The last page

Well that is it. Yesterday I was Jean Adams from The Times. On Monday I will be Jean Adams from Newcastle University again. No more struggles with incomprehensible geology research reports, no more flicking through the paper to see if my story made it.

The Times offered some temporary work next week. They were willing to pay £70 a day. I’m not sure how that compares to what I get paid by the university, but five weeks of paid leave is generous enough. I think I probably need to go back and build up a bit more good will before I try for another little adventure.

It has been frustrating (all those stories written and not printed), boring (remember the pictures?), exciting (my name in The Times), enlightening (press conferences with scientists who did and didn’t know how to sell their story to the papers), and entertaining (the prolonged discussion in the press room about whether the Pope thinks aliens could go to heaven). 

I will miss the pace of the work, the challenge of getting to grips with something new every day, the struggle to try harder and learn more in the hope that maybe this time my work will make the grade. In many ways it’s like academia – you read, you listen to people, you question, you try to think of a new angle, you write, you submit your work, sometimes you hit the jackpot, mostly you get rejected. But the cycle is so much quicker, the gratification so much faster, and the opportunity to brood over the rejection so much less that I feel it could be a good sidestep. Maybe just for a year or two until I got bored with it too. But I would be willing to give it a go.

If you see a job for a rookie reporter, let me know.

Off his brief

On Thursday The Right Honorable David Willetts MP, Minister of State for Universities and Science, came to speak to the British Science Festival. His main job was to speak at the dinner, but he also gave the press 30 minutes. Unfortunately I wasn’t there. But I heard what happened.

Apparently the minister was saying some things about how important it was to base policy and decisions on scientific evidence. So someone asked him why the NHS funds homeopathy when there’s little evidence supporting it. His response was that patients want homeopathy so the government pays for it. To which a journalist asked why people with cancer weren’t allowed expensive drugs, with evidence in favour of them, when they wanted them but NICE hadn’t approved them. The minister responded that NICE had an advisory role only and that GPs should be free to make decisions in the best interests of their patients.

This is how it was reported to me by some people who were there.

As it stands, NICE does not just have ‘an advisory role’. It does offer advice in some areas, but it also has a regulatory role. In particular, if NICE approves a drug for use then NHS organisations are obliged to pay for the drug should a patient and their doctor request it. If NICE hasn’t approved a drug, PCTs are left to make their own decisions: "The NHS is legally obliged to fund and resource medicines and treatments recommended by NICE's technology appraisals."

To say that NICE has only an advisory role is either a) wrong, or b) an indication of a change in policy. Given that Mr Willetts is a government minister, either possibility seems likely.

Apparently there was general hubbub after this incident. The science journalists thought it might be important, but they didn’t really know. Mr Willetts’ press officer came around to speak to each journalist in person to check whether they were going to write the story and pleading with them not to as the minister was speaking off his brief.

Most people didn’t write the story.

When I heard about this later, I was a bit aghast. I thought that either Mr Willetts being wrong about an important piece of government policy, or announcing a change in policy (perhaps prematurely) were both good stories. I couldn’t believe that they had let him off.

In the pub that evening, the man from the Irish Times suggested a number of things that might have happened. If the science journos just missed the real point, they might not have conveyed it properly to their news desks and so might have been told just to leave it. Or, because it was so late in the day (1630) the journos might just have felt a bit lazy, knowing that if they played up the story they would have been asked to follow it up with David Willets’ department as well as the Department of Health. All of which might have been a bit of a pain to do so near to home time.

And this is how news is made.

I wasn't going to tell you this.  It feels like a bit of gossip too far.  But it turns out that the only paper that did run the story was The Times.  Although, they too got it a bit wrong:

Full public responsibility

This little short was in yesterday's paper:

It is neither a particularly good representation of what the scientist said or what I wrote.  I think that what I wrote was a fairly accurate description of what Dr Rheumatoid Arthritis told us.  This piece is definitely not.  In particular, the headline has very little to do with what Dr RA said at all. 

