I have to stress, a scientific background is not necessary — anyone can ask the same kinds of questions. But, for me, the muscles I exercised in science help. I imagine it would be similar for someone with a background in economics or the law, who can skip a couple of steps en route to finding interesting information in those fields.

Meltdown in the media

Still from an animated graphic showing 'exposed' fuel rods. (CBC)

I remember waking up to a news that the nuclear fuel rods were “exposed” and in danger of melting down. I was tasked that day with explaining to our audience, an ocean away, what that meant.

Step one: what does “exposed” mean? Many of the early reports were not explaining that bit, leaving the audience to wonder whether the nuclear fuel was exposed to the outside world—meaning the reactor was totally compromised. So what was happening?

The officials were slow to release information, the aerial shots were not clear, and I had no idea what the inside of a nuclear reactor looked like (despite growing up in nuclear towns).

So, I needed the help of people who know about nuclear reactors, would pick up their phone, and be willing to talk to me. Happily, I found two: one at UBC’s TRIUMF laboratory, and one a former neighbour (and nuclear engineer) at the Hanford nuclear facility in Washington State.

They explained that “exposed” meant the water that is supposed to be covering and cooling the rods inside the reactor was boiling off. Unless they could be cooled, the rods could create so much heat they’d melt the metal holding them apart, and fall, and keep getting hotter. A complete meltdown was possible, but considered unlikely. The impact of a meltdown would be mostly local; the fuel would literally be melting out of the reactor onto that site. Very different than an explosion.

The situation was not good. But it also wasn’t yet as dire as it had sounded. The rods were still inside the reactor, the reactor’s containment vessel was still in place, but possibly leaking. We created graphics to show our audience what was going on.

Here are videos with my stories from that week (March 14 | March 15). If you prefer text, here’s a good explainer from Richard Black, the BBC’s smart Environment Correspondent.

Numbers in context

Putting radiation levels in some kind of familiar context. (CBC)

These risks are unfamiliar, which tends to make them more scary. The challenge is to put them in context.

I compared the radiation exposure at the plant to things people are more familiar with. I dug up charts and checked them with experts, and found that the radiation had been very high, but fell to a level between a chest X-ray and CT scan. (Note, I mispronounced millisieverts.)

None of these “digging” examples are particularly sexy, or investigative exposés. In fact, as I learned more, the story became less sensational, but more true. And I think our audience has an appetite for that.

A behind-the-scenes look at the talk I'll take to class

Here’s a sneak peek at the Prezi I made for the talk.

It’s not that rare to be a reporter with a background in science; we have a few in our local newsroom. But it’s still uncommon enough that when people I encounter on the job learn I studied biology, they’re surprised.

Many ask whether it was my plan all along to learn about science, then report on it. (Not at all —I really thought I was going to be a biologist).

And, I often hear, “Oh that must really help you on scientific stories.” (Absolutely! But not in the way you might think.)

Bring on the data!

The fact is, the facts I learned don’t help me much. Even if I remembered every nephron and neuron I scribbled down in a final exam, my information is more than a decade out of date.

What’s important about what I learned is it gives me the faith that even complex things can be understood, and it’s my job to make sense of them, and use that information to critically evaluate what people tell me.

A three-spined stickleback. Image from Dolph Schluter's lab, where I once measured fish tails.

Being unafraid of numbers and spreadsheets is good too. I learned Excel spending many hours volunteering in a lab measuring millimetres of stickleback tails. Now on the job, I use a spreadsheet at least once a week to sort data and make calculations.

How do you know that?

The focus of my talk is evaluating sources of information. Scientists and journalists work in very different ways — it’s always fun to shock first-year students with the kind of deadlines I operate under — but we both have to think critically about the evidence a claim is based on.

I’ll be encouraging the students to ask: “How do you know that?” Should be fun.

• Acid Oceans: The other climate change problem
• Saving Sharks: Connecting the Asian fin trade to Canadian waters
• Branding Nature: Selling and saving the seas

Basking sharks have huge mouths, the better to filter plankton with. (Chris Gotschalk/DFO)

But I didn’t have a context for why overfishing sharks would be any different than other types of overfishing. I also wasn’t sure whether this was something that affected sharks off Canada’s Pacific coast, or if it was only a problem other places.

It turns out, yes, overfishing sharks is different, and yes, the fin trade around the world affects endangered sharks here. I connect the dots with the help of patient scientists, to tell a tale about endangered basking sharks. That piece also aired across Canada on CBC Radio.

The second International Marine Conservation Congress starts in Victoria today. Scientists, policy makers, resource managers, and NGOs are here to share science on our changing oceans, and ideas on how to save them. It’s only been held once before, 2 years ago in Washington, D.C. What I find so interesting is the goal is not just moving the conversation forward by publishing papers in the scientific literature — but also by crafting recommendations that let science inform public policy.

