 'good', if unremarkable. Of course there's room for criticism, often relating to potential applications (or lack thereof), but not on anything like the same level as political stories. Your well-argued article raises a broader question to me - 'if science stories are generally less negative, is this a bad thing?'. I'm not sure. As I mentioned before, it can be hard to find compelling critical angles that stand up to scrutiny. I'm still not convinced that 'good journalism' has to be negative, but you may disagree. If journalists are open about their relationships with the stakeholders, I for one am okay with positive pieces about host insututions.
Harry Dayantis
The BBC are at this all of the time. Its science correspondent Pallab Ghosh did a TV piece about stem cells and multiple schlerosis recently. He was helped by the MS society and included MS members. The MS society was referenced in the piece.
Then at their annual awards guess what piece won their media section, you guessed it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk0ZYxGOLgw&list=PLseEst8sYZkR_azD-7i8OIlut8_yas7J0&index=7&feature=plpp_video
So the MS society give Pallab Ghosh the story via a press release, arranged for experts (MS sponsored) and sufferers to be available for filming, found the premises to be used for filming, and the MS get mentioned in the piece. Afterwards their membership rose.
Then they award the 'journalist' in question their media prize!
Seems a bit incestious to me, and, importantly, it wasn't a very good piece, straightforward, bit dull on the presentation and voiceover, but the MS society weren't judging it on journalism (for which it should not have won any prizes) but on its PR value for them.
This is PR and not journalism. Pallab Ghosh should not have looked so smug receiving the prize. He should have declined it.