The Ethics of The Quote

I know I sound like a cracked record, but this looks to me like another appeal for the death of "data not shown". Just as no formal scientific claim should ever be supported with anything less than full data disclosure, so journalistic claims should be as fully supported as possible.

While I would strictly outlaw "data not shown" in science, I don't think I would *require* the same thing from journalists. They deal with sensitive issues and need some leeway. I definitely think that if a journalist wants to acquire a good reputation they should include full records/transcripts whenever possible.

Correct. See the side-discussion with @scootsmoon as we veered there. I took the extreme position: if forced to choose between a pretty, but shallow story and a spreadsheet chockfull of relevant data, I'll have to pick the spreadsheet - that is information, thus News.

All the pretty writing is just a hook to get the people to take a look at the actual information. If you don't have the space and expertise to do a deep analysis of data, and all you do is quick summary, prettily written, than it is imperative to link to the data (which, in case of an interview, is the transcript). Leaving it off is unethical and is not journalism.

A printed newspaper, a homepage of a news-site, a radio show, a TV show - all those are just colorful, exciting Tables Of Contents, trying to get the audience motivated to go to the relevant part of the website to see the full information. If you do not provide full information, you have failed at the basic role as a journalist: providing the public with information.

This is quite a dumb piece and reflects a very poor understanding of journalism as well as an overly generalized opinion of journalists themselves. The things you rail against any good journalist (and there are plenty) would gladly rail against with you.

I am so glad you actually pointed out logical and factual errors in my argument and carefully dissected them for my readers, pointing to counterexamples in addition to ones I already did. What a useful contribution to the discussion! Is that how you do your real job, too?

Yes, there are good journalists. They are rare. And this has nothing to do with the argument that the institution of the quote should be reconsidered as a journalistic practice in the 21st century.

What you say about quotes is true but there is advice for interviewees that can help to mitigate it. If a journalist calls you, offer to brief them off the record. You can then discuss/explain your views freely and at length. If you're lucky, this may enable them to see a different angle on the story from the pre-conceived one they started from.

It's important to understand what "off the record" means. It doesn't mean they can't report your views. It just means they can't attribute these views to you, either indirectly or via a direct quote.

At the end of an off the record discussion, the journalist may well ask for a quote. Obviously you don't have to give a quote if you don't feel able to summarise your actual views in one brief sentence, but it's your opportunity to do so if you wish.

I don't know why this isn't taught more widely.

A further tip for radio/tv: clearly going "off the record" isn't possible in an interview for broadcast (though you can do it beforehand when briefing the researcher). And even if the interview initially goes out live it may later be edited and re-hashed in other places. Therefore, never agree with anything the interviewer puts to you. If they say "Would you say that [pigs might fly]" and you say "Yes, but only in an alternative universe" it then becomes legitimate to convert this into a direct quote as "X said that 'pigs might fly'". Always answer briefly but only in your own words that you're willing to be quoted on.

Have you talked with journalists who have told you that they start out with a skeleton outline *before* they do any interviews on their story? I have never outlined a piece before doing at least two or three interviews, or talking to the main source. (How can you? You do not know what the story is yet?) I don't know many reporters who do the former actually. Also, don't forget the role of the editor in a journalist's piece. It may very well be the editor who insists on removing the wacky opinion, or the inserting it, and not the lowly, overruled reporter. I'm also curious to know which papers are refusing to run quotes back by the sources. This is a basic accuracy check, and I've not heard of any paper/publication worth its salt refusing to do this as a condition for an interview.

As a follow-up to Hilary PhD's quote -- actually, I think she means "on background" or on "deep background." To talk to a reporter "off the record" does indeed mean they cannot use the material at all; they can not report on it directly but they can use the material you provide to dig up other sources, facts or figures. If you talk to them "on background," they can report on the material you provide, and they can attribute it with a description of your job, for example, just not your name (A science blogger from Raleigh, N.C. said x, y, z about science reporting...). On "deep background," then can use the material you provide, but they must attribute it to an anonymous source, with minimal to no description of why that source is a relevant voice in the story (A blogger from the southeast said x, y, z about science reporting...).