I don't know at what point in the journey between my laptop and the printed paper these changes crept in, but I find the whole thing a little disconcerting.  In my normal life, having your name on something means that you take full public responsibility for it.  In this weird new life that I am experiencing, unidentified people can change anything you write and leave your name intact at the top.  Does that mean I still have to take full public responsibility for it?  If not, why bother putting my name on it? 

This makes me particularly uncomfortable because my normal life is hurtling towards me very quickly right now.  On Monday morning I am going to be Jean Adams from Newcastle University again, not Jean Adams from The Times.  What if someone asks me about that piece I wrote on rheumatoid arthritis?

The NIB*

Maybe you will have guessed from my tone that Tuesday was a slow news day at the British Science Festival. But we dutifully wrote and filed our copy. Two full pieces – one from science editor, one from science correspondent and media fellow combined. As we weren’t in the office on Wednesday morning with a big stack of papers to browse through, there was no opportunity to determine how successful we’d been.

“Have you seen the paper this morning?” asked science correspondent.

“There were a few things on the web” responded media fellow, optimistically.

“That doesn’t mean anything” said science editor, “I think your piece on alcohol got in as a NIB.”

“A NIB!” exclaim science correspondent and media fellow in unison, “we came all this way for a NIB?”

“Well, did you think there was anything worth more than a NIB yesterday?” asked science editor with sagacity and wisdom, “it’s not like there were any stories or anything.”

At least our piece got in as a NIB. Science editor’s piece didn’t even make it to the paper.

*News in brief. A hacking job done by someone who doesn’t get to work before noon that involves removing the majority of your words as well as your byline.

The big boys

In our press centre there’s a hard core of science journos from the dailies – The Times, Guardian, Inde, Telegraph, FT, Mail, Mirror and Irish Times. There’s also a man from the Press Association who is one of the gang and some other hangers on who, quite clearly, are not.

The people from The Times and the FT have media fellows who have taken on the persona. The man from The Guardian also has one, but she doesn’t seem to be quite so involved. We get to sit in there right amongst the big boys. Sometimes we even join in a bit of the jokes and banter. But basically it’s obvious that we’re the new girl/boy. Our one redeeming feature is that we both have medical degrees and so can reliably be called on to answer those “what’s the difference between a tendon and ligament?” questions (tendons join muscle to bone; ligaments join bone to bone).

So yesterday when Nature decided to call a press conference on C .difficile at 1230 when everybody already had enough material for three stories, guess what happened? FT man asked his media fellow to go just in case there was a good story there. Times woman looked at me hopefully. I knew what to do.

Oh the poor researchers. A paper in Nature is something you should be congratulated on, not have to defend to would-be journalists. Three media fellows amounted to 50% of the audience. All three of them doctors. All three of them working in public health. Two of them with a special interest in infectious diseases (yes, obviously me who doesn’t do infectious diseases). The other two quite skilfully identified that the research was of almost no relevance to the NHS, the Health Protection Agency, or patients.

We had are very own little huddle at the end. There was no story.

Press conferences

This is what happens. A bunch of journos sit in a big room with their laptops, their mobile phones and the all important data cables. Then a press officer shepherds them all into a lecture theatre where a scientist speaks to them for 5 minutes about their research, followed by 25 minutes for questions. Sometimes there is no real story, other times there is a great story but it doesn’t become clear until the last 5 minutes when the scientist lets slip about a teeny little thing they did last year but is actually a lot more interesting than any of the other things they have mentioned so far. Then the journos huddle up and swap notes on what was and wasn’t said and what the story might be. They grab coffee and return to the big room with the laptops. Then a press officer shepherds them all into a lecture theatre....


I took this photo through the blinds because I was too embarrassed to ask all those people for permission to take their photo.  I hope it give an impression, if not detail.

