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Interview with Mark Henderson

Science Editor of The Times (full biog)






As a non-scientist do you feel qualified to write science stories?

MH: Yes, for a variety of reasons. First of all science is such a broad field that, in a sense, being a specialist in one small bit of it doesn’t necessarily qualify you any better to write about the rest of it than a non-specialist. So, if I had a degree in molecular biology and I was being asked to write about CERN and astrophysics and particle physics and so on, I wouldn’t have any relevant knowledge at all. It’s such a broad field, especially when you are talking about reporting for a general rather than a specialist audience, then I think not being a specialist really isn’t a particular handicap. That said, the one thing I think you really do need to grasp, as a non-specialist, is the method and how it works. You need to work out that science is a process of testing hypotheses, rather than a single body of knowledge. Once this and the way that people reach conclusions have been established, then I think people from any academic background can do it.

Something else that is important is the fact that as a non-specialist you’re not tempted to use jargon. The people you are writing for don’t generally have a background in what you are writing about, and there is always a temptation to assume too much prior knowledge. If you are not a specialist in it yourself, or you don’t have the background, then that is one less temptation to deal with in some respects. I don’t necessarily think it’s a massive advantage or disadvantage. As long as you grasp the method bit, the background isn’t particularly important.

Can you take me through a day in the life of a science journalist on The Times?

MH: Well it depends on the day, but your busy days are midweek days. Wednesday or Thursday are good examples because those are when the big journals come out; Nature on Wednesday and Science on Thursday. So you’ll start by looking at the big embargoed journals coming out that day. You will also look though Eureka Alert which is the AAAS’s embargoed news site, for stories that you think are going to be of interest.



So you see the embargoed copies on Tuesday?

MF: You’ll see them whenever they get put up. You will check Eureka Alert at least every morning, if not before, and usually you will have a glance through it earlier in the week to see what is coming up. Equally you’ll look at the Nature press release, the Science press release etc. in advance of the day so you have some idea what is coming up.

The other thing is that, usually, you’re asked the night before by the forward planning desk for some idea of what you are going to do the following day. You don’t always know everything, but it’s always a good idea to have some idea of what is on the agenda before you get into the office in the morning.

Going back even before that, the very first thing that I do during the day is listen to the Today programme at home and read the papers. I get The Times, Telegraph and Guardian delivered, so, while I’m having my coffee and cereal in the morning, I will look through the papers. I’ll only take half an hour or so, I won’t read them exhaustively, but I’ll make sure I’m aware both of what I’ve got in the paper and what other correspondents have got in my field, and I will keep up with other news. The key thing is flicking through and seeing what’s being done in your field.

Then you will get in to the office and if you haven’t already read the papers and press releases for embargoed things that day you’ll read them. Then before 10.30 I’ll need to brief the news desk on what I am going to do that day. I will give them little potted summaries on two or three or maybe four stories I’m going to do, discuss that and make sure the news editor has understood them. He’ll sometimes have particular questions, or say that he likes that or don’t bother with that. Then at 10.30 he will go into morning conference, which is the meeting of heads of department with the editor and deputy editor, with his list of stories, which he will pitch to them.

Sometimes after morning conference if it’s a story he particularly liked, or it sparked particular interest with the editor or the deputy editor, they’ll come back to you and say ‘Can you do this? Can you make sure that you answer this particular question? Can you take this angle on it? Would it work to do this or that?’ Then through the day you will write your pieces.

One of the things now, certainly on The Times and I think increasingly on other papers, is there’s demand for some papers to be delivered quite early, to keep a copy flow going during the day so pieces can get subbed and pages made early on. Science is particularly amenable to that because a lot of stories are from journals and so they’re things that one can prepare, to a certain degree, in advance. They’re not generally things where you are waiting for an announcement at three o’clock, so one often can file by two, three o’clock. Gradually through the rest of the day, I write up those stories. Unless I’m writing something really big for the front page or page three, I’ll usually be relatively clear of that days stories by about 4-4.30 which is generally when I’ll start making calls about other sorts of things. I’ll start thinking about other sorts of projects I want to do, talk to somebody about an idea and read up papers that aren’t necessarily stories but might give me ideas for something else.



