Science Media Centres and public policy

Science and Public Policy Advance Access published September 29, 2014 Science and Public Policy (2014) pp. 1–14 doi:10.1093/scipol/scu057 Science Media Centres and public policy Simone Rödder Universität Hamburg, Grindelberg 5, D-20144 Hamburg, Germany; Email: simone.roedder@uni-hamburg.de The Science Media Centre (SMC) is a new type of organisation at the science–media interface that acts like a press office and supports newsrooms. The first SMC was founded in 2002 in the UK, but, despite its supposed success, its impact on public debates has so far hardly been studied. Based on theoretical considerations and an interview study, this paper argues that the SMC can be understood as a public policy instrument to secure science’s licence to practice. As a technical fix to the social problem of a ‘crisis of public trust in science’, the SMC acts as an emergency press office in science- and technology-intensive controversies. Its deficit modelinformed communication policy is that the political is technical, the technical should be evidence-based and this evidence should come from scientific experts. The implications for public debates are considered. Keywords: science communication; science PR; science policy; deficit model; social problems; knowledge society. 1. Introducing the Science Media Centre The Science Media Centre (SMC) is a new type of organisation at the science–media interface. Its aim is to get scientists’ voices into the mass media when science hits the headlines (SMC 2002). The first SMC was set up in 2002 in the UK and has since become a model for international export and adaptation as well as the focus of some controversy. To date, SMCs are in operation in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Japan and there are plans to set up further ones in Denmark, Germany, Italy, the USA and a Europe-wide one in Brussels (see the information at the SMC’s global network website <http://www. sciencemediacentre.net/index.html> accessed 30 April 2014). Despite this proliferation, the SMCs’ impact on the relation of science, policy, the mass media and the public has so far been hardly addressed by social scientists. No study has as yet systematically explored how they fit in the science communication and science policy landscape in their respective countries. Only one policy controversy in Britain has been subjected to media content analysis, the debate about human–animal embryo research (Haran 2009, 2012; Williams and Gajevic 2013). The case was chosen because the debate was perceived as particularly influenced by the SMC.1 Beyond this case study, the role and function of the SMC have been described by its proponents (Fox 2009a,b; SMC 2012; Fox and St. Louis 2013). Recently, the SMC’s impact on science journalism has been critically addressed from a journalistic perspective and on the basis of anecdotal evidence (Macilwain 2012; St. Louis 2013; Fox and St. Louis 2013). But in a recent review of the UK science communication and public engagement landscape, the SMC is not even mentioned (Stilgoe et al. 2014). This paper aims to fill the gap in scholarly attention towards SMCs based on an explorative study of the UK case. Against the hitherto weak engagement with this new type of organisation, I argue that a look at SMCs is of considerable interest to the social study of public and policy controversies. It is claimed that in order to understand the SMC’s purpose of ‘fixing science’ (Fox and St. Louis 2013: 1) in controve rsial debates, a look at the organisation’s origins is enlightening. This shows that the SMC was set up as a technical fix for a social problem known as a ‘crisis of trust’ between science and its publics in Britain around the year 2000. The conclusion is that this origin story imprints the workings of the SMC: the Centre can be understood as a public policy instrument to secure science’s licence to practice by acting as an emergency press office in science- and technology-intensive controversies. ß The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com 2 of 14 . S. Rödder The argument is based on considerations from social constructionist theory and informed by an empirical study that used a multi-method approach to explore the role and function of the SMC.2 First, 14 in-depth interviews were conducted with mostly London-based stakeholders: current and former SMC staff, science and news journalists, journal news editors, press officers of scientific and policy institutions, science policy officers and scientists who had worked with the SMC. In a number of cases, the interviewees had more than one of these roles in the course of their careers, including a science journalist turned science press officer and former SMC staff members now employed in science policy and science journalism. The interviews were tape-recorded, fully transcribed and analysed using qualitative content analysis. Interview quotes are used throughout the text in the format: ‘quote’ (Ix:y), where x denotes the interview number and y the coded quotation. Secondly, a variety of SMC-related documents such as its initial consultation report (SMC 2002), annual reports, brochures and the website were studied, as well as articles and comments by SMC staff and critics that touched on its role and influence (Fox 2009a,b; Haran 2009; Macilwain 2012; Fox and St. Louis 2013; Callaway 2013; St. Louis 2013). Thirdly, subscription to the SMC’s list of subscribers allowed for participant observation of its mailing activities. The paper starts with a detailed description of the types of services that the SMC provides (Section 2). It then introduces its theoretical premise, namely that social problems have to be understood as ‘essentially contested concepts’ (Gallie 1956) rather than as situations or conditions of a ‘naturally given’ policy relevance (Section 3). As a case in point, it is shown how a ‘crisis of public trust in science’ (cf. House of Lords 2000) was constructed as a policy problem in Britain at the turn of the century. This resulted in a policy paper with a participatory rhetoric but a deficit model concept of the science–public nexus and the SMC as its technical fix. The consequences for public debates are considered (Section 4) and conclusions drawn (Section 5). 2. The SMC’s services According to its mission statement (see Fig. 1), which is part of the SMC’s online presence, the Centre’s purpose is to renew public trust in science for the sake of research, science policy and society (cf. Fox and St. Louis 2013). The vision was already laid out in the initial consultation report: Good public policy decisions on science based on a more balanced, rational public debate. (SMC 2002: 23) The means to achieve this policy end is to support journalistic routines by a range of services that the SMC provides. Its website opens: Welcome to the Science Media Centre, an independent press office helping to ensure that the public have access to the best scientific evidence and expertise through the news media when science hits the headlines. (<http://www.sciencemediacentre. org/> accessed 9 September 2014). It continues: [I]t’s our job to pass on as much accurate information to journalists as quickly as possible. (<http://www.sciencemediacen tre.org/working-with-us/for-journalists/> accessed 9 September 2014). Accordingly, the SMC’s core services are the so-called ‘round-ups’ and ‘rapid reactions’, expert comments on science-related news. They reach subscribers to the SMC’s mailing list shortly after a science-related news event happened (rapid reaction) or within the embargo period of a Government white paper, a policy report or a publication that is forthcoming in a high-impact journal (round-up). As the name suggests, this service supports newsrooms with very rapid comments from experts. The experts are keyword-searched in the Centre’s internal database, they are usually emailed, sometimes phoned, and then have a couple of hours to get back to the SMC with their comments. In some cases, the expert reaction comes with supplementary material. Two kinds of supplementary information have to be distinguished. The first is a ‘fact sheet’, which lists key