Do we care about the truth?
By Nigel Hawkes
Copyright 1999 The Times (UK)
February 19, 1999
Our fears over genetically modified foods have been
fuelled by a media frenzy
and inaccurate reporting, says Science Editor
Nigel Hawkes
The scare over genetically modified food has been a
classic example of a
little-studied phenomenon, the media feeding frenzy. From small
starts,
frenzies
quickly develop a terrible momentum. Sense and judgment are the
first
casualties; public understanding the final victim. For as long as
it lasts,
readers and viewers are buried in a blizzard of stories that
compete to paint
apocalyptic visions of horrors to come. Politicians shamelessly
join in. Then,
like
a tap being turned off, it stops.
Absolutely the finest example in my experience was the
flesh-eating bug which
transfixed the press in the summer of 1994. This was a strain of
Streptococcus
capable of killing those unlucky enough to be infected with it.
There was nothing new about the organism or the symptoms
it caused, which had
been beautifully described in a surgical
journal by a doctor working in Shanghai as long ago as 1919. Nor
was there any
real evidence of an epidemic, or even a significant increase in the
number of
cases. Yet for a week or two the flesh-eating bug made huge
headlines. Then it
was gone - and hardly
a word has appeared on the subject since.
The GM-food frenzy was triggered by a two-page spread in
The Guardian on
February 12, claiming that tests on GM potatoes had damaged rats
which had
eaten them. Curiously, an almost identical article which had
appeared in The
Mail on Sunday at the end of January had passed unnoticed.
The Guardian article, despite its length, did not address
two key issues: that
the GM potatoes tested were not intended as human food, and would
never have
passed muster as such; and that the gene inserted into them was for
a toxin.
Small wonder, perhaps, that they
might have had damaging effects on the rats, though whether they
actually did
is still in dispute. By all normal journalistic standards, the
story was holed
below the waterline.
But it made no difference. The controversy quickly took
wing, sprouting
subplots and generating a tremendous row more or
less about nothing. As it happens, GM foods have been better
monitored and
controlled in Britain than anywhere else in the world. Small trial
plots are
all that have been planted. No illeffects to health have been
observed, nor are
they likely. Possible environmental effects are being carefully
monitored. Is
this the impression left by the
row? I think not.
Frenzies are caused partly by bad reporting, but could
only happen in an
environment ripe for them. We live in a society increasingly
anxious about
risks, real and imaginary, as the sociologist Frank Furedi has
pointed out in
his book The
Culture of Fear. He cites a study of the medical literature which
showed that
in the five-year period between 1967 and 1972, about 1,000 articles
containing
the word risk were published. In the period between 1986 and 1991,
there were
80,000 such articles.
Had risks increased eightyfold in such a short
time? Clearly not. We live in a far less risky time than our
parents or
grandparents. Today fewer than one woman in 10,000 dies in
childbirth: in 1940,
one in 300 did. The disappearance of the Soviet Union is the
greatest risk
reduction in our lifetimes; but
better drugs, a more plentiful diet, social security and other
changes have
also cut the ordinary risks of life.
What has changed is attitude to risk. At a time when most
risks are actually
declining, people are worrying more. But they lack the skill to
assess risks,
to develop a true
calculus of risk in which real dangers are distinguished from mere
scares.
Driving a car is far more dangerous than flying, but we seldom hear
of people
with driving-phobia.
The second reason comes closer to home for journalists. It
sounds pompous to
say so, but today's
journalists are not much interested in the truth. As the American
academic
Peter Sandman of Rutgers University in New York puts it:
"In the epistemology of routine journalism, there is no truth,
or at least no
way to determine truth. There are only conflicting claims, to be
covered as
fairly as possible."
So journalists feel they have done their job if they quote both
sides of an
argument,
"tossing the hot potato of truth into the lap of the
audience", as Sandman says. This approach has the effect of
giving all sources equal
value, of making the most outrageous claims seem credible - and a
lot more
interesting - than the
sober responses elicited from official sources.
Nobody would want to deny a hearing to those opposed to GM
foods, but crying
wolf is seldom sensible, unless a wolf is truly at the door. If one
believed
all the scares floated by environmentalists and health campaigners,
one would
never
set foot out of doors, though, of course, that would still leave
one the option
of falling down stairs.
Newspapers that join in a feeding frenzy put their
reputations at risk and
earn the contempt of readers who know about the subject. Worse,
they help to
create an atmosphere of
fear which could threaten the forces which have made life less
risky in the
past century. Fortunately, I suspect that most readers treat
frenzies with the
disdain they deserve.
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