I’m here to report for CBC Radio — you’ll hear me talking to Stephen Quinn, host of On the Coast, and Grant Lawrence, guest-hosting All Points West. I’ll be on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at about 5:40 or so in the Vancouver area and 4:50-ish in the rest of B.C.

Changing oceans

It’s not easy to decide what to cover. The program is huge, covering invasive species, overfishing, aquaculture, planning, and many more issues. I’ll be looking for stories that mean something to a B.C. audience.

One piece will be on climate change and ocean acidification — there is a lot on it at this conference, and a topic I find really interesting. We know the pH of the ocean is changing as it absorbs excess CO2 we’re dumping into the atmosphere. It seems to already be causing problems for the shellfish industry in some coastal areas. But it’s not clear just how the complex systems of the sea will respond to these changes — or how this threat stacks up against others.

Still deciding on other topics. I’m excited—and a little bit daunted—to dive in.

* update: This may or may not be an internet myth based on a band name. I was just chatting with a journalist publishing a book on sharks, and she’d never heard it. Nevertheless, a lovely word.

Who was being quoted on the health risk of BSE in Canadian beef in Canada's national newspapers, May 21-Aug. 13, 2003. Coverage continued for months but scientists stopped getting quoted. The y-axis is the proportion (%) of sources in each category quoted in each time period. (Johnson, 2004)

My thesis was on risk communication, using mad cow disease as a case study. I looked at a the language and sources used in news articles to discuss the safety of Canadian beef after Canada’s first mad cow was found in May 2003.

I remember that day vividly. It was my first summer at CBC, and I was interning at Quirks & Quarks in Toronto.

Then-prime minister Jean Chretien, in an AP photo from May 21, 2003, the day after the news broke. The original caption read: "Jean Chretien shows that Canadian beef is safe by eating it for lunch on Wednesday." (AP)

As the summer progressed, BSE remained a major national story, mostly because the U.S. had banned Canadian beef, leaving cattle producers without a major source of income. There was a huge SARS benefit concert in Toronto that summer, but I remember dubbing it “Beef-stock” because of the amount of Canadian beef promotion, including a city block-long aisle of BBQ. I wrote about it at the time:

Veteran comedians Dan Ackroyd and Catherine O’Hara weren’t even trying to be funny when they sat down between acts to eat Ontario and Alberta beef in front of the crowd of half a million spectators. ‘Mmmm, this is great Canadian beef,’ Ackroyd said between bites. ‘I just can’t decide which type of great Canadian beef I like better!’

Trust us, we have science

What does this all have to do with risk communication or my Masters work?

Well, I’d noticed that, as the story progressed, people were still talking about science and health risk, but they were no longer talking to scientists about it. Politicians, cattle producers, and yes, celebrities had taken the media stage to promote Canadian beef.

So I decided to look at whether that gut feeling had any backing to it, with a content analysis of the mad cow coverage in the two national newspapers, the Globe and Mail and National Post. I tracked a few things, including what each story was about, who was quoted making claims about health risk, and whether those claims had any caveat of uncertainty. (They should have, because a lot was unknown about the disease or how prevalent it was on Canadian farms).

The story shifted over time, understandably, from the question of risk to the general public (very low) to one of political and economic impact. But those politicians and industry groups were still making claims about science and health risk, with little mention of uncertainty. Here’s a representative quote from the then-minister of health, Anne McLellan:

“I think we have the science now to make a scientific case for the Americans to lift the importation ban.”

So what? Well, at the time I was trying to make a point about risk communication, and, of course, finish my degree.

Here’s what I get out of it now. There’s nothing wrong with politicians and lobby groups talking about science — let’s hope they’re using some evidence to make decisions.

But, science is a process, not an outcome. And it’s a process that gains credibility (and power) by laying out uncertainties and the evidence to support its conclusions. In this kind of rhetoric, speakers end up using the word “science” to borrow that credibility without earning it by doing either of those things.

A researcher implants an acoustic tag into a migrating Fraser River sockeye (Jennifer M. Burt/Science)

Q: When is the lead author of a paper published in Science not allowed to comment on the subject?

A: When she works for Canada’s federal government. In this case, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO).

It is not a new phenomenon that Canada’s federal scientists are prevented from talking about their taxpayer-funded work. Margaret Munro, the science reporter for Postmedia News, wrote a news story last year that pushed this practice into the public eye, prompting coverage by other media outlets (including the CBC), and an opinion piece in the journal Nature calling for change. From Munro’s story:

The documents say the “new” rules went into force in March and reveal how they apply to not only to contentious issues including the oilsands, but benign subjects such as floods that occurred 13,000 years ago.