facts on an issue. The second format is called a ‘briefing note’. Briefing notes—‘crib sheets’ (I8:774, SMC staff member)—provide not only facts but also opinion. According to the SMC, they were started on media request and are now obligatory reading for every presenter and editor working at the BBC’s news services (I8: 814). Each note is negotiated by a group of selected journalists, scientists and science press officers. The SMC currently provides one or several briefing notes on the controversy 1 MISSION STATEMENT 2 “To provide, for the benefit of the public and policymakers, accurate and evidence-based 3 information about science and engineering through the media, particularly on controversial and 4 headline stories when most confusion and misinformation occurs.” Figure 1. Mission statement of the SMC, London (<http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/about-us/> accessed 14 April 2014, my emphasis). Science media centres and public policy classics: vaccination, genetically modified (GM) organisms, global warming, human stem cells and animal research. They are available for download from the SMC website. The second core service is press briefings, at which experts reflect on a science-related news issue and answer questions. Briefings take place up to several times a week at the SMC’s offices in Central London. They come in two types. News briefings provide a story immediately: they are typically held in preparation of a forthcoming publication, policy decision or in reaction to an acute controversy. In contrast, background briefings deal with topics that are not yet in the news but have a high media potential. Examples include briefings to discuss topics such as: ‘Pornography on the brain – are young people at risk?’ or ‘Solar power for CO2 mitigation’. They can also precede policy decisions such as in the human–animal hybrid embryo debate, when journalists first learnt about governmental plans to amend the respective parliamentary act at two SMC background briefings (cf. Watts 2009). Both news and background briefings are indicative of the SMC’s effort to support newsrooms in several regards: . The briefings deal with journalistic ‘must have’s’ (as they are called in Badenschier and Wormer 2012: 75): issues that are currently or will be in the near future on the news media agenda anyway: They come to us through a number of avenues, including scientists themselves, journals, and journalists asking for background on topical issues. (Fox 2009a: 120) . The briefings provide access to the obvious experts, for instance the lead author of a publication that is forthcoming or pertinent to the topic. . Venue and timing are tailored to media production routines: Briefings take place in Central London and are usually scheduled for mid-morning so that reporters: ‘can have a lie-in on a Wednesday and then go to work, get a story on the way and then file it.’ (I11:105, former SMC staff member) Rapid reactions as well as briefings, briefing notes and fact sheets rely on the SMC’s core infrastructure, a keywordsearchable expert database. As of 2013, the database yielded about 3,000 names of mainly UK-based researchers as well as 1,000 names of press and communication officers (SMC, personal communication, March 2013). To begin with, the SMC approached potential experts at science conferences and science communication events (I3, SMC staff member) and included ‘“pro-science” spokespeople’ such as ‘patients, politicians and even Bishops in our round-ups’ (Fox 2009a: 125). Nowadays, this practice is said to have changed and access to the . 3 of 14 database is restricted to scientists (Fox 2009a: 125), who are now: generally recommended to us by press officers from universities or scientific institutions as being both media friendly and recognised experts on issues that are likely to hit the headlines. (Fox 2009a: 116) It should be noted that SMCs are very small organisations with fewer than ten, mostly fewer than five, staff. The SMC in London was set up in 2002 with a staff of three (chief executive officer Fiona Fox, an assistant and a first science press officer with a scientific background) and within ten years tripled its number of staff to nine. Some members (such as Fiona Fox) are PR-trained, but most have a science background up to a postdoctoral degree. The SMC has attracted almost 100 sponsors from science, science policy, the industry and the media to cater for its annual budget (£591,884 in 2012–3), among them the central government, the seven UK research councils, seven universities, seven medical charities, two trusts and foundations, 18 learned societies, ten arm’s length organisations, four science publishers, one media organisation and 32 industry and trade bodies (as of August 2013 <http://www. sciencemediacentre.org/about-us/funding> accessed 6 March 2014). To ‘preserve its independence’ (SMC 2002: 4; Fig. 2, line 30), the funding of individual sponsors is limited, with few exceptions, to 5% of the SMC’s running costs (£30,000 for 2013–4 <http://www.sciencemediacentre. org/about-us/funding> accessed 6 March 2014). A key criterion for the SMC to engage in a debate is that the media pick up a certain issue. This approach is demonstrated, for example, by the Centre’s activity in the 2010 UK policy debate on comprehensive spending review: ‘We don’t usually do funding of science. But then two or three years ago the only story in the UK was comprehensive spending review. And so we got involved in funding. But only because it was a big story in the media.’ (I8:402, SMC staff member) The SMC defined its role in the policy debate as: ‘a press office that allowed the scientific community to make its case for extra funding.’ (I8:427) However, and in line with the policy to stay away from any particular agenda (SMC 2002; Fig. 2, line 24) comments were passed on (according to the SMC) that were critical of the lobbying effort: ‘[Journal editor X] gave me comments several times saying he was uncomfortable with this kind of ‘science is more important than education or housing’. He didn’t like it at all and his comments reflected that.’ (I8:427) Once a day or more often, an SMC staff member contacts journalists by way of a mailing list to which selected journalists are invited to subscribe. The list of subscribers comprises the news journalists and science correspondents of every broadsheet and tabloid of national relevance in the UK as 4 of 14 . S. Rödder 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2 3 The Science Media Centre is an independent venture working to promote the voices, stories and views of the scientific community to the news media when science is in the headlines. 4 5 6 7 8 With its roots in the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology Third Report: Science and Society, it will take up the gauntlet thrown down by the Lords to meet the “great challenge” of adapting science to frontline news. The overall goal of the Centre is to help renew public trust in science by working to promote more balanced, accurate and rational coverage of the controversial science stories that now regularly hit the headlines. 9 10 11 12 The Science Media Centre sees science in the headlines as an opportunity rather than a threat. While many have noted that science and headline news are a ‘poor fit’, the Centre will work to ensure that the scientific community exploits these opportunities to make the case for science at the very time when the public are most interested in and concerned about science. 13 14 15 16 The Centre will operate like a newsroom, reacting to the news agenda while proactively promoting a spectrum of scientific opinion. It will aim to gain a reputation with the media for a fast, accurate and media friendly response. It will focus primarily on non-specialist correspondents and newsrooms that do not have access to their own science correspondents. 17 18 19 20 For the scientific community, the Centre offers a specialist resource to scientists and science press officers when their science stories hit the headlines. It will also run a range of activities including media training, horizon scanning and lesson-learning sessions aimed at improving the science community’s effectiveness at engaging with the news media. 