This happens five or six times a day. Well, actually only five or six times a morning. Because you can only catch a journo’s attention before about 2pm. After that they’re writing on a deadline and they are grumpy. Before that they are full of banter and gags and competitions re how many copies everybody’s latest book has sold and how many times they have each been slagged off by Ben Goldacre.

Then everybody files by about 6pm and they slouch off to the pub.

Really they’re a great bunch. Lively, curious, funny. Better at critical appraisal than most undergraduates and able to do it in a flash without ever having to actually read the research paper in question.

Through the afternoon the room is quiet, punctuated only by the guy from the Mirror asking if anyone can think of a single syllable word for protein.

Yesterday one of the press conferences was on something to do with turbulence. This is as much as I can tell you because, despite 30 minutes of intensive questions, I never got any further than it was something to do with turbulence. Eventually the lady from the Daily Mail asked if it would be possible for Dr Turbulence to just explain the key finding of his work. By the time he got to the stage of saying “Look at this jug of water, it wouldn’t be particularly interesting to observe for a prolonged period of time...” the soft giggles of the man from the Financial Times had deteriorated into loud guffaws. The room erupted. The journos stopped trying. There was no story.

Birmingham

Well it sure is nice to be back in student accommodation.

Actually it’s not that bad. Positively luxurious compared to the accommodation that I lived in when I was a real student. For instance, there is a shower and toilet in the room (obviously not just in the middle of the room...) and the toilet paper has an absorbency rating higher than tin foil.

Yesterday afternoon we had a little induction to the British Science Festival Press Centre from the people at the British Science Association. It is clearly fairly well kitted out with equipment, but not so well with windows. Right now it is all very unglamorous.

I haven’t been told very much about what I’m supposed to be doing over the next few days. But I’m getting the feeling that it involves going to press conferences 0845-1300, then writing something from them. I’m not sure how much writing or how many of them will be written on. In fact about all I have been told is “it’s very busy, you need to get there early”. I'm thinking that the fact that the science editor and science correspondent and me are all going says something about the level of coverage that might be expected. But it might not.

We were also given our press passes which, slightly disappointingly, don’t actually say PRESS on them. I’d really been looking forward to having a card I could stick in my hat band. I have no idea why it says ‘speaker’ on it. Whatever else I am doing, I am definitely not speaking at this conference.

Home

Yesterday I spent another inordinate amount of time trying to get out of London.  I had that awful heartsink moment when you arrive at King's Cross to see your train cancelled.  Somehow I managed to wangle myself onto one of the very few trains that went beyond Newark on the East Coast Mainline last night.  It certainly wasn't the train I was supposed to be on, but it's not like there were any staff on the train.  Would you believe someone stole some overhead cables in the Newark area?  Who would do that?  On a Friday afternoon of all times.  Who is it who has never been away from home and got to the station only to find their train cancelled?

But I'm here all in one piece with all my stuff and even a little bit of a refund from East Coast coming my way. 

Would you like to see some of the lovely things that confirm I am definitely home?

Hmmm.  Washing on the line, sheeps in the field, blue skies and green for as far as you can see.  Doesn't it all just make you glad to be alive?  We spent this afternoon picking brambles from the hedgerows in the lanes around and about our house.  Now there is a big pan of bramble and apple mush in the bottom oven that we will strain overnight and make into jelly tomorrow.  Oh how idyllic it all is.  How very different from smelly old London.

On Monday I leave for the British Science Festival in smelly old Birmingham.

p20, page lead

Oh my goodness.  I am clearly so totally blase (sorry, don't seem to be able to get an acute accent on that e and I know it will bother you pedants) about having articles in The Times that I totally forgot to tell you about this:

Page 20 of Thursday's paper. 

Apparently it caused a bit of hoo-ha.  I went to a press conference about the research on Wednesday morning.  When I came back and told the science correspondent about it she screwed up her face a bit and said: "Hmm, doesn't sound that interesting.  To be honest, looking at tomorrow's schedule, I'm pretty sure it wont get in the paper".  So I sat down and got on with something else.