But, even if it’s not new, I still think its worth noting when it happens.

In this case, the scientist was the first author of study on Fraser River sockeye that provides a new piece to the puzzle of their declining numbers. (CBC story.) Researchers took tissue samples from migrating sockeye salmon, and tagged the fish to see which ones survived to spawn. They found a pattern.

The ones with a certain set of active genes were more likely to die before the spawning grounds. The researchers said it looked like the genes were responding to a viral infection — as in the fish that were dying had caught a virus out at sea.

The journal’s embargoed release sent to media around the world told reporters to contact DFO communications to reach the lead and corresponding author, Kristina Miller. But after days of trying, my colleague on the story was told yesterday that Miller “still [had] not received permission from Ottawa to speak to the press.”

Two of her co-authors from UBC, Scott Hinch and Tony Farrell, conducted interviews instead.

This study does touch on a few issues the federal government would flag as controversial. For example, if the fish did catch a virus, where did it come from? Biologist and activist Alexandra Morton suggests it might be from fish farms. Also, the study invites questions about climate change, pointing out that “seven of the last 10 summers have been the warmest on record for the Fraser River” and explaining that warmer water can make sick fish sicker.

What do you think? Would you like to hear from federal scientists about their work?

Taxonomic trees are an interesting way to think about the relationships between things. Here's a rough one to explain what I'm talking about.

I recently participated in a workshop for scientists about talking to the media, led by Nancy Baron, who has written a smart book on the subject.

It got me thinking about how mysterious the media can be for people who haven’t interacted with us much. One thing we don’t always make clear to people is just what kind of interview we’re asking for. Which can make a difference in how someone will prepare, and what they can expect to come of it.

The most obvious taxonomy of an interview is by media line: print, radio, TV. And that has merit. It can help you decide, for example, whether to put on a tie, or brush your hair. It will also determine whether an interview over the phone might be enough (print, radio) or likely won’t be (TV).

But, here’s another way of looking at it.

Conversation vs. quote

After the split between print and broadcast, I think the next most important difference is not between TV and radio, but between two types of broadcast interviews: the conversation vs. the quote. [Note, these are my labels, not standard industry labels. They're both called interviews, but I'm trying to make a distinction.]

The biggest difference for the interviewee is how quickly and clearly they need to make their point(s).

Conversation

In the conversation, where the interview airs as an interview (either live, live-to-tape, or edited down) people will hear more of what you have to say. A typical current-affairs interview one of CBC Radio’s local shows (e.g. The Early Edition) is 5 minutes. So, there is room for a (short) anecdote, and you could take a minute to make a point.

Quote

Compare that to an interview that will lead to quotes (or clips) in a broadcast news piece. A typical clip in a news story is 10-20 seconds, maybe shorter. This is generally with a reporter, rather than with a host of a show.

You can (and should) still explain a lot more to the reporter than the short, pithy, “here’s the bottom line” quotes. I’ll usually talk to someone for 10 minutes or more, and that information is not lost, it helps me decide what the story is (or isn’t). But in the end, I’ll still be looking for short quotes that make the person’s point clearly.

Interestingly, during this second “quoted” type of interview, even though you have to make your point succinctly, you may actually have more time get there. Five minutes on live radio fly by. But you could talk to a news reporter for longer, and come up with the perfect, smart, pithy quote at minute ten (something you never would have gotten to on air).

A few of other nuance differences…

• The advice some people get to address the person interviewing you by name (“Well, Lisa, you see, Lisa…”) should really not be followed if it’s an interview for quotes. This will render clips unusable. Even in a conversation interview, some hosts hate it because it doesn’t sound authentic.
• In an interview for quotes, it’s helpful when people answer in complete sentences, because the audience won’t hear the question.

  Q: Where did you do your field work?”

  A: “We did our field work on Haida Gwaii.” (Not just “Haida Gwaii.”)

  This advice can be dangerous, though, when it leaves people concentrating so hard on speaking in sentences they ploddingly repeat the phrasing of each question (e.g. “Where we did our field was on Haida Gwaii.”)

• In a pre-recorded interview, especially one for quotes, you’ll often be asked whether there’s anything else you want to say but we didn’t get to. I do this every time. But, it will never happen in a live interview.

All this to say, it’s useful to consider where the interview will end up. And either way, you need a clear idea of what you want to say.

What do you think it’s important to know before going into an interview?

[There is a big caveat to all of this. The new answer to "Where will this interview be used?" is "Everywhere." I pull audio from TV interviews for radio news, TV and radio scripts are used for CBC.ca's online pieces, print reporters carry small video cameras, some of our radio shows are videotaped, and some of our interviews that would before only have been clipped for news are now posted online in their entirety.]

