Dear Dr. Lawrence, I have to agree with Hal Caswell comments -- obviously this is a "hot button" issue for you and your interpretation of many of the posts, as quoted below" is quite different from my own.
"The idea being discussed is that journalists should screen their stories with scientists prior to publication. That is unacceptable to many -- most -- of my journalistic brethren. There are other ways to fact-check -- usually things like reading quotes back to a source or reading a difficult passage back to a source for comment. We journalists do that as a matter of routine -- that is far different from sending a source one's unpublished story and, in turn, inviting that source to rewrite it to suit their interests." I don't want to get into the issue of who has agendas etc. and it is naive to think that in this day of Murdoch dominated media that journalists are the independent and factually accurate minds that you seem to make them out to be. Personally, I have come to distrust much of the press because after being interviewed or quoted ~10-15 times I have yet rarely found a reporter who accurately reported what I actually said. In addition, in every case I asked to be able to verify my quotes and made it clear that this was just "fact checking" and in *every* case I was assured that I would get the article for fact checking and guess how many times it has happend - 0, Whether this is journalistic practice or not, it is untruthful. In the most egregious case I ended up writing a rebuttal to the article that was published in the Miami Herald. Now I don't think that I've ever been interviewed by a science reporter and the inaccuracies in the stories weren't exactly going to change science policy of the US or even Macon GA, but the point is that as a source you should be able to ensure that you are quoted correctly. I really don't see how you can take issue with this and the requirement that sources should be quoted accurately should be consonant with journalistic ethics not a violation of them. I still talk to the media because I believe that scientists have an obligation to do that. I just am much more careful with what I say and I have expect that there will be inaccuracies, especially regarding complex subjects. I also write a bimonthly column for a national fishing magazine so I have some experience with the other side of the coin. Please let's dial the tone back a bit and stick to the issues of whether scientists should be able to fact check articles prior to publication. There are two other interesting aspects of this general question: 1 how can you communicate in a clearer manner when dealing with the press to reduce the probability of misquotes (reporters generally don't understand p values, alpha and beta errors, or AIC or Bayesian estimators) (I know that ESA has had workshops on this.), and 2) what should one do after they've been misquoted or the information given misrepresented. cheers, G2 -- Gary D. Grossman, PhD Professor of Animal Ecology Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources University of Georgia Athens, GA, USA 30602 Research & teaching web site - http://grossman.myweb.uga.edu/<http://www.arches.uga.edu/%7Egrossman> Board of Editors - Animal Biodiversity and Conservation Editorial Board - Freshwater Biology Editorial Board - Ecology Freshwater Fish Sculpture by Gary D. Grossman www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/album.php?aid=2002317&id=1348406658<http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#%21/album.php?aid=2002317&id=1348406658> Hutson Gallery Provincetown, MA - www.hutsongallery.net/artists.html Atelier 24 Lexington, Asheville NC - www.atelier24lexington.com<http://www.atelier24lexington.com/default.html> Lyndon House Art Center, Athens, GA - www.accleisureservices.com/lyndon.shtml
