Thread by @CovidTownHall

📣 Starting this afternoon at 3:30 pm PST! Science journalist and @NPR science correspondent Richard Harris (@rrichardh) will be joining the latest #CovidTownHall in our series to discuss science reporting during a pandemic with @ucdavis students. You don't want to miss this!

Richard Harris has covered science, medicine and the environment for @NPR since 1986. His award-winning work includes reports in 2010 that revealed the US Government was vastly underestimating the amount of oil spilling from the Macondo blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. #journalism

He also shared a @PeabodyAwards with colleague Rebecca Perl for their 1994 reports about the tobacco industry’s secret documents, which showed that company scientists were well aware of the hazards of smoking. #journalism #reporting #sciencejournalism

Richard has traveled the world, from the South Pole and the Great Barrier Reef to the Arctic Ocean, reporting on climate change. The American Geophysical Union (@theAGU) honored him with a Presidential Citation for Science and Society. #climatechange

In 2014, he turned his attention back to biomedical research and came to realize how the field was suffering. Too many scientists were chasing too little funding. That led him to take a year-long sabbatical at @ASU’s Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes. #sciencejournalism

While there, he researched and wrote Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, And Wastes Billions. It is his first book. blogs.sciencemag.org/books/2017/04/…

Richard grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at @ucsc. He graduated with highest honors and spoke at commencement.

In his first full-time reporter job, at the Livermore (Calif.) Tri-Valley Herald, he discovered that the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was working on a new generation of nuclear weapons — ones that use nuclear explosives to generate energy beams.

Scientists at the time contemplated putting these weapons in space to shoot down incoming missiles.

During the #COVID19 pandemic, Richard's reporting has followed a wide range of issues relating to #coronavirus. You can listen to one of his reports here: npr.org/sections/healt…

Richard has two grown children. He lives in Washington DC, which he traverses daily on his bicycle as he commutes to work. You can read and listen to his reporting under the story archive on this webpage. npr.org/people/2100631…

Tune in to the live stream of this town hall with guest @rrichardh at facebook.com/ucdavisbiology/ -- you can share this link with your friends and family as well! All are welcome to join the conversation on Facebook and here on Twitter.

We're live at facebook.com/ucdavisbiology/!

Q from Dr. Mark Winey: How to become a science reporter?

A: It's a viable career option. Journalism is struggling a bit, and COVID-19 has accelerated the demise of some newspapers. #CovidTownHall

Dr. Harris: But I encourage students to think about other ways to do #scicomm as well. It helps scientists NOT only in the world of journalism and communication but in their science as well.

Thoughts: many mediums to do #scicomm -- I will share some later! #CovidTownHall

Q: What will your second book be about?

A: I can write the first chapter, but that's about it, because the pandemic is hard to predict. In 2003, I covered the last major coronavirus outbreak (#SARS). Visited Beijing, China during that time. #CovidTownHall

Dr. Harris: I've covered a number of epidemics but I came in as naïve as other people were about where this coronavirus story is going to end up. Clearly our job is to be watchdogs, to keep the gov't accountable, but also to amplify public health messages to the public.

Dr. Harris: I've met Anthony Fauci when he had just started as director of @NIAIDNews. I've known him for a long time. #CovidTownHall

Woops! Pardon the misattributions above as Dr. Harris.

I'll get that right from here on out.

Richard Harris: The White House decided they wanted to be the messengers during this time, and public health messages have gotten lost. I've been on the air more than I think I've ever been in the past, even more than when I was covering the gulf oil spill. #CovidTownHall

Richard Harris, on how to respond to quickly evolving research: You can get instant peer review on Twitter by following notable scientists. They will comment on preprints so you get a better idea about the science. This is a real-time experiment in science communication!

Richard Harris: The situation with preprints is a little bit out of control. Why wait for the journal when you can get the information sooner? Well, because sometimes the journal editors have to correct over-enthusiasms and double check the science. #CovidTownHall

Harris: If you follow the people who are scouring these preprint archives on Twitter in their fields, you can learn real-time about the validity of the latest research studies. #CovidTownHall

Harris: I immediately reach out to people I know, people experienced in these fields, to talk to about preprints. I've developed my own trusted sources to guide me and help me figure out what's right and what's not right. Sometimes these conversations are on air. #CovidTownHall

Q: Have you come across stories that have warmed your heart even though the #CoronavirusPandemic is a depressing situation?

Harris: I haven't had a great break from #coronavirus, but sometimes there's hopeful news about antibodies, vaccines, etc. #CovidTownHall

Harris: I also try to have fun with interesting stories, covering the intellectual joy that drives scientists to do what they do. You have to tell an individual story, you can't hope to tell the whole story at any one moment. How can I make a bit-sized story that people remember?

Harris: So I look for the smaller stories but then I try to step back and contextualize these larger stories. For instance we weren't reminding people enough about the overall #COVIDー19. In your reporting, you don't want to lose the forest for the trees. #CovidTownHall

***the overall #COVIDー19 numbers, that is!

Asked about how to communicate science, Harris: I can't boil down the "art" of science journalism. But one thing I try to do is always talk about what we don't know. It's important to say here's what we know, here's what we don't know.