When do you know how long your story is going to be?

MH: You’ve usually got a fairly good idea of whether a story is going to be a page leader or not, even before you pitch it. You know by and large just through experience what characteristics make a page-lead story and whether something is sufficiently interesting or not. Sometimes that’ll change during the day, sometimes somebody will jump all over a story that you didn’t particularly like and want you to write more. Sometimes you’re having to fight for something you think is important.

A page lead, in tabloid format, can be as short as 500 words. But one will usually try to write somewhere between 500 and 700. Occasionally you can go longer than that but it usually has to be quite a big story to get that. Other things that are going to be summary items, what we call super nibs - nibs being news in brief - will be much, much shorter. What there isn’t so much of any more, since we’ve gone tabloid, is scope for a 400 word piece. Most things are either page lead or they’re very short. So you’ll tailor things accordingly and spend more time on the stories that are going to be longer and get a better show in the paper.

You’ll also need to liaise with the picture desk and often, with science, with graphics as well. Then later during the day, check the graphic and make sure there aren’t errors in it, send captions up to the artists doing it, some of whom aren’t necessarily as scientifically literate as they could be.

The other thing to consider is that very often, probably twice a week or so you might have a briefing in the morning somewhere either at the SMC or Royal Society or somewhere like that, which are usually 10 or 10.30. In that case what you’ll do is you’ll ring in, you’ll talk to the news desk, tell them what you’re going to do, tell them where you’re going, also any other items you might have on the agenda. Then you will get back and write everything up later in the day. Then there is a 4 o’clock afternoon conference which is a sort reprise of the morning conference, but looks at how stories have moved during the day, actually working out in a bit more detail what is going on the front, what is going on page three, what’s going on key slots, a sort of progress report almost.

So you don’t get that much time to check your stories?

MH: You have quite a quick turn around on a lot of stories. It depends on the story, but you certainly don’t generally get a day on them. You’re usually talking about an hour or two to digest a story, turn it around, file it. So in terms of doing things like emailing things back to scientists to check and so on, I don’t do it by and large for two reasons. One is just simply time pressure, the other is that you can often actually give people a false sense of security as to what is going to happen. Very often people say they only want to check for accuracy but they will always quibble with your interpretation of things and on top of that of course once the story has left your hands subs can do all sorts of things to it, and that is often very difficult to oversee. It’s usually better just to leave people with the understanding, I find, that I will write it as I see fit.

Very occasionally, if there is something I really don’t understand properly, I will read back relevant sections just to check, but it’s not something I think anyone should expect of journalists both because of time pressure and because it’s just not the way that most of us operate.



How do you respond to claims that journalists sex up science stories?

MH: Well we do sometimes, but scientists sex-up science stories too. It’s very difficult to sex something up that isn’t without help. If we overplay something it is usually because somebody has overplayed something to us. It’s because somebody has spoken very bullishly about something or has raised a scare or a hype about it themselves, or somebody around it has or a press release has taken a particular slant on something.

Sometimes there will be cases where you will spot an angle for yourself and work that up, but by and large, in those cases, I do try and talk to scientists and see if my interpretation is realistic or not. You can only work with what people give you, we don’t make things up and I think sometimes scientists who complain that science is unnecessarily sexed up, sometimes think it is the media doing it, when actually it is very often scientists that are doing it. That’s one aspect of it.

Secondly of course, we are in the business of presenting stories in ways that are going to make our readers interested. We are always going to pick up on the aspect of a story that is most new, that is most sensational, that is potentially most relevant to people, whether through benefit or harm. It is unfortunately a bit of a fact of life that in whatever realm, whether it be science or politics or education or foreign affairs, that bad news is more news than good news. People are interested in it, it makes people sit up and say ‘wow’ rather more than if everything is fine and rosy. That is just human nature as much as anything. It’s not something that people can necessarily control or expect to control.

