Q: Why did you use the word potent tn talking about women in Kenya? They may do all the work, but how much power do they have?
CT: They're discovering where their power actually is. I have only recently retumed from spending a lot of time with single mothers in Kenya who have chosen to remove themselves from the conventional family structure because they found that the pressures on them from their male partners were so enormous that they were being made almost redundant in the decision-making process. It's not as though an entire generation or culture of women is becoming male-hating, but they are discovering that power has to come through their being able to find the time to share their situations with other women. Their situations are extremely critical: the average woman in Kenya has 8.2 children and half of them rear those children single-handedly. Their power is coming because they are articulating their own situation and finding a political voice. They are actually beginning a political process of denying sexual favours to their male partners. This is not a trivial movement; it's becoming very significant in Kenya, not just based on that; but on the consolidation of their power. They also recognise that their country's major problem is over-population, and that the only way women are going to be able to resolve that problem is by making decisions by and for themselves, and in most cases with very little male support towards things like family planning. The only way one can leave Kenya with any sense of optimism is by having a sense of hope in the women and that's certainly where I staked most of my faith.
Q: Sometimes on Beyond 2000 we see research covered in other countries when we may have very similar work here in Australia. What factors determine whether you cover the research in Australia or the research overseas?
CT: It really is extremely random in a sense, but we always prefer to cover something in Australia. The program's big international component is also its most expensive component. A lot comes down to information coming into the Beyond 2000 system.
We've worked very hard, and it's been bloody hard, to get CSIRO for example to open its doors to us. When Beyond 2000 first started, CSIRO didn't want to know. It was commercial television, they didn't consider it to be an appropriate vehicle; Barry Jones and various others didn't help the matter by going on record as saying that the program lacked any critical analysis even when it was Towards 2000. When Jones became science minister and realised that we reached such an extraordinary array of people, he subsequently embraced the program. But there are four or five researchers constantly on the prowl for material. If a good story comes by the question is never "is it here or is it there", it's a matter of when can we do it. If anything there would be positive discrimination in favour of Australian projects.
Q: So basically, you would like Australian scientists to tell yeu what they're doing?
CT: Absolutely. Scientists in Australia often don't understand the process of getting information out, even within their own institutions. CSIRO's communication network is now becoming quite sophisticated and a great deal better than it used to be, but it used to be appalling. It used to be extremely diffcult to find out what was going on inside the CSIRO, as if it was all a national secret. I don't believe that is the attitude any longer, but I still think that the mechanics are a little bit, behind the actual intentions.
Beyond 2000 will embrace Australian science and technology. The one thing that has to be borne in mind by people who think they have a story, however, is that we're dealing with television. We don't have that wonderful indulgence of radio where it just takes conversation. Robyn Williams can do things maybe five years before TV can, although it's not always that simple an equation. I am a great admirer of Robyn Williams and his programs but he can sit back and leisurely discuss science while we're wondering what we can shoot. I don't know how the hell I'm going to illustrate the Human Genome Project story because it's all happening under microscopes. The major limiting factor of TV is that it must be visual. Most of television is talking heads, and if the talking heads can at least communicate that is a very good reason for doing the story.
Q: You mentioned the contradictions that can occur in media reporting of controversial scientific issues. Perhaps one reason is that normally those contradictions get aired at conferences and people get to fight over them before anything becomes public, but the media now is in there trying to find out what's gotng on at a mucb earlier stqge than they have in decades past and so therefore they're getttng down to the level where tbere !s real controversy and no-one is quite sure. We were shown a video recently from a coal lobby group and it was saying the greenhouse is all bullshit, ten years ago everyone was talking about the world icing up.
CT: It was reported in the media about four weeks ago that the whole greenhouse warming scenario was a furphy.
Q: So how do you go on from there? Is the media becoming too involved in what is happening at the grassroots level?