Then at about 4pm, I decided what the hell and wrote it anyway.  Miss Science Correspondent was actually rather impressed with my story and filed it and even flagged it specially to the news desk as something not on the schedule but maybe worth considering.

It turns out that the Daily Mail and the Independent ran it as front page news.  It was also fairly high up the Today programme running order on radio 4.  So if we (by which I mean, the organisation that I now totally identify with) hadn't run it there would have been uproar.  I hadn't quite realised that there is an expectation that if 'our readers' have heard about a credible story through any other outlet, they will expect it to be in The Times - or at least that's the way the head honchos think about it.  Which explains the exponential increase in media screeching that sometimes happens - if one outlet runs something and it's worth anything, everybody else feels it's their duty to cover the same thing.  They don't see it as whipping up a frenzy, they just see it as providing the service that their readers, listeners, viewers expect.

One of the editorial people even came over to congratulate me on the story.  Actually, I think he came over to give me a bit of a row for not flagging it up as an important story earlier in the day, but after he'd come over to our patch and said: "does anyone know who this Jean Adams is?", I think he realised that I was not a regular and not worth giving a row to and just said: "nice story" and turned around again and walked away.

Sainsbury's

We're gearing up for the British Science Festival now. This takes place next week in Birmingham and will be, I am reliably informed, a bit of a 'media frenzy'.

The press launch was on Thursday in the nice part of the RI. Lots of people were there, including Pallab Ghosh from the BBC. This is the second time I've been in a press conference and turned around to a voice I recognised before realising that I knew the speaker from radio 4, not real life. Vivienne Parry from Inside the Ethics Committee, was the other, in case you're interested. Neither look anything like expected, although as soon as I say that I start to wonder exactly what it was I was expecting them to look like.

The press launch was a very odd affair. Or at least I found it that way. Maybe these things happen all the time and are totally normal.

First off Lord Sainsbury, a science minister in the last government, gave a summary of his presidential address. He his president of the British Science Association, who run the festival. He will give a presidential address next week during the festival. He gave the press a summary of the address the week before. Does that sound weird to you?

His summary was full of "I will say this, then summarise that, then use the following examples to illustrate that....".

This clearly is how the Today programme can report that so and so will tell ministers today that... But I hadn't quite appreciated exactly how formal the whole thing was. What about if you're a super last minute person and don't have your speech ready until 2 minutes before delivery? What are you supposed to say at the press briefing then?

By the way, this is all strictly embargoed until 0001hrs on Tuesday 14th September.

Richmond House

In my normal life I probably get invited to at least one thing each and every week that I'd like to go to but can't because it's in London.  So, just for once, it's nice to have the chance to go to a meeting at the Department of Health in Richmond House.

Well not a 'meeting' as such.  More a demo. 

This is a bunch of postgraduate science students protesting against DH proposals to register acupuncturists, and practitioners of Chinese and other traditional medicine.  They argue that a registration scheme would give the impression that traditional medicine and it's practitioners are equivalent to western medicine and it's practitioners. 

I took a little test on old wives' medicine - what common spread should you put on a burn etc.  Then, because I got 100% in the test, I got a diploma.

I didn't tell them that I was there for The Times, or that I have a 'diploma' in western medicine.  Probably all very naughty.  But I did establish that none of them were doctors of medicine, and that they didn't have any evidence that a registration scheme for practitioners of traditional medicine would give any particular impression. 

When I got back to the office I further established that the 'proposals' they were arguing about came from a DH consultation document that described a number of possible registration schemes but didn't actually propose anything in particular.  The consultation was circulated last July with a deadline for comments of October 2009. 

The whole thing seemed a bit odd to me.  But it was fun to do get out and do a little bit of undercover reporting.  Maybe I will write something for the Eureka Blog on it.  I will certainly file my diploma with my other one.  It might come in handy.

So what is 'news'?