But, isn't quoting 'anonymous sources' the scourge of political reporting? Replacing a bad practice with a worse practice?

Anyway, Dan Conover transcribed the conversation on Twitter that precipitated this post.

I'm not reading this as a journalist, which I haven't pretended to be since the High School newspaper where I was mostly in advertising anyway, but as a contributor to Wikipedia. We have the discussion all the time, and much of it is covered in the policies "Neutral Point of View" & "Undue Weight". When collaboration works as it should, it's a great system. One little quote-argument the last few days, for example, is: should we write "X University said", "a spokesman for X University said" or "Joe Doe, spokesman for X University, said"? Potentially unfair quotes get pounced upon regularly, and a link to the paper or book is required for a quote. When the system works as it should.

Bravo! Well said indeed. Linking to transcripts is indeed a good idea in most cases, but this to me is not the primary insight of the column.

The key insight is the bolded paragraph; that the journalist's function is to understand the situation, understand the arguments, and rate them as to plausibility and quality.

This is essentially why science journalism must for the most part be undertaken by people trained in science at least to the Master's degree level. The idea that journalism itself is the required expertise for reporting on complex issues makes so little sense as to be mindboggling.

Thanks yet again for your insights and presentation.

Well, there is something wrong, I think, with your analysis. And it starts with the statement:

"First wrong: you had the concept of the article in your head before you did the research. This shapes your research, choices of interviewees, choices of "opinions", choices of quotes."

That accusation of wrongness is itself wrong when applied to science, let alone to science journalism. All scientific research (and, I would suggest, all science journalism) must, and should, start with the concept of the article in one's head before doing the research. It does, and should, shape your research, choices of experiments (in science) or interviewees (in journalism), etc etc. It is supposed to do exactly that.

The myth of inductive science dies hard.

What is wrong, and what can legitimately be criticized in both science and journalism, is failing to recognize when the interviews, opinions, etc, or experiments, data, etc, that you find demand that you change the concept you started out with in your head.

To suggest that it is "wrong" to start out by conceptualizing your article is ... well, wrong.

Yup, that is what I said. Starting out with an unchangeable story is what they tend to do. And remember that 99.999999% of journalists have approximately zero scientific training and thus do not think like scientist about starting with the evidence and building on it, instead of starting with the conclusion and then looking for the evidence (is that why they are so sympathetic to Creationists? Same thought habits?)

I disagree that all scientific research has to start out with a concept in oneâs head. If you are doing cutting edge work, there are times when you know that you donât know what is going to happen. Is it then unscientific to do the experiment to try and find out?

I appreciate that all scientific papers are written with the perspective that the authors knew what was going to happen when the tests were done. Maybe they knew because they had preliminary data. Or maybe that perspective is an artifact of how scientific papers are written.

The misinterpretations are surprising. Bora, whose first language is not English, occasionally slips a tiny bit outside the idiomatic but I always find him clear.

So it's peculiar to see the last two correspondents get this article exactly backwards. To clarify: it is journalists and not scientists who tend to start interviewing with a clear concept.

The problem is exactly identified here: they think they are writers and not reporters; that they should report only those facts which keep the article interesting, rather than only those matters of interest that keep the article factual.

Examples are legion, but I write to provide a fresh one. Michael McCracken quoted on Climate Progress via Anna Haynes:

No, the New York Times quote did not represent my views, and it did not even represent the reporterâs attempt to portray my comments-âI am told the article was edited down a lot from his submission.

As for me, they quoted 7 words out of a 34 word sentence that was part of a 900 plus word set of comments...

Very poorly done by themâ-and by me as I should have given them only the 7 words that I would wanted to have them use.

Joe Romm, summarizing, advises as follows:

So this is an important lesson to anyone who talks to the media. Keep it short and when they keep asking you the same version of one question over and over again, they are trying to get you to answer it differently. Donât do it!

This may well be true but it's not indicative of information flowing effectively from primary sources to the public. To say the least.

