The Negative Portrayal of Science in New Zealand Media

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Here in New Zealand, we have a pretty good track record of scientific mindedness. Most people I know in real life are fairly like-minded individuals. The people I work with are the same, we accept scientific consensus of evidence. But, go on facebook and check the comment section of an article written in a pro-science light, and you would be shocked (or not, depending on your knowledge of general ignorance) to find that there is a large number of people who disagree and even think science is pure belief. Now, obviously, this is wrong. Science has nothing to do with belief. Science is about evidence. Facts. 

Generally, these articles that are written in a pro-science light are about vaccination, for some reason a highly debated topic. It shouldn't be. Vaccines are safe. 

Here is a small selection of pro-vaccine stories from Stuff:


Now, alongside the vaccine stories are also articles about pesticides, like this one from the NZ Herald; 
Toxic chemicals on supermarket veges has risen 17 fold since 60s
This whole article talks about a rise in pesticides and chemicals found on foods since the 1960s. A ridiculous article that fails to name any chemicals, pesticides or herbicides. Once again, the media fail to realise that everything we ingest is a chemical. Our bodies are just big chemical factories. But, obviously, the buzz word "chemical" is scary and conjures up images of coloured liquids that will kill us if we ingest them! The article was also written for the Telegraph UK, and the surveys conducted were in the UK as well. But it's enough to scare the general audience I guess, as you can tell from the comment section. 

Thre's also this story on One News:
'Goodbye to our bees' - DOC spraying herbicide on Auckland maunga in suburb which paid $50K to be chemical free

More anti-chemical articles. And even pushes the myth of disappearing bees due to herbicides.

The media seem happy to write stories in a good light for vaccines (which is great!) but then seem to skew the other way for anything else, such as glyphosate. The media need to be impartial and simply a communicator but sometimes misses the mark completely. They end up perpetuating scientific myths, like glyphosate being bad. Get it together, please.



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