Journalists hold a lot of power to sway opinion, regardless of whether or not they get the story right or wrong. The more controversial the issue, the more news outlets will cover it. We have the ability to tell people what to think and, frankly, that can be dangerous.

Working as a researcher for Discovery Channel Canada has opened my eyes to the melting pot that can be science journalism. I call it the melting pot because it seems headline writers and journalists sometimes grab data from scientific studies and let the numbers do the talking.

Context often takes a back seat to flashy percentages and statistics that look very convincing without the flab of words like “approximately” or “estimated.” Throw all the stories from various news outlets together and issues take on whole new meanings.

Finding facts behind jargon

Most journalists are not scientists and scientific research papers are written in an entirely different language. I discovered the complexity of understanding science writing when I was asked to draft a segment on “gaydar” (aka whether or not people have built-in radars to help detect sexual preferences).

I started reading some pretty interesting sentences. For example, “In a previous positron emission tomography study, we found that smelling AND and EST activated regions covering sexually dimorphic nuclei of the anterior hypothalamus,” said researchers of a study on how humans react to pheromones.

Never have I felt so glued to an online dictionary. So, can we really blame the journalist when he or she gets it wrong or spins a number into a bigger issue than it is? I think the answer to this question is yes.

Every story should be written assuming the audience will only read that one story. Ask yourself, “if a reader skims my story and doesn’t seek out further information on the topic, will he or she take away an accurate understanding of  the issue?” If the answer is no, you run the risk of spreading inaccurate information.

I constantly asked myself this question as I wrote the segment on gaydar. The last thing I wanted to do was reinforce stereotypes or blow something out of proportion without evidence. But understanding scientific studies without a science background can be an arduous process.

The scientists never said that

I’m sure there are countless examples of news stories where the angle overshoots truth and lands somewhere between fiction and reality, but I will just give you one example to think about.

Psychologists at the University of Washington recently conducted a study that involved flashing images of faces in front of research participants. The goal was to examine how people decide if a person is gay or straight. Results showed that people could determine sexual preferences with “above chance accuracy.”

Researchers concluded that the way a person’s face is viewed (upside-down or right-side up) plays a role in judging sexuality.

“The present research is the first to demonstrate (a) that configural face processing significantly contributes to perception of sexual orientation, and (b) that sexual orientation is inferred more easily from women’s vs. men’s faces,” said psychologists at the University of Washington.

Researchers concluded that their findings provided reason for further testing outside the lab. Despite this call for additional research, headlines still claimed that the study proved, without a doubt, that “gaydar” exists.

Headlines like, “‘Gaydar’ exist: we can tell who is gay or straight in the blink of an eye,” “Gaydar exists, US study shows” and “You’re more likely to spot a gay woman than a man – and most of us can work out someone’s sexuality in seconds” spammed the Internet.

Buzz-killing context  

Now for the missing flab. The faces had no hair, ears, or jewellery. They were just pictures doctored to exclude cues that could sway participants into deciding if a person is gay or straight.

In a real world setting, people would have hairstyles and piercings that could affect one person’s judgment of another person’s sexuality. So the study does not prove that gaydar exists. Instead it provides grounds for further studies.

The challenge for journalists, then, is to make information accessible and keep it accurate at the same time. But breaking down complicated issues in a way that is understandable to the average person, when you are an average person, can be a struggle.

If there’s one thing I can take away from this experience, it’s that if you don’t understand the jargon, clarity is always a phone call away. Instead of drowning in a sea of confusion, call up an expert. Most people working under the science umbrella are highly enthusiastic. And, they would rather help you understand something than see you get it wrong.