No, I think you have managed to get all of my points out of me. Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity. We really appreciate it.

Let me just have a quick --

I only know of one complaint that he's made to the Press Complaints Council and that has not been upheld. I don't think he feels like that.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

No, although I think it's quite important to say that when we set up in 2002, we decided not to go down that route, that we would -- our philosophy was that the media will do science better when scientists start to do the media better. So our focus -- apart ...

I know, yes. As you heard from the previous witness, there is also the situation which we've raised where only the individual scientist involved in the article that's inaccurate is able to go to the PCC.

Very good question. That's what we are asking for. We're not asking for special treatment or regulation but we're asking for the best possible standards of accuracy in relation to these --

It may not matter, but I just think the fact that we are powerless to change it, I think that was the point I wanted to make to you. The framing has been set because it's controversial and because it works for the news editor, we are landed with ...

I think that's entirely possible.

And some of them are in inverted commas but nobody uses it. Not even the opponents of this technique use it. It is a creation of news editors because they like it.

It is. "Babies with two mothers and one father within three years", "Three parent IVF closer to approval", "Three parent IVF."

Does it matter? The articles were beautiful, and in fact, most of this story was reported in a way that I would say is the best of science reporting ...

One was just from last week from the Sun. I don't know if you can see -- it was a full page in the Sun, which is quite hard to achieve:

"Breast cancer risk all over shops' shelves."

And basically what the story is saying is commonly used chemicals that ...

I have to say I don't know much more about those than was presented in evidence. I wonder if you would object if I went through a couple from this week instead with similar messages; is that okay?

Oh, there are many, many columnists. We love columnists, we love opinionated people. We're quite opinionated at the Science Media Centre. Our beef with these columnists is that sometimes, much like the previous witness said, they are stating things that are blatantly inaccurate and we question whether newspapers can ...

He probably has something he could -- it may be work in progress and it could be improved on, but I think he probably has something he could deliver very soon.

Would you like to see them?

The list that I came up with in the evidence took me two minutes and quite a few people agreed with it, but there is actually a new project funded by government, which is a national science journalism training coordinator which has only just come about and we're very ...

I'm very pleased how many science journalists supported our recommendation for guidelines because ten years ago the scientific community recommended guidelines and they were very fiercely rejected by journalists. But actually most of the science journalists themselves say that these guidelines would help them to win the arguments with ...

I hope not.

No, no. What I'm reflecting is that wouldn't work with many scientists. They wouldn't be able to write and communicate in the way that Brian Cox can. He's now a celebrity scientist, and I say that in a good way.

I think -- you know, to stress ...

No. He's wonderful. These very, very, very media friendly.

He's not an ordinary scientist.

I imagine it's Brian Cox.

I don't know how we disagree, but it is a disease which affects many, many people which causes chronic fatigue and many people cannot work. Some children have MECFS but they have never found a biological cause. They've found many things that contribute to it and there are ...

That's right. The example I give of the XMRV virus -- again, I don't know if you know anything about chronic fatigue syndrome or ME --

Yes. In some ways, I think this possibly could sum up our 12 pages of evidence and sum up my view, that the disjuncture between the scientific community and your average newsroom is that within science extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Within a newsroom, I actually think it's the ...

Yes.

Yes, and that particular press briefing the Science Media Centre ran and there were four scientists on the panel and I watched them at such pains to repeat time and time again -- because the questions were coming from the floor, you know: "Will it be like The Day After Tomorrow ...

Yes.

Correct.

Okay.

Yes. This is a tricky one, because what self-respecting journalist is going to hear our chief medical officer telling us that 65,000 people could die of swine flu and not report it? I don't in any way ask them not to report it, but I do think there ...

Yes. Strangely, many of the science, health and environment journalists stay on that beat. They hope to be promoted to become science editor or health editor but they rarely go down the editorial route. So you do find that the newspaper which is packed with humanities graduates tends to have ...

Indeed. I mean, you go into the next set of trials and then phase two trials and then face three and then you try in the population. As I said earlier, we do think these stories should be reported because they are breakthroughs in a sense, but they are nowhere ...

Yes.

I do.

Okay.

I apologise.

So this was a lovely story from yesterday, which -- I don't know if you were just watching Leveson on the television but was on the news last night, of a stem cell break through, and the first proof in a safety trial that stem -- embryonic stem cells ...

You can ask. I shall try.

I brought a couple of examples. I think it's important to say that no matter what day or what week I had come, I would come with topical examples. I mean, this is routine, and what you have is very, very excellent science journalists who take care to write ...

I think it's very, very relevant because we are not saying that we don't want the media to report on these. I mean, that would be going back 20 years to where science was in a ghetto and wasn't covered. We want all these studies to be ...

Indeed. That's right. They were lied to. That's very difficult to check for. The peer review system doesn't actually check against that.

Indeed, and I think this takes us back to MMR and it's slightly, very slightly, a defence of the Lancet here because it was a very, very small study. I think it was 12 children. Most studies are preliminary and provisional. The vast majority will not be replicated, and ...

I think that's right, but I do think that if you -- one of the points I haven't made yet, which I'm really keen to make, is that the best ally of science are the science reporters. We have some fantastic science journalists in this country and I ...

Yes, absolutely agree, and I think if you look at the role of almost everybody in that saga, nobody comes out smelling of roses. But as this Inquiry is about the role of the media, then that's the role --

It's actually a wonderful example. Are there other people to blame? Yes, absolutely, and most of the responsibility lies with one individual scientist, who's been discredited, but I think on this one you cannot absolve the media, and the reason I would say that is because it was ...

You're entitled to your opinions; you are not entitled to your facts.

Indeed. I think our view is that the responsibility of the press is to allow all of those opinions to be reflected but that their facts are accurate.

I am.