We’re in the business of selling papers and that’s what we have to do. Of course we want to be accurate at the same time, but of course we are always going to go for the angle on the story we think is most interesting. I don’t think that is necessarily always a bad thing. Then again, if someone really explains to me why a track I’m thinking of taking is wrong, then I will try really hard not to take that tack, and I think that applies to most science journalists.

Where a problem more often lies is when people who aren’t regular health or science or to a lesser extent environment correspondents, are writing about these issues, so politics correspondents, or general columnists or general news correspondents. For example, a lot of the really bad stuff that got written about MMR wasn’t written by science journalists, it was written by political correspondents and columnists.

If you look at the MMR coverage, with the exception of The Mail and The Sunday Telegraph which took a real campaigning tack on it, if you look at the output of science and health correspondents, you will find that it was really, really balanced and reflected the science communities opinion. If you look at other journalists, once it became a political story, that then got taken out of their hands and was harder in that sense to control. So if you are looking to advise scientists on how to go with these things, if one can arrange to talk to a science correspondent or a health correspondent then that’s usually a much better tack to take because they are much more on your side to begin with.

Have you ever misquoted anyone?

MH: It happens, or it certainly happens that you have a disputed quote or a disputed context of a quote. To be honest, it hasn’t happened to me a lot. I haven’t had many people say that I have wildly misquoted them. The one time it has happened I was definitely in the right and I had good notes to show it, and the person in question has a reputation, a huge reputation, for denying things he’s said.



But in terms of young scientists being afraid to talk to journalists because they are afraid of being misquoted or taken out of context, is that a realistic fear?

MH: It does happen. Scientists more than everybody should be aware of this; there are risks and benefits to every course of action. Talking to a journalist, you are obviously taking the risk that something may be taken out of context or may be used to illustrate a position you would rather it was not used for. That is obviously the risk.

However, you’ve got to pitch that against the risks of not talking to them, which largely means that the journalist will spin the story in any which way he wants to, you have no opportunity to influence it at all, to try to explain why this interpretation is not correct and why it would be misleading to write that. Again, if you are dealing with a science or health specialist, we are usually quite receptive to that, particularly if it is done in a timely way and you are talking to somebody quite early on in the process and they’ve returned your call quickly.

One of the big problems can be that journalists will pitch a story to a news desk, the news desk will say take this angle on it, then the news desk pitch it to the editor in that form, and suddenly the editor expects that story to be delivered in that form. If somebody then comes back to you after all that has happened and says you really can’t do it that way, then it becomes much harder to influence the process. If you have talked to the journalist early and said this is it, then the journalist can explain it to his editors early on as well and can therefore head off the potential difficulties before they arise.

I would always argue that it is better to talk to people than not talk to people. Because if you don’t talk to people you’ve got very little chance of influencing what the journalist is going to do. If you do talk to people, of course there is a small risk, but you can minimise that by first of all watching what you say, secondly by trying where possible to choose journalists to talk to.

Sometimes you can’t do that because people ring you but otherwise try to talk to a specialist whose reputation you know. Do a bit of research on what that journalist has written in the past. You can usually, if you Google people, get two or three of their stories up on the web. Even if you can’t do that just ring your press officer up. Even if you don’t know them then your press officer should, and if they don’t, they’re not a very good press officer and you should try and get another one.

The other thing I always say to people as well, to minimise the risk of being caught on the hop; if a bit of your research is coming up that might be appearing in the media, ask yourself devil’s advocates questions about it. Ask yourself what is the worst, most misleading, most inaccurate, most damaging interpretation somebody could put on this research and what’s my answer to that when somebody asks this question. Think of all the stupidest, dumbest, daftest questions and think ‘what is my answer to that question?’ If you are prepared like that, and are ready for them and can explain why your particle accelerator is not going to destroy the world, then you’re going to stand a much better chance of being able to steer the journalists in the direction you want them to go.

Why do headlines sometimes not match the article?

