Address by the Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi
Pandor MP, at the South African National Editors Forum
(SANEF) science journalism colloquium, University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 12September 2014
Chairperson of SANEF, Mr Mpumelelo Mkhabela;
Deputy Chairperson of SANEF, Mr Makhudu Sefara;
Executive Director of SANEF, Mr Mathatha Tsedu;
Managing Director of frayintermedia, Ms Paula Fray;
South Africa's UNESCO National Commission representative,
Mr George Molepo;
Representatives of Higher Education Institutions;
Editors and Science Journalists;
Ladies and Gentleman
Tomorrow one of South Africa's finest Drumjournalists, Nat
Nakasa, will be buried at the Chesterville Heroes' Acre in
KwaZulu-Natal. I would like to thank SANEF for working with
the government and the Nieman Society of Southern Africa to
repatriate his remains.
He died in 1965 at the age of 28 in New York, unable to return
to the country of his birth when his Nieman Fellowship ended.
He would be pleased to think of what we have done, nearly 50
years later, to honour his contribution to journalism.
Writing about a Drum colleague, Bloke Modisane, in the
Southern African Review of Books in 1990, the late Lewis Nkosi
(also a Drum journalist and a Nieman fellow) had this to say
about Drum journalism, and I quote:
Above all what this collective Drum style seemed to
have made obligatory, even without the formal
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declaration of a manifesto, was a writing scupulous in
the observation and description of the ugly facts of life in
racist South Africa, a writing equally rigorous in the
exclusion of self-pity, the crudely sentimental or maudlin
in the presentation of the Self. On the grounds that the
situation was already sufficiently gruesome or grotesque
enough without any recourse to tear-jerking melodrama,
a stagy presentation of one's personal situation would
have struck a Drum writer as shocking as a gratuitous
display of bad manners might do a carefully brought up
person. Detachment, impersonality, a ruthless
accumulation of detail rather than a loud proclamation of
injustice were all that was required, it was thought, to
make the point.
It gives me great pleasure to be here this morning.The subject
of your discussion is crucial to the work of the Department of
Science and Technology and our aim to deepen and broaden
public awareness of science and technology.
The collaboration between SANEF, Wits, UNESCO, the DST
and various institutions of higher education will do a great deal
to assist us communicate effectively about science.
It is one of my priorities as science minister to improve public
communication and the understanding of science in South
Africa. Nations like Japan or the Republic of Koreasuccessfully
leveraged research and innovation for economic and societal
transformation. They did so on the basis of solid public support
for science and technology. It's therefore essential for us to
mobilise the broader South African public, especially the youth
but not exclusively so, about science and its contribution to
society. Science is the business of all – including journalists.
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Myaimis to make science part of the daily, popular South
African discourse.
Scientists often struggle to explain what they do.There is a
wonderful enthusiasm for a subject combined with an inability to
communicate that enthusiasm to ordinary people. And for
scientists, and the public, that is a big problem.
You will have heard of the Gunning-Fog index. It calculates how
many years of formal education a reader needs to understand a
text. If a text is awarded a fog index of 12, it means a reader
needs 12 years of education to understand the text. Most of
scientific writing scores 40 or more.
That’s why good science journalism and reporting can be as
important as science itself.
Let me give you a couple of examples. Take HIV/AIDS.
As recently as 2008, the AIDS epidemic in South Africa was out
of control, having suffered from mixed messages for far too
long.
South Africa has 2.4 million people on antiretroviral drugsand
we add 100,000 each month. Five years ago, only 490 clinics
made drugs available; now there are 3,540 clinics. Only 250
nurses were trained to prescribe them then; now we have
23,000.Mother-to-child transmissions have dropped by 90 per
cent, new infections have dropped by a third, and life
expectancy has increased by almost 10 years.
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Nearly three years ago we discovered that early antiretroviral
treatment prevents the transmission of HIV from infected men
and women to their uninfected partners.However, lifelong antiretroviral treatment is not sustainable. Many more people need
to be on treatment. But donor funding is drying up. People who
need drugs worry they won't get treatment. People on drugs
worry that their supply will end. There is still confusion over
management and treatment. We have much more work to do
on explaining the implications of living with HIV.
Surely we need to find a vaccine?
Take Ebola. It's out of control. Countries have closed their
borders to travelers coming from specific west African
countries. Various NGOs have called on western governments
to do more. Some countries have responded with emergency
research programmes in association with universities,
pharmaceutical companies and philanthropic foundations. Only
yesterday the Gates foundation made $50 million available to
scale up international efforts to contain the outbreak and to
prevent the transmission of the virus.
Take Tim Noakes. There is a battle raging in our medical
community over his eating plan. The battle is over the role of
cholesterol in causing heart disease and the battle is over fat
and carbs in causing obesity. Tim Noakes is an award winning
scientist. Two years ago the DST gave him a lifetime achievers
award. He has never been afraid to take on established truths
or received wisdom. He took on the food and drink companies
over sport drinks and now he has take on the big pharma
companies over statins, which are the biggest selling drugs of
all time. This controversy is about lifestyle but it's not an issue
that belongs only on the lifestyle pages of newspapers. When
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learned professors in medical faculties say that Noakes is
wrong and that he is endangering public health, then you have
to deal with this controversy fully and clearly on the science
pages.
What advice would I give to science journalists?
First of all she should be able to focus on the facts in the claims
made by science and tech companies for their products or
drugs.For example, Ben ‘Bad Science’ Goldacre conducted a
study of health reporting in major UK papers and discovered
that the majority of health claims made about food and drink
were supported by the weakest evidence. But how do you know
if you don’t have a phd in the particular science field? You don’t.
That's what makes science journalism hard and rewarding.
Even if you don’t know the science as a general science
journalist, you do have to understand the basic mechanics of
science policy. By that I mean you have to understand politics.
You have to listen in (recordings are available on the web),
even if you cannot attend, portfolio committee meetings in
Parliament. That’s where government’s plans and budgets are
interrogated by MPs. Most journalists simply rely on SAPA
reports of what goes on in parliamentary committees.
Second, science journalists should follow the money. A policy
story without a budget is a non-story. A policy story with a
budget of billions causes the eyes to glaze over. You have to
interpret for ordinary mortals and explain how the money is to
be spent. Do the sums. Call a friend. It’s amazing how many
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good stories have been broken by doing the basics. I remember
the release of our annual R&Dreport and the trouble we ran into
over an incorrect percentage or the clever analyst who worked
out that Stats SA was miscalculating our inflation data.
We are asking SANEF to partner with us in profiling some of
our achievements in science and technology but, more
importantly, to help us raise public awareness about science
and its value, and to publish more of the fascinating stories
about how our world works that will stimulate young people to
take maths and science at school and pursue careers in
science-related fields.
I thank you.
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