CT: Where there is doubt scientists have to have confidence and find a way of presenting those doubts to the media at the time that the story or the initial information is being presented. I know that it's very hard to do. It requires a real sophistication of the process compared with what's happening now, which is very crude and at a totally primary level. But I believe the general public audience is more scientifically literate than it was just a decade ago, which hopefully means we've done a bit of the fundamental groundwork and can move on to a slightly more sophisticated stage of conveying information. Many people within the media would criticise that comment as too idealistic, but I don't agree. There are many instances on the media where people have communicated quite complex pieces of information, and it certainly is the standard that has to be set - we must aim to present science not just in black and white terms. Life isn't like that and we should get around to a way of communicating some of the grey areas as well.
One probably needs to be fairly selective about who one's speaking to in the media though, because there are, I suspect, just two schools of media thought. There are those who are after instant gratification and want quick promotable easy stories, and they have a real place. Then you've got those with time to think. For example, with air pollution issues in western Sydney, scientific opinion in some respects is now quite clear and so some of the spokespeople have been brave enough to deal with it on the nightly news, and in a very effective way. The more complex areas are probably best dealt with in a documentary form where there is more time.
Scientists need to understand a little bit about the media process in order to know how to place things. The really canny scientists are very good at that. I can name quite a few Australian scientists who've worked out how to do that and they do it extremely etficiently and with integrity to their science as well. There also comes a time when scientists have to bite the bullet and say: "look, we believe this is so important that we must communicate it to the public". There are examples of this occurring in Australia in the last couple of years - it's good to see.
Q: There may have been an increase in science literacy over the last decade, but students are not entertng science careers.
CT: That's presumably for many different reasons, but we've just gone through a decade where success was measured only in financial terms, which may well have skewed the perceptions of many young people as to what success was and what a career was. There was very little in a public sense that happened in the eighties that ascribed a different value system to life success - it was an ugly ten years and it got uglier as the decade wore on. There was no real critical appraisal of that kind of value system, and the impact that had on young people going through their secondary school education was extraordinary.
We have very few scientific heroes in Australia in a really public sense and I believe they're important. It's important for individuals in science to have a public faoe and public recognition, I don't think that is selling out. We're getting there, we're moving in the right direction, and now is a really good time because people are really aware, they're disillusioned with where we got to.
Q: Just recently there has been considerable attention paid to the exposure of corrupt science. What effect do you think this is having on young people?
CT: I don't know. Maybe the only way to combat it is to have role models that present a different face, a respectable face, an image that they would be really happy to aspire to. So much actually revolves around the media, and that's one of the problems. Whilst in many respects I'm happy to stand on a platform and defend honorable principles within the media, the reality is that it's a very cynical part of our society and one needs to at least be aware of that before one learns how to manipulate it. Everyone who's on the media eventually develops some understanding of the need to manipulate it, especially those of us who work in it. When presenting complex ideas to television executives one realises one is dealing with people whose priorities znd motivations have got nothing to do with anything other than making money. You have to recognise that, and then move on. The ABC is clearly different though, it's motivated by surviving.
Q: You commented earlier about scientists now having to chase the research dollar so much harder. Have you found any change in their candour, or perhaps less debate; and if so how do you get around it?
CT: Yes. When I'm sitting back and looking at it I might question it, but when I'm right in the middle of it I think it's great because it saves so much time. When you've got this rapid input of information, what you'ne seeing is people who've worked out the ground rules. They've worked out how to use the media and you know that they've worked it out and they probubly know that you know that they've worked it out and so you don't even talk about that. You get into the thrust of "give me three minutes" - it's as cynical as that. But I think there is something important about the way scientific circles have begun to understand the role of the media in their work. It's unfortunate that they have come to consider going public as another way they might be able to secure some continuity of their research funds. It could also backfire, so they need to be extremely careful, and yet in most cases it probaby works. I've seen innumerable instances of research projects on the hunt for funds and going to the media with just enough juicy tidbits of their research to give them the profile they need at the moment of grant renewal. Frankly my view is that if they've got to do that in order to prolong their research work - and I can't judge their research except in terms of what I consider to be relevant - then fine, let them use me.
