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An interview with Fiona Fox Chief Executive of The Science Media Centre
The Science Media Centre (SMC) provides a key bridge between science and the media, specialising in controversial and difficult science subjects such as vaccine hesitancy and antibiotic resistance. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has meant they have been busier than ever. Fiona Fox is the chief executive and founding director of the SMC. Fiona is a highly decorated champion for openness in science and the media, with achievements including an OBE, accolades from numerous learned societies and awards for her work in promoting openness in animal research. Microbiologist editor Dr Paul Sainsbury caught up with Fiona to talk about COVID-19 and the media, with questions from former ECS Committee Secretary Dr James Williamson and SfAM’s Member Relations and Communications Officer Luwam Mekonen. Firstly, SfAM wanted to thank you and the SMC for all the work it has done, both before and during the pandemic. Do you think this current situation has highlighted how all scientists have a responsibility to communicate their research effectively? Yes! I have always believed in the importance of science communication, but I can’t think of an example in my career that has made it so obvious that science communication is central to science and not an ‘added extra’. It feels like the penny has finally dropped that clearly communicating the evidence we have found is key to defeating the virus. This is just as much about public behaviour as it is about government strategy, and for that to work we need the public to be able to trust government advice and scientific advice. The fact that we see scientists on the news and in the papers delivering headlines means that the public are more in touch and understanding of the scientific method than ever before. Hearing a scientist say “we don’t know about reinfection, but we’re working on it and will know after more study” reinforces the way science works in the public eye. We have a population who more and more are knowledgeable not just about the science of this virus, but about how science operates – and I must say that’s down to the fact that coverage of the pandemic on the whole has been very good.
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microbiologist
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December 2020
Have you found that an increasing understanding of science in the public has changed what sort of content they want to receive from the news? I would say that at the moment there is a very high percentage of science in the news, but even still, a poll we ran alongside one of our recent events said that at the moment people want even more science in their news. I think that possibly relates to a feeling of not getting answers from the news, so it might be more of a feeling that they want more definitive science, rather than more science in general. There’s definitely a frustration there that comes from a difference in the way we look at timescales – we’ve been dealing with this virus for over nine months now and people expect to have answers in this time, but an immunologist will tell you that nine months is not long at all to gather this data. How can you know if immunity lasts a year if the virus has not been around that long? How has the media affected policy decisions relating to COVID-19? I would like to believe that the high standard of reporting on COVID-19 in the first few months led to betterinformed policy and health decisions. At the SMC one part of our key ethos is that we avoid advocating for a particular policy but instead provide the full story so that public and policy can be informed by the best science and have access to all the information when they make decisions. That January-to-March period where most of the reporting on the virus was by health correspondents and
www.sfam.org.uk