Thanks for a great piece. I have also had the same experience of a journalist (from a highly regarded newspaper) coming to interview me and others in the lab having already made up his mind about what the narrative was going to be. Not that the journalist said so, but the questions he asked made that clear. We all spent a good deal of effort trying to change that when we were interviewed since the narrative was so skewed. We would have declined to speak with him, but the university press office insisted since it was a highly regarded and high profile newspaper. The resulting article was a complete misrepresentation of the research, following the pre-decided narrative. Nor were any members of the lab asked to verify any quotes or information before publication.

Bora's argument that journalism should be about evaluating the merits of various opinions, not just providing he-said, she-said reporting, is bang on. There are far too many journalists who practice only the latter.

I would argue however, that he-said, she-said is not what's taught in journalism school; it's just what many journalists end up doing because :

1) They're lazy
2) They're rushed
3) They don't know enough to pass judgment because their editors haven't given them the luxury of the time and resources to understand the issues.

I also take issue with the contention that reporters should always offer to let sources read the story. There are quite good reasons for the practice of not letting sources see material first.

In political or business stories, giving sources an advance look is just plain idiotic for reasons that should be obvious, but apparently aren't:

1. The possibility of a court injunction being filed before publication.
2. The possibility a competitor will get a hold of the story.
3. The reality that the writer has no control over what actually ends up in print.

That's just three. There are plenty more as any veteran journalist can attest.

Now, science stories rarely involve the same threats, but publishers and editors are loathe to make the rules apply to only some reporters in the news room.

On the other hand, Bora's right: letting sources see what you're doing with their words will enhance trust and likely improve what ends up in print. So what do I do?

As a freelancer, I generally don't have to follow specific newsroom policies unless warned ahead of time. But I know that few reputable publications condone source vetting, so I have come up with a kind of compromise. I send the quote back to the source, with the framing paragraphs -- just enough context to give the source a sense of how their words are being handled, but not enough so they get a preview of the rest of the story.

I also make it clear that what happens to the story after it leaves my hands is well, out of my hands. I have had great success at convincing scientists who have never dealt with me before to talk. Occasionally they have made suggestions that improved the story. Occasionally they have asked to rewrite their own quotes. I sometimes agree but not if their suggestions change the essence of what they actually said.

Also: on the idea of posting transcripts online. I've not done this yet, but have no objection and expect to start doing it soon.

For me, it's all about accurately representing what the source said and ensuring it's put in proper context. My goal is to do my best to ensure the source isn't surprised by what they see when the story appears.

Anything that can further that goal should be embraced with open arms.

Thanks, James.

I have placed in parentheses up there that this may not apply to cases in which the interviewee is not willing provider of expertise, or is a person likely to spin. That is a different case altogether, something to think about.

I also agree with your 3 points about the reasons they do HeSaidSheSaid - though the View From The Middle (as Jay Rosen puts it) is also a factor: feeling smug by taking a position midway between the two extremes regardless of the Truth-values of the extreme cases.

You are right that lying, spinning etc. are rare occurrences in science. But I have to stress here that a scientific debate has to be within science. The Evolution-Creation debate is not scientific it is political. The same goes for Global Warming Denialism, anti-vaccinationist loonies, or HIV-AIDS denialists - none of those are scientific controversies as science is squarely on one side. Taking a midpoint view between a Truth and a Lie is a Lie, too.

The discussion continued on Twitter and FriendFeed. I guess this link captures it all, though not in any kind of chronological order.

I don't know what I think about any of this yet, but I'll add something to the discussion:

I've very rarely written something in which I provide a quote, but I've been quoted very often, and it is almost always bad. The only times I've ever been not embarrassed or otherwise felt badly about a quote is when I wrote the quote myself in collaboration with a press office journalist.

So, when I'm interviewed, I always send the interviewer an email with three sentences in it. Each sentence is a separate paragraph, each is short, each is accurate, each is usable as a quote, and each is non-embarrassing.

Not that these ever get used, but at least I tried.