News is new, dumbo.  But it also seems to have to be interesting, or surprising, or intriguing.  And it has to speak to the reader ("our readers") as patient, parent, tax payer or perhaps voyeur.  Someone told me the other day that if the opposite of what you're about to write about is more surprising than your story, then you probably shouldn't write the story. 

Yesterday I was sent to another media briefing at the Science Media Centre.  The SMC is part of the Royal Institute.  The RI is dripping with Victorian grandeur.  The SMC is tucked away into two rather grotty rooms at the back of the RI and the hacks have a separate door.  Presumably so they don't mess up the glorious RI entrance hall.

The briefing was on new research on violence in people with bipolar disorder.  Data from Sweden shows that people with bipolar disorder are no more violent than people without bipolar disorder, but only if they don't abuse alcohol or illegal substances.  Those people with bipolar disorder who take drugs are six times more likely to be involved in violent crime than those who don't.  But people with bipolar disorder are also 20 times more likely to take drugs than people without. 

You can understand that the hacks were a bit confused.  So they aren't more violent.  Except when they're high.  And they're more likely to be high.  So they are more violent?  "Yes," said Prof. Forensic Psychiatrist, "but they're not more violent because they're mentally ill, it's because they take drugs."  But they take drugs because they're mentally ill?

Prof. Psychiatrist was patient.  He was calm and he tried to answer every question.  The reporter from the BMJ led the questioning.  He's pretty sharp.  You will be glad to know that everyone was very polite.  There was absolutely no "why exactly have we come here to be told that mentally ill people take drugs and commit violent crime?"

I wrote a story on 'post-natal' depression in fathers instead.

The opener

I flatter myself that I can write a news story.  What I definitely can not do is write an opener.  The most common comment I have received over the last few weeks is a variant on: "That's great, Jean.  Can we just have another look at the first two pars...."

This is a great opener.  Says it all in three sweet words.  Totally grammatically incorrect.  But it hooks you in and that's all it has to do.  Why would you go to any other shop - this one's open 24 hours.

So why is it that I can't get the hang of the opener?  There seem to be some rules.  There's the who, what, where, when and why rule.  Which means that you need to answer all these questions in the first sentence, or two.  Which can be tricky, but not impossible.

Then there's the 'immediacy' rule.  You might think: "New research published today shows that doctors make rubbish journalists,"  is beautiful.  But have a look at a newspaper.  Almost invariably the first sentence of a report on research will take the much more clunky (in my opinion) form of: "Doctor's make rubbish journalists, shows new research published today."  I have learnt this rule and applied it almost religiously, despite thinking the results are invariably ugly.  I once tried bending the rule and moving the today bit back to nearer the start of the sentence.  I was reminded of the immediacy rule.

So I can apply these rules, but I still don't seem to be able to write a good opener.  Today my piece on bariatric surgery was returned four times before the opener was deemed acceptable by the health editor.  And you know it still wont get published.

Are you for the bridge?

Well I had a lovely weekend. Thanks for asking. The long wait at Gatwick resulted in a rather late arrival in the Belfast. But I got there eventually. My rather splendid M had sorted everything out including nice apartment, teeny hire car, maps for adventures and cheese sandwiches necessities.

Saturday began with a bit of a lazy loll in bed with this very belated birthday present. Oh my goodness, I can barely contain myself. What state of purgatory is this to have a new cake book and be away from home, baking cupboard and Aga for another two weeks? There's gonna be a cake fest when I get home.

Then Saturday afternoon was spent on a tour of some of the northern sights. The rope bridge at Carrick-a-Rede was originally used to access salmon grounds. Well, not this one, but a precursor. The National Trust have made it all rather safe. But the weather was a little wild and it was all quite atmospheric.

Next the Giant's Causeway. Which is a lot smaller than on the telly. This could have done with a lot more crashing waves, but we had some fun making up pseudo-scientific reasons for exactly how the rock got to be the way it is.

