|
Summer 2010
From the Chair
New members
Sci Comm news
Eurochat
Feature: In science
we trust
Event Report: Statistics; part deux
Event Report: Nutts
about drug policy
Interview: Laure Thomas, chief press officer at Department of Business
The Last Word
|
Stempra newsletter
FEATURE: In science we trust
Climate change scientists are facing criticism, and it’s giving them a bad name. Bob Ward suggests that scientists and media professionals working together can improve communications, re-build trust and reinstate public confidence. Over the past few months, the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have suffered very serious attacks on their reputations following allegations of incompetence and misconduct.
But trust in climate researchers will suffer long-term damage if they do not start engaging more with the media and the public about their motives and methods.
The e-mail messages from leading climate scientists, which were hacked from UEA and posted on the web in late November 2009, led Nigel Lawson, the former chancellor of the exchequer, to claim: "The scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend." This prompted months of negative headlines across the world. Gleeful critics of climate research and commentators in the media dubbed it 'climategate'.
A series of claims contesting the accuracy of the last IPCC report led to further hostile coverage, with the Telegraph, for example, publishing a leading article under the headline 'Climate change: give us science we can trust'.
Many researchers appear to be relying on independent investigations of the controversies to repair the damage. These are an important step, but they will not be enough on their own to undo all of the harm.
It is easy with the benefit of hindsight to be critical of the media relations responses of the particular individuals and institutions at the centre of the recent controversies. This article is not an inquisition into their actions.
But I think it is time for media relations professionals to confront climate researchers with the ugly truth – the damage to the reputation of UK climate science is likely to have been far wider and deeper than has been recognised.
An opinion poll by Populus for the BBC in February indicated that 57 per cent of the public had heard "stories about flaws or weaknesses in the science of climate change".
The poll did not ask whether people's trust in climate scientists had been affected as a result, and it is perhaps a sign of complacency within the research community that no survey has yet been commissioned to address that question.
Writing in the journal Science in February, Ralph Cicerone, the President of the United States National Academy of Sciences, warned that "public opinion had moved toward the view that scientists often try to suppress alternative hypotheses and ideas and that scientists will withhold data and try to manipulate some aspects of peer review to prevent dissent".
He added: "This view reflects the fragile nature of trust between science and society, demonstrating that the perceived misbehavior of even a few scientists can diminish the credibility of science as a whole."
So the first step for media relations professionals is to help climate researchers realise that the damage to reputations is not restricted to the individuals and institutions at the centre of these controversies. They also need to recognise that the problems do not just stem from doubts about the quality of the science.
Judith Curry, a US climate researcher, wrote an essay on the Physics Today blog in February in which see observed: "In responding to climategate, the climate research establishment has appealed to its own authority and failed to understand that climategate is primarily a crisis of trust".
Trust has been undermined not just by the revelations about the IPCC report and the UEA emails, but also by perceptions of the way in which researchers have responded.
Media reports have created the impression that the research community has been slow to admit any problems, and institutional leaders have been reluctant to accept responsibility for investigating allegations of wrongdoing.
It is interesting to note that similar criticisms have been made of the responses of other groups and organisations that have suffered major damage to their reputations in recent months, such as MPs over their expenses, the Catholic Church over paedophile priests, and Toyota over the safety of its cars.
So what else can media relations professionals do?
I have found it instructive to look for lessons that can be learned from the experiences of others who have had to repair their reputations.
An invaluable guide is provided by Leslie Gaines-Ross, a US public relations expert, in her book 'Corporate Reputation: 12 Steps to Safeguarding and Recovering Reputation'.
Drawing on the evidence from numerous examples of success and failure in both the public and private sector, the author outlines her 12 steps in four stages: rescue, rewind, restore and recover.
Although her book is mainly aimed at business leaders, this book provides invaluable advice that can be put to use by the UK climate research community.
The author points out that it typically takes about four years for an organisation to recover its reputation.
This means that media relations professionals need to help climate researchers to understand not just the scale of the problem that they face, but also the magnitude and length of the response that is required to repair the damage.
Clearly the accumulated damage of negative headlines over the last four months cannot be put right by a couple of press briefings.
It needs a concerted and strategic effort, and it needs leadership.
Although some have stepped forward to deal with science and environment correspondents, who are under great pressure from their editors to investigate whether the IPCC and UEA controversies are the tip of a collapsing iceberg, nobody has really has taken on responsibility for leading the response of the UK climate research community.
Certainly many correspondents have gained the impression that most climate research researchers have been keeping their heads down for the past few months.
Not only has this made it difficult to counter the accusations of those critics who wish to undermine climate science, but it has also created the erroneous impression of silent, collective guilt among researchers.
This is the wrong approach, as Leslie Gaines-Ross makes clear in her book, and is causing wider and deeper damage to the reputation of UK climate science.
So here is my call to arms.
Media relations professionals in every climate science institution in the country need to give their leading researchers a gentle shake.
Get them some immediate refresher media training.
Get them talking to each other and devising a long-term strategy for dealing with this damage to their collective reputations.
And then get them talking to every science and environment correspondent you can find, and get them talking about their motives, methods and findings, to prove that they and their work can be trusted.
Bob Ward is policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science.
R.E.Ward@lse.ac.uk
|
<< Back to
current newsletter |
