Rapid Reactions: responding to breaking news. The demands of the 24-hour media machine mean that news journalists often don’t have the luxury of time to track down the best scientists when a science story lands on their desks, so availability can sometimes win out over expertise. This is where the Science Media Centre steps in. When a story breaks – whether it’s the latest flu epidemic, health scare or a potential nuclear crisis – the SMC persuades leading experts to drop everything and engage with the story, then contacts journalists at all the major news outlets to offer those experts for interviews or immediate comment.
Roundups: putting new research into context. One of the other ways the SMC ensures that the media have easy access to scientists and their views is by offering journalists a variety of comments from scientists reacting to the latest research. This service differs from our ‘Rapid Reactions’ as scientists have time to react before new research is announced, rather than in response to breaking news.
With access to embargoed journals before publication, we can pick stories of most interest to journalists, asking third party experts to provide comments and information to put research into context before it appears in the media. The SMC’s unique Roundups help busy journalists critically analyse the strengths and weaknesses of new research, and highlight when studies are very preliminary or display a correlation that should not be read as causation. Equally, when leading scientists are excited about a significant study this can reassure journalists that the study should feature strongly in their coverage.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) have released the latest data from their COVID-19 Infection Survey. Prof James Naismith, Director of … read more
An analysis published in The Lancet Public Health provides an estimation of the global prevalence of dementia in 2019 and … read more
A study published in PLOS Medicine looks at factors associated with excess all-cause mortality in the first wave of the … read more
A report on the use of face coverings in education settings has been published by the Department for Education. … read more
A preprint, an unpublished non-peer reviewed study, describes the discordance in saliva SARS-CoV-2 PCR and nasal lateral flow antigen test … read more
A few journalists have asked us about this today, so here is a comment from Professor Jonathan Ives in case … read more
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has confirmed a case of avian influenza in a person in the South West … read more
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) have released the latest estimates of the prevalence people with self-reported ‘long COVID’ using data from … read more
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has revealed new plans to restore 300,000 hectares of habitat across … read more
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) have released the headline results from their COVID-19 Infection Survey. Prof Sheila Bird, formerly … read more
Several media reports suggested that changes to COVID-19 testing rules were to be announced by the government, which has now … read more
The Prime Minister updated the public on the government’s ongoing actions to tackle COVID-19 during the Downing Street press conference … read more
Press releases from the University of Manchester and Gritstone bio announce positive phase 1 clinical data from the first cohort … read more
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has published the latest technical briefing looking at SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation … read more
A study published in Nature looks at the activity of convalescent and vaccine serum against the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 … read more
Five studies published in Nature look at the effectiveness of vaccines and antibody treatments against the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. … read more
A preprint, an unpublished non-peer reviewed study, reports on the latest data from the REACT-1 study on COVID-19 spread across … read more
A preprint, an unpublished non-peer reviewed study, from Imperial College London models hospitalisation risk for Omicron cases in England. This … read more
A preprint, unpublished non-peer reviewed data, from the EAVE II study, looks at severity of Omicron variant and vaccine effectiveness … read more
A preprint, an unpublished non-peer reviewed study, looks at SARS-CoV-2 Omicron spike mediated immune escape, infectivity and cell-cell fusion. … read more