Sunday was reserved for an assault on the highest peak in N Ireland. This is a slightly ridiculous ploy of M's that involves climbing the highest peak in somewhere on or around his birthday. So far we have done Scotland, England, Wales and southern Ireland. You will see that this is going to turn into a progressively bigger undertaking as the years go on.

It felt like everyone on the whole island of Ireland was climbing Slieve Donard today. You can't blame them. There are fantastic views of the Mountains of Mourne and the Scottish islands from the top.

Evacuate

It's been a while, but I haven't missed long delays at the airport on Friday evenings.

A few years ago I did an MSc in London whilst still living in Northumberland.  I flew down on Thursday mornings and back on Friday evening.  And before you ask, this was the only way I could get to class on time without leaving before 0530.  For some reason the outward journey was generally fine, but I have spent many Friday evenings waiting the long wait at Gatwick or Heathrow.

A trip to Belfast this weekend, a fire alert airside at Gatwick, and here I am still waiting to go.  Should have stayed in London and gone to the Science Museum.

Science news

The Times have being giving a LOT of space to Stephen Hawking's new book recently which they managed to obtain exclusive advanced access to.  How exciting for one of the science correspondents to be on the front page on both Thursday and Friday this week.

Although absolutely nothing to do with me, it was great to see how much encouragement and congratulations the correspondent involved got.  Lots of people dropping by to say well done, lots of enthusiasm from the editorial people, lots of requests for follow up ideas. 

This particular science correspondent has a PhD in medical physics and was a BSA media fellow four years ago.  Hmmm.  Maybe that will be me in four years.  Maybe....  I still need to catch her to find out about exactly how she went from PhD at Cambridge to front page of The Times. 

So with everyone else busy thinking up new angles on the 'god unnecessary for universe' scoop, guess what yours truly got to do?  The other science lead.  Oh yes I did.  And a story on a Newcastle scientist to boot.

The press officer from Newcastle even contacted me to congratulate me on a piece well done - some of the better coverage of the work and great publicity for the Institute of Ageing & Health and for the University, apparently.  I'm trying to think that I am finally making progress.  But I think everyone else was just too busy.

Highs and lows

Yesterday I was asked to find and write up a 'case study' to accompany a story the science editor was writing on stem cell tourism.

A press briefing had been given by some UK stem cell scientists and the Parkinson's Society warning about the growing trend for British people to go abroad for unproven stem cell therapy. Generally it seems to be people with chronic, debilitating illnesses like multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease and Parkinson's.

The general approach to the case study is to phone round the large relevant charities and support groups and ask if they know anyone with the appropriate history who would be willing to speak to the press. It is generally accepted as taking ages. Which is why people like me are asked to do it. I started phoning at 10.30am and finally decided I had done my best, phoned enough people and left enough messages two hours later.

Despite the thousands of people who are supposed to be going on stem cell holidays, I didn't get the impression that many were talking to their charities about it. We told the subs not to expect a case study.

But then at about 4pm someone from the MS society finally rang back with the contact details of a woman who had been to Holland for what she later came to believe was 'bogus' stem cell therapy. Bingo - I thought. Blog fodder - science editor thought.

But I rang the woman anyway. It seemed rude not to and I don't mind providing blog fodder. She was great. Open, thoughtful, even a bit inspiring. I wrote it up and filed it just in case.

O.M.G. They loved it. The news editor, or deputy, or someone important said it was "a great piece of reporting". The science editor said it really raised the profile of the story.

Reader, they printed my case study in the paper.

Today, I was told we were going to compile a 'Power 100' most influential people in UK science for the science supplement Eureka! Don't worry, I didn't have to work out the hundred people, they had that already. I had to write 50 word biographies of them all. By 4pm I thought I might die of boredom. By 6.30pm I had seventy done. Which leaves thirty still to go tomorrow. Snore.

But at least I wasn't one if the three people who today had to read TB's book, all 750+ pages of it, and have hourly meetings about the good bits. Appraisal from the guy sitting nearest us: surprisingly badly written and much more than we need to know about his toilet habits.