Scientists are tagging humboldt squid to figure out what they're doing in the North Pacific. (Submitted by Nikki Lane to CBC)

Even more interesting, or perhaps alarming, is what’s happening with the Humboldt squid in B.C. waters.

First, why are they here? They’re native to northern Mexico, but in the past ten years have spread northward, first to California, and now all the way to southeast Alaska. That is a big change in such a short time.

Secondly, they’re washing up dead on beaches in large numbers.

Given this, I was pretty curious when I learned about a new study tagging two dozen Humboldt squid and trying to trace their movements around the North Pacific, as part of the Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking project. The goal is to figure out what the jumbo squid are doing up here. That’s important to know for fisheries because these squid prey on commercially valuable species like hake. It also matters because their rapid change of range could tell us something about our changing oceans.

You can watch my CBC TV story (vid link) from last week to see the squid, and hear from the scientist leading the research. There’s an online text version here.

eyes on the ground

If you look at the TV story, or even the photo above, you’ll see that CBC didn’t capture the images of the squid. The video came from a Tofino-based group called the Raincoast Education Society.

I found some of it on YouTube, then called up Josie Osborne and asked if we could use it. She said yes, and ended up being part of the story, talking about the wonder and concern people felt as squid washed on shore — squid that aren’t supposed to be up here.

What I said to her then (besides “thank you”) was how important it is for groups like hers to capture video like this, and post it online. They can be the eyes and ears of a changing coastline that many of us don’t get to visit. (Pacific Wild on the central coast is another great example.) And while, as a reporter, I have to be cautious of second-hand video, it can also help me tell a story that otherwise wouldn’t get told.

Killer whales on the B.C. coast. (CBC)

Researching another story this week on humpbacks, I called up Dr. Lance Barrett-Lennard at the Vancouver Aquarium. He’s a scientist with a gift for speaking clearly, and he studies marine mammals on our coast. He’s also the co-chair of the Killer Whale Recovery Team organized by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

I asked him about the killer whales he studies — the Northern Resident population, which can be seen in the Johnstone Strait area and further north during the summer. Last year, he had spoken out about that population starving, and described whales swimming for hours before finding fish to eat. (Their preferred food: chinook salmon).

This year, what a difference.

The central coast runs for chinook were abundant, he told me. So the whales seemed to have enough to eat, and it could be seen in how they act.

“That basically means the whales don’t have to be making a living every minute of the day they have time to socialize,” said Barrett-Lennard in an interview on the Aquarium’s research boat, Skana.

“When whales are ‘happy,’ we see a lot of social behaviour, they’re a lot like us in that respect,” he said. “We see larger groups, lots of playing, lots of pushing and shoving and jumping and rolling over on their backs.”

Take a look at my CBC TV story (vid link) to see killer whales, and learn what other threats they face.

Reaching for plain soap is the best way to wash hands and avoid spreading disease, says Dr. Henry. (CBC)

Dr. Henry just published a book on preventing disease spread, called Soap and Water & Common Sense, and has been on the front lines of media-messaging around the swine flu virus.

The piece of advice that’s yielded the most discussion online, and in our newsroom, is about avoiding antibacterial soaps with ingredients like triclosan. As Dr. Henry noted, they can lead to drug-resistant strains, and do nothing against viruses like the flu.

Pros and Antis

I’ve seen two camps of reaction: people who are surprised antibacterials are considered harmful, and people who have known that for years and are surprised anyone is surprised. (As a recent post on yoyomama notes, triclosan was one of the chemicals the authors of Slow Death By Rubber Duck loaded their systems with.)

Dr. Bonnie Henry says ad campaigns are adding to confusion:

People think that having ‘antibacterial’ on it means it’s more healthful and it’s going to protect myself and my family. And they honestly believe that because of the advertising. When in reality it may cause harm, and it’s certainly not needed.”

I’m happy to hear a prominent health official talk about this. I’ve long avoided antibacterials, not because I’d researched them carefully, but because past biology-student roommates had ranted about their damaging effects on the environment.

It was an easy decision because I’m not remotely germophobic. But it’s nice to see what’s good for human and environmental health aligning once again.

More of the doctor’s advice after the jump.

Dr. Henry also recommends:

• Soap and water (and time to scrub) are the best tools for handwashing
• Warm or cold water are both fine
• Avoid antibacterial soap, including the ingredient triclosan
• Dry your hands with paper towel, hand dryer or air before touching anything
• Hand sanitizers don’t work as well as handwashing, but can help if you don’t have access to soap and water, provided they are 60-90% alcohol