Hi Bora, as a follow-up to your "anonymous sources" as a scourge question -- I do not believe you can roundly say that this practice is all bad all the time, or all good all the time. That is a false dichotomy. It depends upon the context of the story, and how the source is used. Many political stories can not be told *without* the use of anonymous sources. Conversely, many political stories are told quite poorly because of an over-reliance upon them. The Deep Throat source was anonymous for decades and took down a corrupt president. That was a good use of an anonymous source disclosing highly relevant data to journos on deep background. But many of the war stories we saw in the Bush years over relied on unnamed "senior admin officials" to the point that the stories were weakened, IMHO, and trust was eroded between readers and newspapers/journos. I don't see much need for anonymous sources in science reporting, unless there is a highly politicized angle to the implications or applications of the science (as in climate change, or nuclear tech). Anyways, that's my two cents. Have a great week.

In any use of anonymous sources, the reporter has (in my opinion) the obligation to disclose the identity of that anonymous source if that source exploits the trust of the reporter as Oliver North did by leaking military details to Newsweek and then in sworn testimony saying that Congress leaked the details.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/61762

I think that many of the âleaksâ in the rush to war in Iraq were similar; they were actually lies, orchestrated to accelerate the rush to the judgment that war with Iraq was necessary. When the reporters who were fed those lies found out they were lies, they should have released the details of who leaked the lie and the circumstances around it.

I think that if a reporter or news outlet is unwilling to sanction an anonymous source for lying to them or abusing their trust, by âoutingâ the anonymous source, then the reporter is not an honest broker of information but is a hired shill, bought and paid for by the anonymous source.

Think about all your "wrongs", starting with the first one:

First wrong: you had the concept of the article in your head before you did the research. This shapes your research, choices of interviewees, choices of "opinions", choices of quotes.

And then think about how you wrote this article. This is exactly the same road that followed your mind. Except that you didn't quote anybody.

Is it better, because it is only your opinion, and you didn't try to insert other opinions that reflect or not your opinions? Could be. But on the other hand, maybe interviews could also have slightly altered your opinion, and then, your article would have been better.

By the way, is it not also how social science are done? They start with "opinions", they choose readings and interviews and those choices are shaped by initial opinions... which can change during the process, or not.

As a working science journalist, all I can say to this post is, maybe scientist bloggers don't realize how concerned many of us journalists are about the ethics of our profession.

Perhaps. But bloggers did not fall from Mars yesterday. Bloggers are people. Always been here. Your audience. Forced to be silent until recently, and now capable of talking back. If your audience massively does not see how much you care about journalistic ethics, or let me rephrase this better, points out that so-called journalistic "ethics" are not ethical but hurtful, who is right? Perhaps their perception should tell you something and it is a good idea to listen.

The whole question of journalistic ethics raised by my colleagues turns on who our audience is. Is it made up primarily of scientists who want to hear what's going on in other fields, in which case it makes sense for published research to drive news? (Although you can see from news sections in Science and Nature there's plenty more to be said.) Or is it the public who needs to be able to distinguish, say, good medicine from bad? The two aren't mutually exclusive, but what my colleagues are reacting to is the lingering conception of science journalism as primarily responsible to scientists, as opposed to the public, or even as opposed to "truth."

Regarding your model of linking to what the scientist actually said in an interview, here's an example where a scientist blogger surprised me by doing just that. It provides evidence for my basic point: just as scientists are in a better position to judge what is good science, I think journalists are in a better position to judge what is ethical in their own work.

Which is not to say we couldn't use feedback from concerned scientists such as yourself. And which is not to say that all science reporting is good. But you have to think about three things here: experts, journalists and audiences. Each one will tend to fail in its own way, and focusing on the failings of one over the other two makes sense as an abstraction but not in practice.

So, to summarize:

It is OK to quote.

If you do not post a link to the full transcript, you lose trust.

If you post a link to the full transcript, you gain trust.

Most readers will not read the transcript (or listen/watch to audio/video) but a few will, and those few will inform the others, in the comment thread, if the quote was fair and what else was in the interview. If a journalist consistently quotes correctly, the trust grows.

Those journalists who whine about the time and difficulty of providing transcripts are tremendous Luddites who still use pens and paper instead of digital recorders - they need to grow up.

Well, I am not the only one understanding that journos come to the story with preconceptions in their heads, just looking to fill in the gaps with quotes - see The Bias of Veteran Journalists for a good account.

Provocative post, but based on some erroneous assumptions.

