NYT public editor demurs on science story. Why? ‘I’m no scientist.’

In a December, 2012 interview, GQ magazine asked Sen. Marco Rubio how old the Earth is.

Rubio refused to answer, because, he said, “I’m not a scientist, man.”

He continued:

I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that.

In May of this year, Florida Gov. Rick Scott was asked what his take was on global warming. Like Rubio, he refused to answer, using the same excuse: “I’m not a scientist.”

Also in May, House Speaker John Boehner said essentially the same thing, according to Jonathan Chait in New York magazine: “I’m not qualified to debate the science over climate change.”

In July, Charlie Crist, a Republican-turned-Democrat who is running against Scott in the Florida governor’s race, responded this way: “I’m not a scientist either but I can use my brain and I can talk to one.”

We might forgive this silliness in politicians–many of them have bigger sins to answer for. But I don’t think we can allow a journalist to adopt that stance. Journalists owe us an answer.

A couple of weeks ago, Margaret Sullivan, the public editor at The New York Times, received complaints about a Times story by Roni Caryn Rabin that ran under the headline, “Are Antidepressants Safe During Pregnancy?“

Sullivan’s email inbox began to fill up as soon as the story was published. “Readers – many of them doctors – wrote to complain that the article was inappropriately alarmist,” she wrote, and that it could be “dangerous for pregnant women suffering from depression.”

Sullivan decided to do a bit of reporting. She talked to one of the doctors who wrote to complain, and to Michael Mason, a Times deputy science editor, who handled the story.

That prompted her to make a few useful comments:

I do think that the article’s breezy beginning – which seemed to suggest that going off antidepressants might be as easy as switching to decaf coffee – was unfortunate.  In addition, the article gave too little attention to acknowledging the deep and persistent problems of maternal and prenatal depression, and their effects…In addition, the article should have noted some studies that draw different conclusions, as well as the perspective of a psychiatrist who treats pregnant women and new mothers.  All of this would have added a significant element of caution and dissent.

Not bad for someone who is not a scientist. She knows more than she thinks she does.

But she wouldn’t go any further. She concluded that “this is certainly a valid subject, and an important one.” But she said she “can’t judge the validity of the studies,” and therefore, by implication, can’t judge the validity of the story.

Why?

“I’m no scientist.”

Sullivan has shown she isn’t afraid of tackling complicated stories. She has, for example, weighed in twice on what seems to me a very difficult story, namely the Alessandra Stanley profile of TV producer Shonda Rhimes, whom Stanley called an “Angry Black Woman.”

Did Sullivan demur, saying she’s not a sociologist? Of course not. She didn’t hesitate to give her opinion. “The article and its aftermath tapped into something important – actually, many things: racial issues, mainstream media coverage of race and people of color, diversity on The Times’s staff, the role of strong editing, how people encounter stories in the digital age, and much more,” she wrote.

So let’s get to the heart of the matter: Was Rabin’s story needlessly alarmist?

Yes, and it doesn’t take a scientist to see that.

Rabin wrote that “the prevailing attitude among doctors has been that depression during pregnancy is more dangerous to mother and child than any drug could be.” So far, so good.

Then we get this: “Now a growing number of critics are challenging that assumption.” How many critics, exactly? Rabin is pumping up her story here. She doesn’t tell us how fast the number of critics is growing or offer any evidence that it is. She quotes only a few of them–hardly evidence of a growing number.

A more accurate characterization, without the hype, would have been, “Several critics and a few new studies are challenging that assumption.” That’s still a good story, even without suggestion of a growing wave of criticism.

Rabin devotes 13 graphs to the critics and the studies before giving us a brief response from somebody on the other side–a doctor who worries that these studies could end up “scaring women away from treatment.” And then she gives one of her critics the opportunity, again, to rebut.

The low point in the story occurs when Rabin compares SSRI antidepressants to drug addiction.  This line seems designed to frighten pregnant women into abandoning their medication: “Like babies born to drug addicts, newborns may display S.S.R.I. withdrawal symptoms.”

Maybe so, but perhaps not the most appropriate comparison to make when dealing with a controversial issue such as this one.

The Times generally does a very good job reporting on science and health, but it sometimes makes mistakes. And while we’re all likely to survive a story that makes a mistake in a celebrity’s name or cosmetic line, some readers might not survive an error or in a story about the use of SSRIs during pregnancy.

 Here is the comment I left on Sullivan’s post this week:

Margaret,

I’m afraid that “I’m no scientist” does not excuse you from discussing the details of this story. You are a journalist, and this is about journalism. Would you excuse yourself from discussing the Middle East because you’re not a political scientist or a general or a fighter pilot? Science is no more complicated than the Middle East, or the Affordable Care Act, or the Fed. You should make a few calls, do a little searching, and help to referee the debate. What good does it do readers to say you can’t decide whether the article was right or wrong?

Mason and Rabin made a mistake with this story. Sullivan compounded the problem by refusing to say so.

-Paul Raeburn