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July08-editorial.pdf

he CAP made a significant gesture at its last Congress, which was a first for the Association. It gave one of its awards, the CAP-COMP Peter Kirkby Medal for outstanding service to the Canadian Physics community to Peter Calamai, the national science reporter for The Toronto Star. Peter Calamai is not a research scientist and has not directly contributed to the promotion of our professional organizations, either the CAP or COMP. Giving Peter Calamai the prize was a recognition of the positive press that he gave to physics and science in general during a career of more than 40 years, nearly 15 of those years as a science reporter. I interviewed Peter Calamai in Quebec City on Tuesday June 10th 2008, a few hours before he was presented with the prize: a 45 minute interview that appears in this issue, only slightly edited. He reveals in this interview his motivations and his perspective on science journalism.

I found it an eye-opener. The following quote, late in the interview, sums up his relationship with science and scientists: “I don’t want to be seen as a handmaiden. A lot of people say ‘you have a very important role, you’re helping us get our story out to the public’. I may incidentally help put the story out to the public but that’s not why I’m doing it. I’m doing it because you’re a good story. My job is to exploit scientists, to make them into stuff that gets people to read our newspapers so that we can sell advertising.” [See top of first column, page 173 of this issue].

Few scientists in history have been able to reach the public at large directly. Feynman is the most striking example here in North America. Even Einstein’s famous quotes had more to do with human affairs and, although there are a few related to physical theory, he did not try to teach the general public the physics he discovered. So we rely mainly on journalists to reach the greater public. What Peter Calamai teaches us is that we have to play by the rules of journalism if we want the communication to be effective. As sympathetic as the journalist may be to scientists, only stories of general interest, whose relevance and achievement can be expressed in non mathematical terms with simple underlying concepts, will find their way into the paper or broadcast. Peter Calamai teaches us also about timing and the fickleness of news. Important scientific discoveries should be promoted when there is little else happening, such as around the Christmas holidays. And as Preston Manning taught us about politicians (Physics in Canada, July-Aug. 2006), the “hook”, the connection, is always human. Journalists, like politicians, are not usually scientists, nor are their constituents, and they are mainly interested in the human dimension of the story. So an effort has to be made to make the link to human experience and societal  needs. He also discussed the challenge of bringing science policy issues on the public stage in Canada.

Acquiring journalistic skills is one step in our apprenticeship in communication. It not only helps us reach the public at large but teaches us how to communicate with colleagues in different fields, an essential skill in selling our research projects to granting councils. Recently I happened to listen to an instalment of the CBC Radio I show The age of persuasion which explores the countless ways marketers permeate our life, from media, art, and language, to politics, religion, and fashion. It made me think that we have a lot to learn in terms of communication. We are trained to communicate with our audience, which consists mostly of our peers. Our focus is a clear exposition of the science that we do. The quality of presentations that we hear has considerably improved over the years, not only thanks to technology, but also due to a greater awareness of communication techniques. We have come a long way. But advertisers, and sales people, have very sophisticated approaches, and there is a lot that they could teach us, especially at the multi-sensory level (relating concepts with sound, colour, touch and, possibly even smell). Our physics audience is mostly cerebral in its approach, but it is still human. How to take advantage of our many senses to increase the interest in physical topics is still unknown to most of us.

Maybe it is because of the influence of journalists that we thought about presenting some of our award winners through interviews. The interviews are long, because they go beyond introducing the award winners. They gave us a chance to do some journalism, trying to present their work in simple terms. The first interview is Peter Calamai’s itself (p.169-173). Peter Calamai carried out the two following ones: those of Carl Svensson (p.186-189), the CAP Herzberg medallist, and Adam Sarty (p.177-182), the Physics Teaching medal winner, so that I had a chance to see an experienced journalist at work before I carried out the last interview, in French, with Louis Taillefer (p.191-193) who, after winning the CAP Herzberg medal and the CAP Brockhouse medal a few years ago, has been awarded the CAP Medal of Achievement this year. Your feedback on these interviews is both welcome and will be appreciated. Next year, we hope to have additional volunteers to carry them out, or we may evolve from interviews to another form of reporting. PiC-PaC has only begun its journey as a magazine.

B. Joós, P.Phys.
Editor, Physics in Canada

Comments of readers on this editorial are more than welcome.