21 The Science Media Centre is unashamedly pro-science and was established in the spirit of the House 22 of Lords Select Committee’s goal of improving science communication as a means to “secure 23 science’s licence to practice not to restrict it”. 24 However, the Centre will be free of any particular agenda within science and will always strive to 25 promote a broad spectrum of scientific opinion – especially where there are clear divisions within 26 science. It will not shy away from promoting voices that are critical of particular aspects of science. 27 28 29 30 Figure 2. The Science Media Centre is housed within the Royal Institution but independent from it. Over 20 sponsors, including scientific institutions, companies and individuals, fund the Centre with donations capped at 5% of the running costs to preserve its independence. The team at the Centre is guided by a Science Advisory Panel and a Board. Executive Summary, SMC Consultation Report (SMC 2002: 4, my emphasis). well as a few renowned science journalists from continental Europe. Access to the list is restricted to these elite journalists. Freelancers and bloggers are not allowed on the list. After ten years in operation, the SMC seems to be broadly acknowledged as a ‘center of attention’ (Callaway 2013: 143) at the science–media–policy nexus, albeit evaluations differ: Depending on whom you ask, Fiona Fox is either saving science journalism or destroying it. (Callaway 2013: 143)3 As to how far the Centre, with its services, coins media coverage and eventually impacts policy decisions awaits investigation in future studies. As a basis for any empirical work this paper now reflects on the origin and purpose of the SMC from a sociological perspective. 3. The identity of social problems: On the origin and purpose of the SMC The starting point for the theoretical argument is the assumption that there is a huge population of putative social problems, that is, conditions that at least some community or actor sees as a troublesome situation that needs to be changed or ameliorated. In an attempt to classify all of the world’s problems, the Union of International Association’s Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential collected 12,000 such problems, among them 170 basic universal problems, 3,072 exceptional problems, and 2,153 very specific problems (<www.uia.org/archive/encywpgi> accessed 13 March 2014; cf. Holzer 2002). Given this quantity, one has to conclude that all these issues are capable of being seen as important problems. Following Gallie (1956), Hilgartner and Bosk (1988) have convincingly argued that: the idea of importance and the idea of problem must both be regarded as ‘essentially contested concepts’ (Hilgartner and Bosk 1988:54, italics in original) rather than as situations of a ‘naturally given’ policy relevance. They conclude that the: identity and fate of social problems depend on which formulations are accepted by which operatives who intend to do Science media centres and public policy what about them in which public arenas. (Hilgartner and Bosk 1988: 69) This link of problem relevance to public arenas and debates is crucial. In modern societies, it is the public sphere and technical mass media as its operative infrastructure (Luhmann 2000) that provide the discursive space for problem negotiations (Neidhardt 1993; cf. Rip 1985). Because attention is a scarce resource, one of the characteristics of the mediatised public sphere is its limited ‘carrying capacity’, through which: the number of social problems is a function not of the number of harmful ordangerous conditionsfacingsocietybutof the carrying capacity of public arenas. (Hilgartner and Bosk 1988: 70) From this, it follows that access to speaker roles, agenda setting and framing options is highly stratified. This hierarchy subsequently creates the perceived public and policy relevance of social problems. The key question for a sociology of policy problems thus is the question of how some problems become ‘great challenges’ (see Fig. 2, line 6), that is why they win recognition in the quest for public attention, and others do not. A first reason is vocal issue advocacy. Potent players are able to define a condition as a social problem to then have a legitimate basis for bringing public resources to bear upon it, such as new organisations, policy instruments or scientific research. A second line of reasoning is that: certain problem definitions fit closely with broad cultural concerns, and they benefit from this fact in competition. (Hilgartner and Bosk 1988: 64, my emphasis) In the following I intend to show how UK science policy in the final decades of the 20th century defined the public discourse on scientific issues as a social problem and won recognition for that definition among significant policy audiences. Eventually, the problem was named a ‘crisis of trust’ (House of Lords 2000) between science and society,4 and public resources were garnered to address that problem by way of a new institution—the SMC. In line with the above-mentioned considerations, I will argue that the rise of a ‘crisis of trust’ as a policy problem benefited from, first, strong institutional advocacy in UK science and science policy (see Section 3.1); and secondly, its genuine resonance with ideas of a cognitive authority of scientific expertise in the ‘knowledge society’ (see Section 3.2). My point is not to suggest that science policy actors are to blame for their definition of problems and policy options, nor is it meant to suggest that media coverage of science news is without problems. Rather, the concern is to: call attention to the fact that definitions of problems vary and that variations can be linked to interests. (Stocking 1999: 38) 3.1 A ‘crisis of trust’ in science as a policy problem In the 1990s, the UK experienced a number of scienceand technology-intensive controversies mainly on . 5 of 14 health-related issues, among them the cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), GM organisms and vaccination against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). The scientific establishment, funding bodies and science policy institutions perceived the way these debates were framed in the British media as sensationalised, unbalanced and inaccurate; in a nutshell: as antiscience (cf. Fox 2009a). This was not the first incident in which science policy took an interest in the science– media nexus because something went wrong (cf. Felt et al. 1995: 259). The worry in this, as in other cases, was to lose control over the media presentation of science and technology with adverse effects on public support for R&D. At the time, the UK already had a tradition of linking science communication to science policy. In 1985, the Royal Society had published a report entitled ‘The Public Understanding of Science’ (PUS), which had for the first time set up science communication as a policy goal. The report addressed the scientific community, the government, the industry, higher education and the mass media (Royal Society 1985). It emphasised the value of public understanding of science for the economic and social well-being of Britain as a ‘knowledge society’ (Bell 1973) on many different levels, from the quality of public decisionmaking to the professional and private life of the individual (Royal Society 1985: 9). Two assumptions informed its policy recommendations. First, that everybody should have some understanding of the nature of science and its accomplishments; and secondly, that an enhanced understanding in terms of scientific literacy would automatically result in more understanding in terms of acceptance. This approach has become known as the ‘deficit model’ in science communication because it assumes a current lack of scientific literacy among the public. Subsequently, a wealth of science communication activities was put into place, ranging from ‘open days’ to ‘science festivals’ and open access broadcasting platforms such as the Vega Science Trust (<http://www.vega.org.uk/> accessed 30 April 2014). But while these communication efforts gained momentum, the