Debates sobre periodismo científico. A propósito de la secuenciación del genoma humano: interacción de ciencia y periodismo

Science and journalism: two disciplines with a wide repercussion on society that parallel each other with different interests and objectives. However, when informational needs have them converge into one road called science journalism, their tortuous relationship becomes all the more evident. That is when two quite different languages –scientific and journalistic– cannot but come to an agreement, when both parts have to use their best efforts to respectively increase comprehension of their studies to reach a massive audience and transmit information with utmost accuracy and rigor. Because such good understanding is not always feasible, the results are often far from satisfactory.

To demonstrate that understanding is actually possible, four journalists on one side and four scientists on the other sat around the same table. On the journalists’ side, Josep Corbella, responsible of science information of the newspaper La Vanguardia; Milagros Pérez-Oliva, chief editor of the Catalonian edition of El País; Lluís Reales, scientific journalist and presenter of the Barcelona Television program Einstein at the beach; and José Luis de la Serna, subdirector and coordinator of the healthcare section of El Mundo. On the scientists’ side, Alberto Ferrús, research teacher of the CSIC; Joan Fibla, physician and teacher of genetics at the University of Lleida; Roser González, professor of genetics at the University of Barcelona; and Juan Valcárcel, geneticist of the Center for Genomic Regulation of Barcelona.

The presence of genetics specialists was not coincidental, considering that the objective of this debate, organized by the Esteve Foundation in November 2002, was to analyze the articles on human genome sequencing published in four international newspapers. The reading of these articles brought to light some of the problems encountered daily by those who manage science-related information, either as transmitters (scientists) or as receptors (journalists). Some of these problems are the scarce presence of specialized sources in Spain, the selection of the informative agenda, the secretiveness of some scientists, or the difficulty, on many an occasion, to discern between true information and biased material.

This second issue of the Esteve Foundation Notebooks collects the conclusions of this interesting debate, as well as the articles on human genome sequencing that the eight participants took as a starting point for discussion. Published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, The Independent, Le Monde and The New York Times, these articles are an example of how fruitful the interaction between science and journalism can be.