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Editors, producers, journalists: drop the false balance Grant Jacobs Mar 08

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If the ‘alternative’ viewpoint isn’t sound, there is nothing to report on the alternative viewpoint.

For some things there are no sound alternative viewpoints.

There seems to be a number of media personnel who feel obliged to offer ‘another’ viewpoint, as if everything were decided by opinion.

It is, at best, lame journalism to rope in some unorthodox opinion to fill in some imaginary requirement that an alternative viewpoint be offered.

Alternative views make sense for things defined entirely by opinion: a dress at the Oscars, the colours an automobile manufacturer choose for it’s cars – and so on.

Scientific things are determined by evidence, not opinion.

There can be alternative viewpoints in science for issues that have yet to be settled. In that case it ought to be noted that the material is still under open investigation: the ‘state of play’ of the science should be presented.^[1] It would be quite misleading, though, to place unsound alternative viewpoints alongside science that is well-resolved. In that case, the alternative views incorrectly imply the science is unresolved, leaving the piece misrepresenting the subject matter.

Similarly, if views that are not sound are presented alongside sources that are sound, the audience may take away that the ‘alternative’ view has a creditability that they do not.

I’ve been reminded of this by Radio New Zealand, who usually do a good job,^[2] offering Hilary Butler as a counterpoint to information on vaccines by Immunisation Advisory Centre immunisation research director Helen Petousis-Harris.

This is the same Hilary Butler who believes that baking soda can cure cancer, who listed homeopathic^[3] remedies as treatments for radiation illnesses and more.

There is no obligation to present an ‘alternative’ views. If there are no sound alternative views, best not to offer any.^[4]

Footnotes

Even more egregiously Radio Rhema, a religious programming station, simply offered a platform for a ‘spokesperson’ from an anti-vaccine organisation to speak in what could scarcely be called an interview. No critical questioning of the interviewee, just an opportunity for them to babble on. I’m not going to attempt to address the (many) inaccuracies presented by the spokesperson, but I will point out that them merely giving themselves the title of ‘researcher’ doesn’t not make their view sound. Perhaps as a religious station they might think of it this way: it’d have as much value as a minister granting themselves the title of bishop because they liked the idea.

1. This is particularly true for initial reports. There is also is also a related issue when reporting subsequent findings.

2. Radio New Zealand have hosted some of my science blogging colleagues and has some excellence science coverage, for example Our Changing World.

3. I have a rule-of-thumb that anyone who advocates homeopathy as lost their ability to critical judge claims. Homeopathy is the easiest of ‘nonsense’ remedies to see through: the repeated dilutions ensure there is nothing of the original ingredients!

4. I suppose some would like the entertainment value of someone talking nonsense. There is that, admittedly. But if the piece is meant to present a topic seriously that wouldn’t gel with the aim.

---

Other articles on media issues at Code for life:

Dear journalists and editors, (again)

Dear journalists and editors,

Media thought: Ask what is known, not the expert’s opinion

Note to science communicators–alleles not ’disease genes’

Bad science: baking soda, fungi, cancer, nuclear fallout, rosacea

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• Post Tags:
• journalists
• media
• Radio New Zealand
• Science communication

11 Comments Leave a comment

1. 
   Rob Edward 71 days ago

   Have you seen this highly relevant offering from Mitchell and Webb? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQnd5ilKx2Y

   Pure gold.

2. 
   Grant Jacobs 71 days ago

   Thank you, Rob – that was a new one to me, a great little sketch. It’s a nice reminder of how humour can poke at serious topics, too.

   I also couldn’t help noticing a comment offered by a viewer there – “haha its seven sharp”. For those outside New Zealand, Seven Sharp is a new current affairs program we have here that replaced Close Up. I’ve no idea if the writer is referring to the program or not, but they do read out emails sent to them… (see the video Rob linked)

   To offer some balance (ha), the people I am referring to in my piece—those who journalists sometimes use as false balance—do try be “informed” in a sense, it’s just that they are (very) badly informed – from unsound sources and echo chambers of their peers in on-line forums.