MH: Journalists who write the articles do not write the headlines. That unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you see it, is just the way it works. Headline writing is a very different skill to writing the whole story. It is a specialised skill that some people are very, very good at and some people aren’t. It irritates reporters as much as it irritates people who are reported on when a story is not reflected by the headline. There’s not much, I’m afraid, that one can do about it.

Sometimes, if there’s a story I know is particularly sensitive, I will check what the headline a sub has written in on it is. Sometimes I don’t have time to do that, but usually, if something is very contentious or it’s an area that might be easily misunderstood or it is a story that is going on the front, I will try to keep an eye on what the headline is and if I think it is terribly misleading I will say. There is no harm in asking a reporter if they will do that, but don’t be surprised if they say, ‘look it is just something I can’t influence’. Don’t get cross with reporters over headlines, and by all means, if a headline does really misrepresent a story, write in and complain.



Do you think young scientists should put themselves forward to the media?

MH: Yes, for the reasons I was saying earlier. First of all; if you don’t put yourself forward to the media you can’t influence what they write. And actually I think that you pretty much lose the right to complain about what they write as well if you are leaving it to people who don’t understand the work nearly as well as you to write stories from press releases and impenetrable papers in peer reviewed journals, without even being available to explain it. I think that if you are not willing to help journalists out, then you do lose the right to complain about being misrepresented.

Beyond that I think, particularly if your work is in anyway publicly funded via research council grants or charities like Wellcome, then public engagement is part of the job. I think it is a duty to be willing to communicate, and share what you are doing, and explain what you are doing and, explain what people have got for this tax payers or charitable money to the public at large. And journalists are the main interface through which one does that.

The third thing of course is, just from a selfish perspective, the more you put yourself about in the media, the more you sell your research. I think it can be very beneficial to individual profiles and ultimately to their chances of securing future research funding. So I think there are three aspects. One is you have a lot to gain just through explaining things in helping to guide coverage of a story, secondly I think there is a responsibility, and thirdly I think there is a lot to gain in terms of profile.

What would you say to young scientists who are worried they are not ‘expert’ enough for you?

MH: I can totally understand why people might feel that. First of all, the likelihood is that they are going to be contacted about things they do know about. By and large, when science journalists are seeking general comment about big political stories or major developments in science, they are going to start off with the names they know. We all have our contacts books and we’ve all got people who we know well and who are prepared to comment more broadly, and are generally more senior and have less to lose. By and large, they are always going to be the first ones we contact anyway.

In terms of young scientists, the likeliest avenue that you are going to come into contact with the media is regarding your own research, which of course you do know about and so I think you should feel qualified to talk about.

More broadly, if you really don’t feel qualified to say something, then again just say so. We will understand if someone says ‘look I just don’t know’, or ‘that’s not my area, I can’t purport to comment on it’. We always like it when people are prepared to go a bit beyond that, but I think we do understand that, particularly for people who are perhaps post-docs in their first jobs, that it can be difficult to do that. But generally I’m not going to be ringing a stem cell scientist to ask them about their opinion on nuclear power. In a sense, the whole point of talking to people is to talk to them about things that they do know about.

The other thing is, sometimes what we’re looking for is not necessarily always a direct quote, but a steer. For example there might be a paper we think is interesting, we think it might be possible to put this interpretation on it or whatever. So, we might want to send something through to somebody and say well, ‘If you want to comment on the record about this, great. But, even if you don’t want to go on the record about it, could you use your expert eye just to look over this and give me some guidance, because you know more about it than I do. Have I understood this correctly?’ Don’t be afraid to ask for more information, it’s perfectly reasonable if you are being asked to comment about a paper that is newly published in Nature that you won’t have seen yet because the journalist has it under embargo and you don’t. Ask them to send the paper through, particularly if you are in a position to read it quite quickly and come back to them quickly. The journal’s embargo policies allow us to do that; there is no problem asking for more information if you need more information.



What do you think makes a good interviewee?

