Australasian Biotechnology (backfiles) AusBiotech ISSN: 1036-7128 Vol. 12, Num. 3, 2002, pp. 33-34

Australasian Biotechnology, Vol. 12, No. 3, June-July, 2002, pp. 33-34

MEDIA RELATIONS

MEDIA COVERAGE OF BIOTECHNOLOGY - JUST HOW BAD IS IT?

Craig Cormick

Manager of Public Awareness, Biotechnology Australia. GPO Box 9839 Canberra ACT 2601. Email: craig.cormick@biotechnology.gov.au

Code Number: au02020

Media coverage of biotechnology in Australia is often lamented by those in biotechnology research or industry. But just how bad is it? An examination of press coverage of biotechnology issues over the past 12 months, with some variations depending on topic and publication, reveals that it has actually been increasingly favourable.

Well, we all know how bad media coverage of biotechnology is, don't we? Well - do we? There is a common perception that media coverage of biotechnology issues in Australia is pretty poor, but in fact media monitoring shows that it is not necessarily the case.

Media analysis of biotechnology in the media in Australia, undertaken by CARMA Int.* for Biotechnology Australia over the past 12 months has shown that press coverage is predominantly positive. For the most recent period examined, the January-to-March quarter, of 640 articles analysed, 55% were favourable, 32% were neutral and only 13% were unfavourable. This represents an increase in favourabihity from 47% of articles in the October-to-December quarter.

For the January-to-March period, health was the largest topic covered, comprising over half the articles analysed with agriculture and food comprising 14 and 7 per cent respectively. And of the agricultural topics, 42% were favourable and 22% were negative.

For this period the debate about embryonic stem-cell research and therapeutic cloning dominated coverage, and was assessed as being predominantly positive. Leading messages for the period also tended to be positive. The single leading message was that biotechnology offered gains in health, with 147 mentions. By comparison, negative messages about the health benefits of biotechnology rated only 11 mentions.

Fig 1

The next leading negative message was that biotechnology does not provide benefits to agriculture with 7 mentions but even this was outnumbered by positive mentions of the benefits to agriculture with 16 mentions.

Breaking down coverage by individual newspapers, the most positive reportage for the January to March period was Melbourne's Herald Sun, and the most negative was Tasmania s Mercury - which, over the past 12 months has ranked the most negative in reporting of biotechnology issues in Australia.

CARMA has developed a 'favourability rating' as an indicator of favourability with a rating of 50 being balanced between positive and negative and ratings higher or lower depending on ratio of coverage. Of the major newspapers around Australia, the Herald Sun had a rating of 61 (a fairly high rating), the Adelaide Advertiser 58, the Age 57, the Sydney Morning Herald 55 and the Courier Mail rated 56.

Fig 2

State-by-state breakdowns also tend to follow this pattern, but Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania receiving the lowest ratings (51, 52 and 53) and NSW, Queensland the ACT and South Australia all have a favourabihity rating of 54.

The key spokesperson on biotechnology was NSW Premier Bob Carr, commenting on the need for research on embryonic stem cells. Professor Alan Trounson of Monash University was also a key spokesperson. Spokespeople who were rated by CARMA as unfavourable commentators, included the Catholic Church and Bob Phelps of the GeneEthics Network.

Looked at over the past 12 months, media analysis trends have seen a slow increase in total favourability ratings. from 49 in March-April 2001 to 55 in January-March 2002. Percentages of favourable articles have, over 5 periods analysed, gone from 30% up to 55% and unfavourable articles have decreased from 45"o down to 13%.

The most favourable issue over the 12 months has been private funding of biotechnology, and the least favourable has been bio-ethics and the Gene Technology Bill.

GM foods and crops have   received mixed coverage, accounting for about 25% of total volume, with ratings of between 47 and 53.

The most favourable sources have consistently been the CSIRO and  universities, with an average rating of 55. Biotechnology Australia rated 61, although receiving much less coverage. Also, over 12 months, the most favourable coverage has been in the Herald Sun (61 rating), the most negative in the Sunday Telegraph (46) and most coverage in volume has been in the Australian Financial Review, the Age and the Australian.

And, across the nation, the average newspaper coverage was slightly favourable at 53. Yet the popular perception remains that coverage is mostly negative, and the public tends to be very dissatisfied with media coverage. In a major study of public perceptions towards biotechnology, conducted in 2001, most people cited the media as their main source of information on biotechnology (TV - 78%; Newspapers - 76%), but as a preferred medium they both plummeted in popularity (TV - 14%; Newspapers 9%).

The most preferred sources of information were the internet (57%) and libraries (33%). Unfortunately there is a scarcity of quality information on the internet compared to the amounts of misinformation, and only a small percentage of the public actually use libraries. Concerns about media coverage, expressed by participants in the study, were that journalists lacked scientific expertise, that issues were trivialized or sensationalized and that extreme media reporting made biotechnology issues very difficult to understand.

The most recent media debate on gene technology in Australia, on embryonic stem cells, has actually been characterised as being mrional and scientific, lacking in both scoreand rampant half-truths. There have been some individual commentators who could be described as a little extreme, but the media in general has not been.

There are many reasons for this, of course. A lot of work has been done over the past two years to educate journalists about the science of gene technology, and a lot of work has been done to educate scientists about the media. And embryonic stem cells is not one of the issues that anti-gene technology groups have picked up to run mischievous misinformation campaigns about, either in Australia or overseas. As a result we saw Australian journalists being less interested in sensational or tabloid angles to the story.

It all bodes well for future media coverage of biotechnology in Australia.

However, as the next big media debate is probably going to be human cloning - and according to the tabloid press there appears to be a race between and Dr Antonori and a US flying saucer cult, the Raelians, we'd better be prepared for anything! Copyright 2002 - AusBiotech Ltd.

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