above-mentioned debates occurred. In the aftermath of the particularly heated controversy about a link between the standard children’s vaccination against MMR and the onset of autism (Boyce 2007), the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology commissioned a review of the UK situation. In its report ‘Science and Society’, the Committee stated that incidents such as the BSE crisis, GM crops and the MMR vaccine had caused a major problem for science communication efforts and famously diagnosed a ‘crisis of trust’ between science and the public (2000, summary and subheading, chapter 1). The public still felt: uneasy about the rapid advance of areas such as biotechnology and IT. (House of Lords 2000: 2)5 6 of 14 . S. Rödder The report pictured the persistent mismatch between society’s values and science’s progress as a major threat to the prosperity of Britain and called for ‘increased and integrated dialogue’ (House of Lords 2000: 4). But how was more ‘public engagement with science and technology’ (PEST) to be achieved? One of the measures that the report proposed was a new organisation at the science– media nexus with the aim of protecting the public from ‘misinformation’ in science- and technology-intensive controversies (cf. Fig. 1, line 4). What constitutes ‘misinformation’—as opposed to ‘proper’ information—however, was not open to negotiations as the term ‘engagement’ suggests. Instead, ‘misinformation’ was to be identified by scientific standards of accuracy and evidence (cf. Fig. 1, line 2). That science and scientists need to make their case for more understanding, acceptance, resources and legitimation in the mass media is motivated not least by the perceived success of protest groups and social movements in the above-mentioned debates. The SMC’s consultation report quotes an experienced science journalist: Greenpeace are great at media relations, always on the attack, always revealing another scandal, all good for the news agenda. (SMC 2002: 7) Other informants agree that: the voices that are often critical of science, including environmental NGOs, pro-life-groups and others, are extremely good at engaging with the media. (SMC 2002: 14) The House of Lords’ report is often quoted as the start of a new wave of engaging an informed public with science—if not as a ‘pointer to how attitudes have changed’ and ‘the end of the deficit model’ (Miller 2001). My assessment differs from this mainstream reception of the report. Beneath its participatory rhetoric, in essence it entails deficit model thinking, persistently motivating the policy goal of enhancing the ‘public understanding of science’: the public needs to know more science, and if they knew more science they would like it better and trust it more. It therefore seems more appropriate to conclude that—rather than moving from ‘PUS’ to ‘PEST’ (Science 2002)—the deficit has just been replaced: Concern for the public’s cognitive deficit in relation to science has [. . .] been substituted by a concern for the public’s trust deficit in relation to science. (Haran 2012: 244, my emphasis) Both these deficits are still linked by the assumption that more education will eventually lead to more trust. Take the following example: We take great pride in the fact that, when journalists attend SMC briefings, they get much more than a science story – they get a small lesson in the way science operates and develop an ever greater understanding of and sympathy with the experts carrying out the research themselves. (Fox 2009a: 125) As noted earlier (Franzen et al. 2012: 7), the rhetoric of science policy approaches has developed from public understanding of science to public understanding of research (cf. Nowotny 2005) to public engagement and public participation, but the underlying policy goals have hardly changed. This goal is made very explicit in the report: To secure science’s licence to practice, not to restrict it. (House of Lords 2000: 4, italics in original) The phrase is quoted in the executive summary of the SMC’s consultation report (Fig. 2, line 22/23). The interest of policymakers in funding science communication can be summarised as follows (Franzen et al. 2012: 7): . To enhance scientific literacy as an essential require- ment for everyday life and as a prerequisite for tax payers’ willingness to fund scientific research. . To equip all with science for citizenship, that is, public participation for improved public and private decisionmaking. . To legitimate public research funding. . To provide legitimation to the mainstream views in science- and technology-intensive policy controversies. The SMC is particularly geared to achieving the first as well as the last goal. A look beneath the engagement surface rhetoric of the Lord’s report and the SMC’s founding documents shows that the new policy instrument puts into practice deficit model thinking: Terms such as ‘accurate’ and ‘misinformation’ (Fig. 1, lines 2 and 4; Fig. 2, line 7) are indicative of the first, the deficit model approach to science communication. We can therefore conclude that the concepts of ‘misunderstanding’ and ‘better’, ‘balanced’ and ‘relevance’ that the SMC promotes in science- and technology-intensive controversies reflect the (deficit model) understanding of these terms among the scientific establishment and the Centre’s sponsors. The concept of a newsroom-like organisation (Fig. 2, line 13), which would react to science-related news events even more rapidly than the best-equipped newsroom and wire service was, however, original. The idea took shape as the SMC when Fiona Fox, a trained PR officer, was hired to set it up ‘at the frontline’ (SMC 2012) as the Centre has tellingly self-reflected on its location between science and the media: a place and position to fight for science’s acceptance, image and resources. In the phrasing of Fox, who to this day holds the post of Chief Executive Officer, it again becomes obvious who the main antagonist is: We had to make it as easy for the media to access the UK’s best scientists as it already was for them to get hold of mediasavvy NGOs and protest groups. (SMC 2012: 2) In line with its origin story, the key focus of the SMC is to ‘inject the voice of science’ in public debates. As shown Science media centres and public policy above, this mission is grounded in the policy perception that prior to the set-up of the SMC, there was a major crisis in the relation of science and its publics in Britain. In the interview study, a particular paper (Wakefield et al. 1998) was often mentioned as a tipping point for policy engagement. The news of a link between MMR vaccination and disease onset: ‘led to very immediate changes in behaviour amongst parents with vaccinations and it had a very immediate impact on levels of disease prevalence in this country, measles in particular. It demonstrated very clearly how, when it’s nobody’s responsibility in particular, something can go very wrong and have a dramatic impact. And that the quality of science reporting is so crucial. Not just to people’s understanding of science but also to life and death issues.’ (I12:17, press officer, government department) When the controversial claim of a link between the standard combined vaccine against MMR and the onset of autism was broadly covered in the news media (Boyce 2007), scientists are reported to have shied away from the public debate and, from within their ivory tower, shaken their heads in disbelief about the headlines. Meanwhile, parents stopped having their children vaccinated which led, at least according to SMC proponents, to several cases of death (a decrease in vaccination rates in the early 2000s was documented (Lewis and Speers 2003) and also significantly increased measles infection rates (Jansen et al. 2003)). The Wakefield paper turned out to be a case of both bad and fraudulent science that should have never passed peer review. The paper was partly retracted in 2004 (retraction of an interpretation, Lancet, 2004, 363(9411): 750) and fully retracted by the journal in 2010 (Lancet, 2010, 375(9713): 445). A policy reaction to the dubious study and its media uptake would have been possible on two levels. It could have addressed scientific knowledge production and quality control (backstage) and, alternatively, this knowledge’s public presentation (front stage, see for the theatrical metaphor Goffman (1959), for an application to science Hilgartner (2000)). Backstage, science policy could have called into question scientific quality control by criticising that the paper passed peer review at all and subsequently needed more than a decade before it was fully retracted. Alternatively, however, one can locate the problem on the front stage, the level of presentation and perception, and in the context of a ‘crisis of trust’ between science and its publics. Thus, the conclusion is that science merely has a presentation problem and basically needs to sell itself better. Because the problem is seen as a ‘crisis of public trust’, it seems an appropriate solution to ‘meet the “great challenge” to adapt science to frontline news’ (Fig. 2, lines 5/6) by way of expert opinion and selected facts. While the Wakefield case cast scientific quality control into doubt, the option . 7 of 14 favoured by UK science policy was to fix science’s public profile. 3.2 ‘To be anti-science is like being anti-life’: The SMC, the ‘crisis of trust’ and the ‘knowledge society’ The SMC openly acknowledges its purpose to ‘make the case for science’ and to aim at: improving the science community’s effectiveness at engaging with the news media. (Fig. 2 lines 11/12 and 19/20) It is, therefore, not surprising that the scientific community perceives the Centre’s work as ‘incredibly useful’ (I6:4) and resulting in a ‘more mature coverage’ (I4:56). Scientists who have worked with the SMC characterise it as a ‘dating agency’ (I7:17); a place where the right people meet. It is less obvious that the journalists openly embrace the SMC’s services. But the interview study suggests that journalists’ use it widely: ‘Everyone is getting their press releases.’ (I13:63, journal news editor) In the turn of phrase of a journalist, the SMC has become a: ‘central hub which coordinates the flow of information from the academic community to the media and thereby helps to get that information out into the public domain.’ (I10:7, wire journalist) The interviews suggest a major impact on non-specialised journalists and beginners: ‘A meeting with Fiona [Fox, S.R.] was one of the first I had when I started the job because I knew it was useful. I heard about it from the person who did the job previously. She didn’t use them very much but said you might want to meet Fiona. I assumed when I started that I wouldn’t have much contact but in fact that turned out to not be the case. I found them immediately very useful and interesting and then I thought that would wear off a bit but it didn’t. So I use them a lot.’ (I9:1, science and health correspondent) Nature News summarises that: many journalists appreciate how the non-profit organization provides accurate and authoritative material on deadline. (Callaway 2013: 143) The Centre’s consultation process had already revealed that the House of Lords’ policy choice to tackle a ‘crisis of public trust’ in science (rather than a crisis of science publishing) closely matched many science journalists’ professional self-understanding, namely that it is indeed important to inform and educate the public in science-related matters (SMC 2002: 11). The self-description of the Centre as an ‘independent venture’ (Fig. 2, lines 2 and 28) is often adopted in journalistic contexts, with no reflection on the contradictory nature of attributes such as ‘independent’ and ‘press office’ (cf. Haran 2012: 247). A random example is the presentation of an Centre staff member in 8 of 14 . S. Rödder the program outline of a announced as a member of: journalistic conference, the Science Media Centre, an independent press office for science when it hits the national news headlines. (my emphasis <http://www.ukcsj.org/speakers/helen-jamison-dep uty-director-science-media-centre.html> accessed 9 January 2014) It is worth noting that in its consultation report, the SMC had anticipated a rather critical uptake by its journalistic clientele: The media will use the Centre with the scepticism that good journalists should always employ when speaking to any press officer. (SMC 2002: 15) While there are critical voices (Macilwain 2012; Fox and St. Louis 2013; St. Louis 2013), the interviews suggest that many journalists do not seem to even realise its PR nature and neither the steering potential of a ‘hub which coordinates the flow of information’ (I10:7). Macilwain (2012: 247) has argued that a specific ‘deficit’ of the British media is at the heart of its uncritical attitude, an attitude that one would not expect, for instance, from US journalists: Despite the fears of the SMC founders, the British press—led by the BBC, which treats the Confederation of British Industry with the deference the Vatican gets in Rome—is overwhelmingly conservative and pro-business in its outlook. It is quite unperturbed by the fact that SMC sponsors include AstraZeneca, BP, Coca-Cola, L’Oreal, Monsanto, Syngenta (as well as Nature Publishing Group [which published the quoted piece, S.R.]) but not a single environmental non-governmental organization (NGO) or trade union. Direct media relations of pharmaceutical companies and genetic engineering firms typically meet with suspicion from journalists, but the fact that they are among the SMC’s sponsors does not seem to induce the same kind of suspicion. Nor does the fact that a guide sheet for scientists doing news interviews on the use of animals in research was compiled with advice from an organisation named the Research Defence Society before it merged with the Coalition for Medical Progress to form Understanding Animal Research (see <http://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/about-us/who_we_are> accessed 28 April 2014). The leaflet acknowledges this advice. In the case of the SMC it is important to note that scientists indeed speak for themselves in the media, and they do so in the ambiguous role of specialists as well as lobbyists of their own expertise: ‘Of course, nuclear scientists are unlikely to be anti-nuclear. They are very unlikely to be anti-nuclear.’ (I8:875, SMC staff member) The use of the ‘truth’ as a strategic resource to support a pro-research policy obviously links in with scientists’ self-interest in the support of their fields. While it is indeed not likely for an expert working in an applied field or industry to be fundamentally critical of the respective technology, it is striking, how natural a pro-science approach is for the interviewed journalists: ‘I am just trying to think what does anti-science mean?’ (I9:152, science and health correspondent) In modern society, there seems to be no alternative to science as a way of life: ‘Science is research into establishing how things work and why they work like that and I just think to be anti-that would be quite odd. To be anti-science is like being anti-life.’ (I9:27) Science journalists identify themselves as diligent members of the knowledge society: ‘I am a very pro-science person myself, I have a science degree, and I am fascinated by that. I am a critical friend if you like.’ (I5:31, editor, broadsheet; likewise Stollorz (2008). For a reflection of the ‘connoisseur’ as a type of amateur in science see Stichweh (2005: 37f).) That the SMC other than the media relations of universities and research institutes does not promote its own organisation as a brand—it hardly surfaces in the media coverage—seems to further obscure its PR nature: ‘Its brand is science and I think most science correspondents consider themselves as being pro-science. That’s why they write about science. I don’t think they see that as much as an issue such as having a specific body you are trying to publicise.’ (I12:218, press officer, government department) The interviews suggest that the role of the SMC appears smaller as it actually is to all parties involved. Nature News quotes Fiona Fox: I can’t see why it’s so much purer for a journalist to phone their contact than to phone the SMC and get us to do it. (Callaway (2013) with no reflection on Fox’s statement. If we want to elucidate the widespread acceptance of the ‘crisis of trust’ definition of the problem, and eventually the SMC as its technical fix, it is enlightening to consider the resonance of its approach with the status of scientific expertise in what has been called a ‘knowledge society’ (Bell 1973; Stehr 1994). As the House of Lords’ ‘Science and Society’ report (2000) demonstrates, a deep preoccupation with the scientific and technical basis for innovation and further development of national economies and its intimate link to progress, growth and economic wellbeing characterises this knowledge society (cf. Stehr 1994). As a consequence, what is good for science is good for society. Gieryn et al. (1985) have argued that the growing professional authority and resources of American scientists is rooted in ideological flexibility in demarcating science from, for instance, religion. But while scientists quite flexibly interpret accounts of their research as ‘simplification’ or as ‘distortion’, they have a tendency to judge their Science media centres and public policy own simplifications as appropriate and those of non-scientists as distorted: a ‘powerful tool for sustaining the social hierarchy of experts’ (Hilgartner 1990: 519). The authority of evidence-based information closely fits the knowledge society concerns that the House of Lords’ ‘Science and Society’ report laid out. ‘Great challenges’ are now routinely addressed by the production of new scientific knowledge, and scientific expertise dominates other forms of knowledge and authority in public and private decisionmaking (cf. Stehr 1994). Studies have repeatedly shown a widespread belief in the problem-solving capacity of scientific experts (Weingart 2001; Jung 2012), while the status of scientific expertise is a longstanding controversy in the field of science and technology studies (STS). A range of studies has pointed to the ambiguity, uncertainty and political nature of both knowledge and expertise (Rip 1985; Turner 2001). The ‘third wave’ of STS, however, eventually recognised the relevance and value of professional experts (Collins and Evans 2002). It is telling what the SMC’s consultation document says about the consultation of social scientists: A significant minority of those consulted saw the growth of public questioning of scientific expertise as a largely positive development and a step towards the widely held goal of ‘democratising science’. [Four social scientists and one science writer, S.R.] all felt that the decline in trust in science reflected a public who are becoming more expert in areas of science that directly affect their lives and are no longer prepared to accept uncritically the mainstream science view. This change in the relative balance of power between scientists and the consumers of science was warmly welcomed as a step forward from the times when the public were expected to have blind faith in the expert in a white coat. (SMC 2002: 3) The SMC, however, went with the majority of those consulted who felt: that the declining trust in and respect for scientists is a worrying development, which can contribute to exaggerated fears that threaten to undermine public support for scientific progress. (SMC 2002: 3) As a member of the SMC recalls: ‘They [the social scientists, S.R.] were on their own, they were very distinct. They were very clear. [. . .] But they were 2% and 98% said, do this.’ (I8:1072) In conclusion, the overall acceptance of the cognitive authority of scientific and technical expertise contributes to a widespread consensus on the overall value of an organisation such as the SMC among policymakers, funding bodies, learned societies, scientists, science PR and journalists. The SMC seems to be able to put into practice the political mission of its founders and sponsors by way of its services. . 9 of 14 4 Implications for public debates: Opening up for informed debates or closure for research-friendly policymaking? The SMC acts as a sort of ‘emergency press agency’ when science ‘hits the headlines’ with its core services geared to set, frame or cut the agenda when science-related topics are in danger of being reported with no or little scientific influence. This can be a service to the public in cases where it induces past-publication peer review of dubious studies, unmasks pseudo-science (such as in cases of cloning announcements, Fox 2009a: 121ff) or tones down big claims, and thus prevents sensational headlines. An example from an interview with SMC staff: ‘If you look tomorrow at the autism paper that’s quite a big claim. The pollution from traffic can lead to autism. That’s pretty full-on. Our comments were all saying it’s a very, very good study. But if you live near to a road, do rich people live in country houses and poorer people live near a motorway, and they haven’t been able to prove that it’s not the fact that you are poor and living near a motorway, and all that stuff. Our scientists have said that. So if some of that appears in tomorrow’s newspapers then we will have achieved a story not going out making thousands of parents feel bad about pollution. Or making other people say, I must move house.’ (I8:985) Another recent example is a study that claimed a link between glucose levels and domestic violence (Bushman et al. 2014). The medical relevance enhances the newsworthiness—and the appeal to journal editors (Franzen 2012)—of studies that link a particular factor and a pathogenic behaviour or disease onset. The anecdotal evidence suggests that these kinds of studies are particularly prone to induce toning down of their medical relevance claims by SMC experts. But in line with my argument that its origin story imprints the Centre’s operational practice, it is also disposed to making the political technical in science- and technology-intensive controversies. ‘Spinning for science’ (Fox 2009a: 120) implies to frame political questions as if they were purely, or merely, technical issues. A case in point is the debate on ‘animal–human admixed embryos’, as they came to be called. On the occasion of a retrospective event in 2009, Fiona Fox commented that: The first time a journalist hears about a scientific issue it should be from the scientists. (Fox 2009b) Indeed, the media first heard about governmental plans to amend an act called the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Act (HFEA) with the aim of banning hybrid embryonic research at two background briefings that the SMC hosted (for a chronology of the case see Watts 2009): By the time the Department of Health indicated their desire to ban this research in December 2006, in the early drafts of the Government’s planned fertility laws, the health and science 10 of 14 . S. Rödder reporters on every national news outlet already understood the basic science involved and could explain why the experts wanted to pursue it. They also trusted and respected the key scientists. (Fox 2009a: 126f.) Understanding seems to have overcome a potential trust deficit of the journalists. In January 2007, following the discovery that two eminent papers in stem cell science by Korean researcher Hwang and colleagues were fraudulent, a third, ‘emergency press briefing’, was held at which scientists could ‘speak out on the HFEA threat to UK stem cell research’ (Fox 2009b). Two studies that investigated this controversy suggest that the Centre played a coordinating role in a highly efficient PR campaign by the scientific establishment (Williams and Gajevic 2013). The resulting media climate framed any opponents to the approach—in this case mainly the Catholic Church—as ‘Luddites’, or worse: If a member of the public is unpersuaded of the necessity of this particular form of research, must they automatically be a Luddite, a moralist or a member of a pressure group? (Haran 2009) In marked contrast to the analysis of social scientists that was informed by qualitative and quantitative media content analysis, the British journalists who were interviewed perceived the HFEA debate as balanced journalism. Eventually, the voices of media-savvy science critics had been countered with evidence-based information: ‘The HFEA was a great case that scientists can speak out for their case. I was totally with them on that.’ (I5:164, science correspondent, broadsheet) A colleague adds: ‘Scientists and journalists worked together very effectively to change the law.’ (I2:27)6 The SMC concluded: The battle for human–animal embryo research that raged in the media from 2006-2009 has finally provided the Centre with a model of how scientists should engage with the media. (Fox 2009a: 126, battle: my emphasis; should: italics in original) Policymakers and the public came to an informed decision on a controversial new area of scientific research following a major national debate in which the voice of research scientists was heard loud and clear. (Fox 2009a: 127) While everybody agrees on a crucial role of the Centre in the debate and impact on the research-friendly parliamentary decision, the evaluation is in the eye of the beholder. As a member of the SMC puts it: ‘Scientists would read Andy Williams article and say, “good for you! Ten years ago we were nowhere. Ten years on a study says that you have dominated the media coverage.” So the scientists would love that. Journalists would feel unsure about that. The Catholic Church would feel extremely pissed off about that.’ (I8:996) Both case studies on the debate conclude that the SMC does not facilitate but rather hinders informed public debates about controversial science (Williams and Gajevic 2013; Haran 2012). The SMC was shown to strengthen the authority of scientific expertise. Its focus is on elite journalism and controversial policy issues, so the general conclusion, is that it is not a suitable means of public engagement: Although this is a plausible and time-tested strategy for media relations in other professional and commercial sectors in the bid to avoid misunderstanding or misrepresentation, it is arguably at odds with the attempt to restore public trust in science by engaging the members of the public in informed debate. (Haran 2012: 255) However, it is also open to scepticism that the SMC diminishes: the media’s ability to play a sceptical, critical role in holding science to account. (Williams and Gajevic (2013: 3), and the public’s ability to participate in full and meaningful debates about controversial science. (Williams and Gajevic (2013: 14) There is evidence that science news coverage is dominated by scientific voices and views anyway (Gerhards and Schäfer 2006; Rödder 2009; Jung 2012). Although there was no SMC at the times of these debates, or because they took place in other countries, the studies found a hegemony of scientific frames and perspectives on issues such as genome or stem cell research. The public debate ended with legislation in favour of hybrid human–animal research in November 2008. Subsequently, several scientists put in funding proposals, but not a single one was approved in the peer review process (Haran 2012: 253). Where, one may ask, were the voices of these scientists in the public consultation and debate, why were their voices not promoted? Can we explain this solely with the speed of scientific progress that solved—by way of induced pluripotent stem cells—the problem of a shortage of human oocytes in a much more elegant manner? Is the explanation a difference between the overall support for research-friendly regulation and the evaluation of an individual proposal in comparison to other research projects worthy of funding? Was it due to biased expert selection in the SMC? Or was it a selfcensuring of those scientists who rejected the proposals in the peer review process but did not want to call into question the authority of scientists by way of a public controversy among experts? Further research into the HFEA debate is needed to shed light on this. But a general insight can be derived from this case. The rationale behind the public consultation exercise in 2007 was: to provide a forum for the public to engage in an informed debate on the ethical and social implications of creating Science media centres and public policy human/animal embryos in research. (HFEA, see <http://www. hfea.gov.uk/519.html> accessed 28 April 2014.) It is symptomatic of the SMC’s approach that it frames the central question: ‘Do we want to allow scientists to create and use hybrid embryos?’ as a question that can be answered for and foremost on the basis of technical evidence. This is demonstrated, for instance in a scientist’s ‘rapid reaction’ to a hybrid-critical announcement of the Catholic Church in April 2008: This [announcement, S.R.] is yet another example where it is clear that the Catholic Church is misrepresenting science because it doesn’t understand the basic facts. [. . .] The Church should carefully review the science they are commenting on, and ensure that their official comments are accurate, before seriously misinforming their congregations. (quoted in Fox 2009b) We can conclude that the SMC is instrumental in framing policy questions as technical issues with the consequence that scientists are more appropriate experts than anyone else. This has an interesting implication: where science and politics disagree, the loyalty of the SMC is to its scientists. A case in point is the support that Professor David Nutt, a psychopharmacologist, received from the Centre. Nutt was sacked as chairman of the government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs after he had reiterated his views on the relative safety of various drugs. The SMC hosted two briefings at which Nutt could communicate his side of the story to reporters and announce the setup of an Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (SMC 2012: 27). ‘The support that David Nutt got from the SMC at that time made it very clear that to them the science should champion other considerations that are political or social.’ (I12:169, press officer, government department) The headlines speak for themselves: ‘Scientists in revolt over drug advisor’s sacking’ was the headline in the Daily Mail, ‘Sacked – for telling the truth about drugs’ read The Independent (SMC 2012: 26f). Without positioning itself with regard to the ‘danger of drugs’ issue, the SMC positioned itself with its support to Nutt as a science advocacy organisation. Its 10th anniversary brochure states: Prof David Nutt did not go quietly. This spirited academic stood up for the right of all scientists who advice government to speak out in the media and maintain their independence: a principle important to all in both science and the media. (SMC 2012: 26) A related issue is political attempts to silence a certain expert opinion, which the government perceives to be off-message. This is not unusual in political communication but it is interesting to consider the role that the SMC has to play in these kinds of controversies. An example is the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and subsequent Fukushima nuclear disaster. An SMC staff member: . 11 of 14 ‘During Fukushima, the Health Protection Agency, the Met Office, and National Nuclear Laboratory were asked by government not to speak to the media. They were asked to advice the government. And the government said we want to put out a clear single message, for example about whether there is a danger of the radiation reaching Britain, whether English people in Tokyo should leave, these kind of questions. We want a single message and we are asking you not to speak. [. . .] We were really angry about that. And we have said that publicly. We have complained to the government. So if the journalists were relying on those institutions they would not have got any experts. But they could come to us.’ (I8:35) These cases demonstrate that the SMC has the authority, contacts and position to—both behind the scenes and publicly—criticise the government’s dealing with scientific experts, be it scientists working in advisory panels or in governmental departments. In summary, the discussed examples suggest that the SMC’s tendency to make the political technical can have a range of implications for public and policy debates: . It can tone down relevance claims by (pseudo-) scientists. . It can frame policy questions as technical issues. . It can close debates for research-friendly policy- making. . It can open debates on the political (mis-)use of scien- tific expertise. 