3. 
   Frederik Pruijn 70 days ago

   Fair comments. However, there are many examples of ‘established’ science becoming ‘unsettled’. It is not uncommon for the establishment to ignore or ridicule new theories or even data that don’t fit the mould; even more so when produced by relative outsiders or newcomers. One well-known example is that of Barry Marshall and Robin Warren who showed that peptide ulcers are caused by Helicobacter pylori, which went against medical dogma. Of course, eventually they went on to receive the Nobel Prize for their discovery. Similarly, Peyton Proust developed the theory that viruses could transmit and cause cancer. He also was ridiculed and it was 40 years (!) later before he got awarded the Nobel Prize. Since Peyton’s original discovery in 1910 many human cancer viruses have been discovered and this field is littered with Nobel Prize winners.

   You also mention baking soda as a mythical cure for cancer. I think you may have to be a little more cautious before you write this off as complete nonsense without scientific evidence or sound theoretical underpinning. A very recent article in the hard-core (AACR) cancer journal Cancer Research by a very reputable group showed that tumours invade surrounding tissue along pH gradients generated by the cancer cells. This is not entirely new and a known result of the Warburg and Pasteur effects. However, their findings were summarised as follows:

   Striking findings show that tumor invasion into adjacent normal tissues proceeds in the direction of low pH and that simply lowering the acidity of adjacent tissues in vivo by [orally] administering sodium bicarbonate is sufficient to block invasion.

   Other recent studies have used more ‘pharmacological’ inhibitors of the sodium-hydrogen exchanger-1 (NHE-1), which is one of the main players in the acidification, and also found inhibition of tumour invasion.

   So, perhaps the anticancer effects of sodium bicarbonate are not that far-fetched after all.

   The Cancer Research article is an Open Access Article (great stuff): http://dx.doi.org/10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-12-2796

4. 
   Rob Edward 70 days ago

   I don’t think Grant was saying baking soda was a mythical cure for cancer. There may be some utility and research is being done. But that’s a long way from making a profit from promoting it as a panacea as Sircus and Butler do.

5. 
   Frederik Pruijn 70 days ago

   Rob,

   Of course, Grant didn’t say that literally, if anything it was the opposite. I was paraphrasing his paraphrasing, as you did referring to “panacea” and making a profit promoting it.

   What I tried to point out was that things are never as simple (black & white) as they seem. Just because some nutters say some nutty things, and possibly take advantage of desperate (gullible) people, this doesn’t mean that ALL they say is nutty and should be written off akin the baby & bath water.

   I believed Grant was using the baking soda example as an alternative viewpoint that is not sound and best should be ignored and may only offer some entertainment value.

   In this case, I disagree with his take on the baking soda example and with his 3rd foot note.

   I have not read any of the links in Grant’s article, only the article itself, so that’s the context of my responses. I don’t know anything else about the claims of the people that Grant is referring to.

6. 
   Grant Jacobs 70 days ago

   Frederik,

   Your offering a paper that I “should” has you implying I had not read the topic before writing on it, whereas you admit you have not even checked what it is that you are criticising.

   Links are provided for a reason…

   If you had checked, you’d have seen that in fact I did read what people are doing in this area. (And, yes, I saw the paper you linked to during the backgrounding.) I also read Hilary’s claims.

   If you read the linked article and the following comments you’ll see that I gave it what (little) creditability that it might have – contrary to what you make me out to have done.

   Rather than “caution” me, wouldn’t it have been best to check you have your position on me right first?

   Hilary believes in Dr Tullio Simoncini’s idea that cancer is a fungus (literally, not figuratively) that should be treated with baking soda. (They guy is a convicted fraudster, apparently.)

   My own writing on it distinguished her ideas and the general research area you refer to.

   It seems to me that rather than “cautioning” me, you should instead be grateful. (I’m not advocating that area of research, by the way – it has it’s faults.)

   I’d add that your examples of people whose ideas later being proved right don’t really have meaning here (and you’ve exaggerated them somewhat, too).

   Regards your disagreeing with my footnote on homeopathy: no-one with any science background should be accepting homeopathy as possible, never mind plausible.

7. 
   Grant Jacobs 69 days ago

   Edit: that I “should” read – sorry.