It gives people a better sense of how the scientific process works. Ideas don't fall from the sky, hit scientists on the head, and then they write science papers. Science is a process. #CovidTownHall

Q: What about politics and science journalism?

A: It's created a lot of tension. Some of my colleagues have reported on questions re: "where is the CDC right now? What happened?"

Harris: Science, politics, business reporters have tended to inhabit their own insular worlds. But during this time we've had to do these things all at once. The pandemic requires this type of coverage. I learn from the perspective of my colleagues on other beats. #CovidTownHall

Harris: Journalism has been called the first draft of history, so sometimes what we say doesn't hold up over time. But our role is to give people the best information at that time. As that broad understanding evolves, we come back and say "here's what we understand now."

Harris: We can't tell people what to do, we should not say "this is the answer." Because a month down the road, maybe it's not the best answer. But we can tell ppl what public health agencies are saying & we can remind ppl how science works as they follow along with reporting.

Harris: A lot of Twitter is bots. There's a lot of misinformation, and it's never been a harder task to sort through that than it is now. The news used to come from three main news stations, and journalists like Walter Cronkite would define the narrative of what's going on.

Harris: It's difficult to navigate information as a consumer. I tend to gravitate towards @ScienceMagazine, @statnews, and other sources.

Harris: One example is a story that @washingtonpost picked up about the CDC making edits to their webpages, saying that the CDC is changing guidelines. What was actually going on was more simply "editorial housekeeping." In our meeting earlier today, we decided not to cover this.

Harris: When it comes to news consumption, we really are getting messages from our different bubbles...NPR, Fox News, etc. People should be aware of the deeper agenda to different news organizations, and keep that in mind.

Q: What's the @NPR editorial process like? Who's involved in making these decisions?

A: When there is a story that's taken off, we take a thoughtful look at it. It's a judgement call from many levels of the organization. Our science desk has daily meetings. #CovidTownHall

Harris: It's a constant give-and-take between different people when making these decisions, a thoughtful process. We have our ideas that we want to pursue, and we don't want to spend time taking down other people's ideas. @NPR is an independent voice.

Harris, asked about reaching other audiences: It's a challenge. People by and large make decisions based on what the people around them are saying. If you live in a conservative town where most people think #climatechange is bogus, you are likely to think the same.

Harris: People tend to find information that does not conflict with the groups they identify with. There's a false idea that if only we could get this information out to people they would change their mind. People's views are not based on the info at hand. #CovidTownHall

Harris: Instead, it's based more on their communities. It's important to keep this in mind during the reporting process. It's also wrong to partition people, to put people in "science" vs. "anti-science" buckets. Don't get too tied up about that.

Harris: Even people who don't believe in evolution will still go to the doctor and get antibiotics when they're sick. It's not total polarization, and you have to appreciate that the split is much more nuanced. It's very far from black and white.

Q: Importance of empathy in communicating science?

A: I've had good conversations over email with people who send me emails that sound initially hostile. We live in a complex place & we should embrace that.

Dr. Kaplan: Maybe sometimes it's more about listening to other people.

Harris: We're seeing science move at a really rapid pace here. The process is being put to good use. Don't take everything at face value, but if people are coming to the same conclusions from different perspectives, techniques, methods, there's more likely to be some truth there.

Harris: That's not to say that scientists don't sometimes get enamored with a particular idea and run with it for a while. So consensus not always as convincing, maybe. I touch on this in my book. #CovidTownHall

Harris: It's socially fascinating to watch how science itself works. That's something I enjoy as a science reporter.
Interestingly, research from Pew says that *more* hope/support for science coming out of this situation. People bring optimism about vaccines to science.

Q: What's wrong with peer review?

A: It's a flawed process. Rewards of peer review for scientists are misaligned (work for free). There's many examples of it failing to catch problems in papers. There's also some consensus that it can prevent new ideas from being published.

Harris: We expect too much from peer review, but most scientists think that peer review is better than no peer review.

Dr. @BeccaCalisi: Another big hurdle is that there's bias against women and other minorities.

Harris: Yes, people bring their prejudices to the process.

Dr. Ken Kaplan: Peer review is the "currency" of academia with regards to grants, positions, etc. Is there a place for peer review in science journalism?

Harris: Even after a paper has been published, I'll send it around to other scientists in the field to ask for their take.

Harris: Challenging to get diverse viewpoints, so I'd encourage scientists from diverse backgrounds to speak up more.

Dr. @BeccaCalisi: Those scientists are speaking up already, but there's not too many of us. Most scientists are white men. We have to work harder to be heard.

Q: Tips for students interested in communicating science?

Harris: Writing is something that gets better with time. If you're interested in science communication, the more you write, the better off you'll be.

Dr. Winey: Communication is key for so many fields. #scicomm

That concludes our #CovidTownHall for today! Thank you for following our conversation with Richard Harris @rrichardh. Tune in next week on Friday at 3:30 pm PST for our last town hall of the quarter with Dr. Elizabeth Joh @UCDavisLaw. law.ucdavis.edu/faculty/joh/