Q: I am concerned by what people were saying before about the level of debate - that pepple are going to put forward their slightly biased views in one direction, and some extreme view in another direction, neither of which might be right, just for the sake of funding. That might raise the leuel of confusion, and very rarely do we see tbese issues really outlined in the media.
CT: A case in point is the way the media was used internationally over the environmental consequences of the Gulf war, where the Americans were disseminating extraordinary information about the global consequences of the burning of the oil wells because suited their propaganda machine at the time. From a steadier appraisal of the consequences of that level of emission it now appears that the monsoonal rains in south east Asia probably won't fail. And yet it was a body of reputable British scientists who met immediately prior to the start of the Gulf war who decided that if the 400 Kuwaiti oil wells were to be ignited by Iraq it would cause just such a disaster in southeast Asia. This was reported around the world and the scientists interviewed at some length - they had very little to back up what they were saying, but they said it in a very articulate way. It was not questioned because by what authority do people in the media question that kind of scientific information - there was no dissenting voice even in the world of science. A number of Australian scientists even jumped on the bandwagon and corroborated it. The only protection the media has for its accuracy is sclence itself. We're there to regurgitate infornation. Yes we are there to take time to think about it too if we're lucky; but we're largely there to take it in and spit it out.
Q: The tmage that's been seen lately of a corrupt scientist, I think that the media was to some extent to blame for his fame. He certainly used the media very well in early days. He manipulated the media for his own ends and he's been described left and right as a scientist which he certainly wasn't. There is no point in being a scientist if you're going to fiddle the results.
CT: The media is not one entity, and it derives enormous satisfaction out of building people up and then knocking them down. In the case of Dr McBride, it was a very prolonged and difficult effort by Norman Swan in particular but once he'd done the groundwork, the media was very happy to take part in the dismemberment. There are no morals in the media as a total institution. In individual stories yes, probably more often than not, but in totality the media doesn't have a position, except to survive and make a profit.
Q: They've got to say thtngs that the public want to hear, for example.
CT: I don't believe the media reports what the public want to hear, but my opinion's only as valid as anybody else's on this. The media reports what's going to shock the public, what's going to disturb them, what's going to get their attention. And the more it shocks the more likely they are to report it - they love upsetting people's dinners. I was listening to an ABC radio news broadcast at about 10 o'clock the other night and there were three stories in succession that really upset me. I had no personal involvement in any of them but I couldn't bear being upset anymore and I just switched the radio off. They were stories about things going wrong and people getting screwed and it really upset me. People who produce nightly news bulletins and current affairs programs know there is a public threshold. There is always a sweetener at the end of the news - leave them crying or leave them laughing but don't leave them numb. The formula for making television is to pluck at every different kind of emotion you possibly can, but happiness and a bit of a laugh has got to be in there somewhere as well, otherwise we would lose everybody.
I did a documentary not so long ago and the major criticism I received - from the audienoe, I hasten to add - - was that it was too negative. It was totally accurate, but it was too negative. The particular network involved is now considering repeating the program, probably because it made money for them, but I hope to take on board that criticism from the audienoe and to try and turn the end of it around and provide a few solutions. I don't want to leave people feeling hopeless or depressed - I'd like people to get through to the end of the program and walk away and think: "well okay, maybe I know what to do now".
Q: What motivates Beyond 2000?
CT: Entertainment is a really important factor. But I've got enormous respect for Beyond 2000 and the people who work there because they are passionate about pursuing new information. I think a lot of that passion shows on the program - it's very genuine and it's not contrived. The program has to be entertaining, it can't afford to lose its audience, but everything within it has an integrity and its stories come from the world of science and technology. I'm sure there are a million criticisms, and most of us are very self critical as well, but I believe that the motivation is really very honorable.
Q: Do you have one big gripe with Australian scientists in general, like ... wishing Australian scientists would not such and such?
CT: No I don't. I think it's wonderful that they've actually tolerated us, my program in particular. I think they're wonderful when you walk into their labs or offices and they welcome you and they are prepared to open their hearts and open their life's work for you. I think they are wonderful.
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