8. 
   Frederik Pruijn 69 days ago

   Grant,

   I realised when replying to Rob’s comment that I should have made it clear from the outset that I had not read the links in your article. This would undoubtedly have provided me with more background information on your position. Instead I treated your latest blog as a stand-alone, which led to the now obvious consequences.

   I quoted a paper to support my viewpoint but I never wrote that you “should” [read] it. There was nothing in your current blog that suggested that you were aware of this area of cancer research. Providing a link to an Open Access Article and a good scientific paper was well-intended but not well-received. Clearly, my writing style and language rubbed the wrong way, which is another valuable lesson for me.

   I don’t quite follow what I should be “grateful” for.

   Which area of research are you not advocating and has its faults? This was also unclear to me.

   My examples of Proust and Marshall & Warren were meant to show that “well-resolved” science can become ‘unsettled’, which was one of the points you made in your blog I believed. These are well-known examples and well-publicised, including auto-biographic, stories. They are examples of challenging orthodoxy in science with the unsurprising consequences, reactions, and repercussions. I am not sure what I “exaggerated” but I think I got the context right nonetheless I stand to be corrected on this as well.

   With regards to your 3rd footnote, it did not say that nobody with a science background should consider homeopathy possible. Certainly, this could follow from your footnote. However, the footnote referred to a rule-of-thumb of yours that advocates (believers?) of homeopathy have lost the ability of critical thinking. As written, I disagree, even as a rule-of-thumb (heuristic). I tend to give people the benefit of doubt and generally too much credit, strange as that may sound to you.

9. 
   Grant Jacobs 69 days ago

   Hi Frederik, Thanks for the reply. It’s not your writing style that is the problem, it’s that you were telling me how I ought to be doing things, where a little checking would have shown I already do and did. Teaching grandmother to suck eggs is rarely a good idea and all that ;-) Your first comment was off-base and I’m afraid you’re going further off-base with the other things you are “reading into” in what I’ve written. Sorry about this, but with that in mind I’m afraid I’m not going to take this further as I don’t see value in it.

10. 
    Theo Brandt 69 days ago

    and now for something completely different…

    this reminded me of someone who likened ‘anti’ and ‘pro’ vaccination as logical as an ‘anti’ and pro’ slavery arguments.
    just because there is a view point doesn’t mean there is an ‘equal’ opposing view.
    I like to think of myself in this PC world as ‘pro choice’ for immunisation. Everybody in NZ, whether they think immunisation is a good idea or not can choose to have it (or not).

    I also find that those who are ‘pro’ are aware of the risks of vaccines, or at least tend not to discredit data relating to known side effects, whereas those who are ‘anti’ won’t have a bar of any supposed benefits…

    Theo Brandt
    Immunisation Advisory Centre.

11. 
    Grant Jacobs 69 days ago

    Hi Theo,

    Thanks for dropping by.

    Side-tracking away from my key point (the use of “false balance” by media), then…!

    I guess one aspect is that those using vaccines accept there are small risks associated with everything we do and that this comes with doing something that for the very large part is beneficial, whereas (some of) those opposing vaccines insist there never be even the slightest risk from the treatment but for various reasons aren’t willing to accept that the benefits (far) outweigh the risks.

    (There’s an issue of distinguishing effects known to be cause-and-effect and those that are really only associations, too. I wonder if it’d help if the two distinguished more clearly when the risks are presented in, say, package inserts or websites, etc. – ?)

    Certainly claims that vaccines have no benefit, exaggerated stories of harm, and so on pushed by those opposing vaccines aren’t helpful.

    I suppose it’s a good opportunity for me to say that I like to distinguish those that at the heart of advocacy or lobbying efforts against vaccines from, say, parents who have chosen to follow these people’s ideas. Those that publicly advocating a position are opening their views to whatever criticism their views might get. It comes with the territory, so to speak. Here I’m referring to the likes of, say, Hilary Butler, Suzzane Humphries, the core members of the IAS and so on.

    By contrast I have some sympathies for “followers” (for want of a better term) – they’re essentially being encouraged by people who are claiming to know better than the medical or scientific communities but whose views aren’t supported by the evidence or are over-played.

    Having said that, I think it’s worth remembering that most of the people opposing vaccines probably mean well even if they’ve advocating, or have gotten swept up in, inaccurate ideas.