How To Tell a Compelling Science Story at CUGH 2024

The Pulitzer Center and Global Health Now convened a communications workshop panel and film festival at the 15th Annual Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) Conference in Los Angeles. 

Workshop panelists advised an audience of educators and scientists on how to engage with journalists and media. Panel members included Clara Germani, projects editor for The Christian Science Monitor; Jon Cohen, senior reporter for Science magazine; Carlos Faerron, a primary care doctor and health educator; and Jocalyn Clark, editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

Clark led with three tips: 1) Be as “natural and authoritative as you can be,” which includes finding a time and space in which you’re most comfortable for an interview; 2) Consolidate research materials into bullet points; and 3) “Take responsibility for what you say because you will be quoted.”

Faerron added that “simple, jargon-free” messaging is not the same as “making things understandable.” In locating common comprehension, he considers how we “often fail to recognize the diversity of values of the people we are communicating values to.” He also urged finding a balance between “hope and urgency.”

Not all journalists and publications, Cohen said, are created equal.

“The media is a diverse group of people. Some are excellent at what they do. Some are horrible. And there’s a lot right in between and you have to judge each of us individually," he said.

For over 10 years, Cohen has partnered with the Pulitzer Center on stories for Science. He contributed most recently to the Pulitzer Center-supported project Health on a Warming Planet.

Germani, who edited the Pulitzer Center-supported project The Climate Generation, said: “When a journalist calls you, I suggest you look them up and look at what they’ve done before.” 

Cohen told the audience that if a scientist he interviews worries that platforming the side effects of a new vaccine, for example, might provide fodder to misinformation groups, he asks that they “help the journalist gauge” and frame the risk.

The four panelists also addressed narrative, explaining why journalists may approach scientists with personal questions. “I want to know, when you did this study, how did you feel when you started out?” said Germani. “I might want to be telling your story because that may get the reader to understand your results better.”

Cohen said he divides stories into three categories: ideas, institutions, and individuals. His axes for measuring stories are “interesting and significant.” Science stories can be, and almost always are, multiples of the “three I’s.”

“What constitutes responsible journalism in health has changed over time,” according to Clark. Global health storytelling changed, said Cohen, during the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It changed again during the COVID-19 pandemic. And it continues to change. 

Faerron encouraged audience members to attend carefully to language used to describe people and groups of people. 

Cohen said social media and the internet changed his calculus for revealing subjects’ personal details.

“My role as I see it is to protect vulnerable people and at the same time to allow them to tell their stories in a way they want to,” Cohen said.

Finally, the panelists gave tips on how to pitch stories to news outlets and directed audience members to additional resources.

“Don’t pitch randomly,” said Clark. Searching for publications where the story you would like to write would be at home with format, tone, and institutional values is extremely important.

Germani said scientists should lead with the why their results matter in their first sentence. Cohen said that introducing conflict, for example, between past and revised hypotheses, may serve as a pitch’s “engine.”

Cohen cautioned that scientists who have not worked with media before “sometimes […] step into the kitchen without realizing how hot it is.”

Germani noted the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma at Columbia University and The Signals Network as resources for scientists working with the media. 

Faerron suggested that would-be whistleblowers partner with NGOs, who may sort through media requests on your behalf, instead of going public alone.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which administers Science magazine, is open to scientists who would like to join a list of scientists available to interview as background information for journalists. The Pulitzer Center partnered with AAAS in February 2024 for their Plenary Panel on Global Warming and Health, available to watch here.