MH: Brevity; the ability to simplify things while retaining accuracy. The ability to explain often difficult concepts to people that don’t have a specialist grounding in it. I always think a good test is to imagine you are explaining what you do to your Aunt at Christmas, which I’m sure most scientists have to do, unless they are in a family of Nobel prize winners. Most scientists have friends or relatives who have a vague idea of what they do but don’t really understand it properly, and sometimes you’ll be explaining to them what it is you do all day.

That’s the audience you are pitching it to; it’s an audience that is interested in what you do, you’re not trying to interest somebody who has zero interest at all, but who won’t understand the jargon you use in your daily life. They probably won’t have any prior background knowledge or will have a more limited amount than you do.

Sometimes it’s worth at the beginning of an interview just asking the reporter how much they understand of it in advance. Because, as a reporter, equally you don’t want to waste time with somebody explaining what DNA is. You might do if you are a political reporter who doesn’t know what DNA is, but it’s always worth finding out what level of expertise your interviewer has, and how much they know about it in advance; how much they know about the background.

Even then you won’t want to be using too much jargon, because remember ultimately you are not just communicating with the interviewer, you’re communicating with his or her audience at the end of the day. That applies particularly for radio and television, but even for print, because they are going to want to use your direct quotes in the piece and so they’re not going to want to have to keep striking out bits of jargon or explaining them. Those are the key things, keeping things brief, to the point and easily explanatory.

Analogies can be very useful, and I think we’d be lying if we didn’t say a willingness to set things in context. Go beyond the raw what I have done, and also be prepared to engage in what does this mean, where will this go? If it is something biomedical, when might we expect a clinical trial to start? If it’s something to do with climatology, what does this add to the general picture of global warming etc?

Ultimately what we’re trying to do as journalists, is not just to explain so-and-so has done this, but we’ve also got to explain why it matters; why our readers should be interested in the first place. Sometimes that’s obvious, but sometimes it isn’t, and it can be very frustrating if an interviewee is sticking very, very closely to the contents of their paper. It’s a different skill than writing up a paper for a journal in a sense, where the background and context are going to be taken as read.

What practical advice would you give a young scientist preparing to be interviewed?

 
MH: I think the key point is the one that I made earlier; ask yourself the devil’s advocate question. Beyond that it’s those same things again. Try and work out what the journalist wants. Think to yourself who does he or she work for? What kind of people read that publication or listen to that programme? Are they talking to you for direct quotes or are they more interested in finding out background about the subject?

Don’t be scared of it as well, I think that is important. Most journalists, especially science journalists, in a sense are on your side. We’re not cheerleaders for science, but neither are we against it and always looking to catch people out. We’re after interesting stories, and one of the great things about science is that it provides loads and loads and loads of them, and there is huge fascination with it. It doesn’t have to be spun to be fun. One of the nice things about it often is that straight stories can still be very, very interesting.

Sure there are journalists out there who will try and catch you out, who already have a view about a particular technology or area of science. But you are generally far better off by engaging with them and getting your views across than by not doing that. I just think that you have more to gain than you have to lose by and large.

Don’t be afraid to ring journalists up or email them if you’ve got something that you think is interesting. Whether it is your work and you’ve got a paper coming up in a journal that you think would be interesting, or you’ve done something, or you feel strongly about something, or there is a funding or structural problem that is effecting you, that’s what we love. We absolutely love it when people come to us. Sure, sometimes we’ll say I don’t think it is for us, but that’s very often where a lot of our very best stories come from.

The other great thing about that is that you’ve got something that nobody else has got. So really you should never be afraid of doing that. You could perhaps do your homework again on who you might want to approach, but that’s a really useful thing to think of.

The other thing is what to do when things go wrong; complain. Write to the journalist and the person that deals with complaints. If it’s something that isn’t maliciously wrong, phone the journalist up and point it out, you don’t necessarily need to kick up a fuss. Point out the error and explain why it is wrong. If someone is constructive in their criticism like that then journalists really appreciate it. See it as an opportunity to teach someone something. It is really helpful.


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    Last updated: October 05 2006
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