"First, you conceptualize your article in your mind: decide what the limits are, i.e., what can and what cannot be included due to space restrictions you are given by the editor. Thus, in your mind, you already have a bare skeleton of the story."

This is a straw man. Good journalists approach a story with an open mind, ask questions first, and frame the story only after talking with enough sources to be confident they understand the news, the context, and the implications for their audience. They don't say I have only 400 words, so I'll just select one source from column A and another from column B. That's not to say it doesn't happen--it does--but you tar all with one brush. Interviewing a working journalist would have made for a better informed post. This is the main reason journalists do interviews--we realize we're not experts and we speak with people who are--with an open mind.
--

"Second wrong: you picked to interview people with colorful views on the topic instead of people who have the relevant expertise to say something on the topic. Hence the appearance of Creationists, anti-vaccinationists, Global Warming Denialists or Republicans - people who are wrong every time they open their mouths - in the media."

This reveals a deep misunderstanding of how good journalism works. Again, I'm not saying it doesn't happen. It does, usually by less experienced or less responsible reporters. There's bad journalism out there. But your post reveals a seriously closed mind. (Republicans are always wrong? Really?) If you were to exhibit such a closed mind into a newsroom, a good editor would kick your butt from here to Tuesday, forcing you to get sources who represent the range of legitimate, informed opinion on the story in question, or, if you were a freelancer, killing the story and not assigning to you again. Intellectual discipline and fairness are integral to good journalism.
--

"Third wrong: you made decisions, out of your own gut instead of from deep research, which opinions are too wacky to include. How do you know they are wacky? Are you an expert?"

No, and we know it. Therefore we do research as deep as possible in the time available, and make decisions based on that research. We also develop specialties where we learn the lay of the land, not unlike a scientist, which helps select sources and provide context. A good journalist would never opine about a whole class of people (say, bloggers) the way you do about journalists. He would do the interviews and other research and write a fair-minded piece that represented what he'd learned.

I could go on, but that's enough for now. I actually think you're a good blogger, but you seem to have a very large chip on your shoulder when it comes to working science journalists.

One of the conclusions from the wonderful conference that you organize was that the bloggers vs. journalists war was passe. So, why are you still fighting it?

I think we differ in degree. I think that the examples of atrocious journalism vastly outnumber the examples of good journalism - something that comes from my experience checking ALL of the coverage of PLoS ONE articles, plus whatever else I see on Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook or blogs.

Republicans are always wrong. I'll give you a cookie if you find me a link to a statement by a Republican official, paid operative, or media talking head, uttered in the last 30 years, that proved to be objectively correct in the end. Stating this in this blog post is also my way, for people who are not regular readers, to insert my View, so people know where I am coming from, thus my way of avoiding the trust-breaking View From Nowhere that so infests the US journalism.

Finally, when dealing with time-related issues, it is vitally important to check the date of the post. Did you check? In relation to the date of this post, when was my conference? Before or after? By how long? Have you read stuff I have written on this topic since mid-2009? Since the conference in January 2010? Direct follow-ups on this post? Discussions of this post on Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook, as well as other people's blogs? Have you fact-checked yourself before posting? Obviously not. Thus you are also not in a position to evaluate if I am a good blogger or not, so that statement is there for other reasons - not a statement of fact or your opinion, but either as a deflection of my potential anger, or as a snide pat-on-the-head by someone who self-designated himself as a judge of what is quality blogging, putting himself above me in the hierarchy. What is your emotional need for doing this? Can you do some self-analysis?

Yup, Bora, I missed the date of the post. You got me on that. I followed a link from a recent (June 2010) post of yours. Yes, I've read other blog posts you've written and comments on other people's blogs--certainly not religiously, but enough to see this theme reappear.

I read a lot of the coverage of the conference, on your blog and others. I think the conference is great, and plan on attending when I can.

As for my reasons for challenging you, I have to admit that I find it a tad annoying when scientist-bloggers berate a profession I have devoted years of my life to doing well without finding out how members of that profession actually operate. But mostly I'm just having fun.

Just as scientist-bloggers can judge journalists, journalists can judge scientist-bloggers. Turnaround's fair play. Have a good weekend.

;-)