Why India Needs Investigative Reporting in Science?

By Dinesh C Sharma, May 28, 2015, Center for Investigative Journalism, India

The recent earthquake in Nepal led to massive coverage in regional as well as international media. Besides ground reporting about death and devastation caused by April 25 tremors and series of aftershocks, newspapers and television channels featured stories about damage caused to heritage sites, courage of survivors and grit of rescue teams, medical relief efforts, and the science behind the earthquakes in this region.

Several editorial comments and analytical pieces also highlighted the fact that “earthquakes don’t kill people; it is the buildings which do”.  If poorly constructed buildings kill people, then a scientifically developed and properly enforced building code is the biggest tool available to reduce disaster impacts. This is true for Nepal as well as North India as both share the same seismic zone.

After every major earthquake, there is talk of building codes for different zones and then it is all forgotten till the next jolt. This happened in India after the Bhuj and Kashmir quakes in the past 15 years. It is the job of vigilant media to keep up the pressure on government agencies in the intervening period. The pressure should be in the form of sustained investigation by science journalists into what’s holding up building codes and their enforcement. Investigative science reporting, in effect, can help save lives.

Science reporting is often wrongly equated or confused with writing on esoteric subjects like galaxies, birth of new stars, black holes, spaceships and wonder drugs. Of course, all this is a part of science reporting but it is not restricted only to these subjects. Today science reporting is about how science is touching or impacting the lives of people, be it climate change, environmental degradation, disasters, new diseases, communication technologies and so on. In every sphere, there is scope for investigative because often there are conflicting data, facts and claims about any given subject.

For instance, take climate change. While there is growing body of scientific literature about climate change and mounting evidence of it from the ground, there are deniers who rubbish any climate change or global warming. However, journalistic investigation into so-called think tanks and organizations opposed to climate change showed that they are all funded by fossil fuel lobbies. Similarly investigation by this writer exposed how scientific panels of India’s food safety regulator were allowed to be infiltrated by food industry. Another recent case of industry lobbies influencing scientific policies was the U-turn made by the health ministry on pictorial health warnings on tobacco packs.

Millions of tobacco industry documents about scientific research, marketing and advertising of tobacco – hosted by the University of California, San Francisco – are still a goldmine for any investigative reporter interested in exposing how Big Tobacco influences scientific research and regulation.

Read full article here on CIJ India