5 Conclusions: A lobby for the ‘truth’ In this paper I first of all showed how UK policy in the final decades of the 20th century defined the public discourse on scientific issues as a social problem and won recognition of that definition among significant policy audiences. Eventually, the problem was named a ‘crisis of trust’ (House of Lords 2000) between science and society, and public resources were garnered to address the problem by way of a new institution: the Science Media Centre. I have argued that the rise of a ‘crisis of trust’ as a policy problem benefited from, first, a strong institutional advocacy in UK science and science policy; and secondly, a genuine resonance with ideas of a cognitive authority of scientific expertise in the ‘knowledge society’. The SMC as an ‘emergency press office’ keeps the policy problem of the ‘crisis of trust’ alive and contributes to its reiteration as well as solution by the services that it provides, promoting the voices of scientists in public discourses and constantly aiming to frame public debates with evidence-based information and deficit model thinking. It needs to be left to empirical studies of media content to show how the pro-science policy resonates in the coverage. Of interest are cross-cultural media content analyses as well as in-depth analyses of the most prominent science- and technology-intensive controversies, such as on climate change. 12 of 14 . S. Rödder The ‘knowledge society’ context in which the cognitive authority of scientific expertise is in principle acknowledged and favoured over other forms of knowledge may explain the widespread acceptance of the ‘crisis of trust’ definition of the problem. The authority of evidence-based information contributes to an overall consensus on the value of expert comments and an organisation such as the SMC among policymakers, funding bodies, learned societies, scientists, science PR and journalists. On these grounds, the SMC puts its policy into operational practice. This can be seen from how it focused its activities: . Its target audience is the elite media, the mostly London-based editors and correspondents for the major national news media. Freelancers and bloggers are not given access to the SMC’s services. . Its focus is on breaking news and crisis communication, issues that traditional science PR shuns. . It focuses on science- and technology-intensive controversies, that is, on those issues where uncertainty and controversy among scientists are highest, as well as political demands to investigate questions of societal relevance. The SMC serves to secure science’s licence to practice by acting as an emergency press office in science- and technology-intensive controversies. Its ultimate rationale is as follows: if more science is ‘injected’ in public debates the controversies will turn out for the better—the better for science and science policy. The new policy instrument thus follows a traditional deficit model approach. The concepts of ‘misunderstanding’ and ‘better’, ‘balanced’ and ‘relevance’ that the SMC promotes in science- and technology-intensive controversies reflect the (deficit model) understanding of these terms among the scientific establishment and the Centre’s sponsors. First, this sets the SMC in antagonism to science critics such as NGOs and protest groups. Like any press office, the SMC selects, edits and thus frames a certain version of the facts. Its policy to ‘help journalists to get the truth more easily’ (Fox and St Louis 2013, my emphasis) and the fact that the ‘truth’ in practice is composed of the expert comments sent out by the SMC has so far not been reflected. The use of the ‘truth’ as a strategic resource to support a pro-science policy links in with the experts’ self-interest in the proliferation of their fields and in their cognitive authority. The steering potential that is inherent in the coordination of the information flow at the science– media nexus seems to be no issue in the face of tight deadlines, and much less the fact that advocating for a change in research regulation is a political statement even if its source happens to be a scientist. As has been shown for the debate on the regulation of hybrid embryo research, it is symptomatic that the SMC frames policy questions as technical issues with the consequence that scientists are the appropriate experts more than anyone else. Secondly, this may at times set the SMC in antagonism to current governmental policy. Where science and politics disagree, the loyalty of the SMC is to its scientists, as the cases of Professor David Nutt and protests against the political ‘muzzling of experts’ (Ghosh 2012, 2013) demonstrate. Thirdly, its policy on science- and technology-intensive public controversies sets the SMC in antagonism to STS approaches towards the science–policy nexus. These aspirations have been critically characterised as advocating that: the technical is political, the political should be democratic and the democratic should be participatory. (Moore 2010: 793) The SMC can be identified as acting in the opposite direction: its policy in science- and technology-intensive controversies is that the political is technical, the technical should be evidence-based and this evidence should come from scientific experts. Funding This work was supported by the Robert Bosch Foundation within the framework of an exploration into the need for a German SMC led by the Wissenschafts-Pressekonferenz e.V. (WPK) (transl: Association of German Science Journalists). Neither the WPK nor the Bosch Foundation had any influence on the design, results and conclusions of the study. The manuscript was prepared while the author held a post at the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft-funded Cluster of Excellence ‘Integrated Climate System Analysis and Prediction’ at the Universität Hamburg, Partner in the KlimaCampus (DFG EXC 177 CliSAP). Acknowledgements The author is indebted to the science journalists, science policy officers, science communication officers and SMC staff who made themselves available for interview. She is particularly grateful to the SMC for allowing her access to its list of subscribers. She also wishes to thank Volker Stollorz and Franco Zotta for inspiring discussions, and Dallas Murphy as well as two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the draft of this paper. Notes 1. In the following, the abbreviation SMC in singular form is used for the UK SMC unless otherwise stated. 2. The empirical study was part of a broader effort to explore the need for such an organisation in Germany, led by the Wissenschafts-Pressekonferenz e.V. (transl.: German Association of Science Writers) and funded by the Stuttgart-based Robert Bosch Stiftung. On the basis of the investigation of the UK case and an in- Science media centres and public policy 3. 4. 5. 6. depth analysis of the German situation recommendations for the setup of an SMC in Germany were made (Hettwer et al. 2013) and are currently under review with possible funders. To equate Fox and ‘her’ SMC is common in speaking about the SMC’s relevance and warrants sociological attention but is beyond the scope of this paper. To give a name to a problem suggests the need to create new resources, laws and entities. Another prime example at the science–policy nexus is the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a supra-national organisation with the aim of providing policy-relevant state-of-the-art assessments of climate scientists’ knowledge to fight global warming. Furthermore, the deficit model assumption that informed the PUS effort was proven wrong by empirical evidence (Evans and Durant 1995; Bucchi and Neresini 2002). It seemed that not understanding but ‘distance lends enchantment’ (Collins 1985: 145). These perceptions mirror journalistic norms of balanced coverage, that is presenting the pros and cons in any story. The interviewed journalists see this norm now better in place than was the case prior to the arrival of the SMC. 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