Infotainment exposed

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Transcript

The "natto scandal" on Japanese TV is now a world-wide scandal. A recent article in the science magazine, Nature, describes how the producers of a program on Kansai Telecasting Corporation (KTV) misrepresented the words of scientists and lied about the results of experimental research. David Cyranoski, the author of the Nature article, sums it up:

For scientists who speak to the mass media about their research, a scandal surrounding a Japanese television show demonstrates just how badly things can go wrong. Kansai Telecasting Corporation (KTV) has admitted that it faked scientific results in one of its programmes, and used dubbing to put false words into the mouths of foreign researchers. After an outcry from the Japanese media, the company has cancelled the series and is reviewing all 520 episodes.

The KTV case is not unique by any means, but it illustrates how the desire to entertain audiences can lead people to lie about the work of scientists and scholars. Everyone becomes a victim of when such dishonesty is practiced. The same seems true for infotainment programs about social and political issues. Clarence Page, a Pulitzer Prize winning commentator for the Chicago Tribune, wrote in 2004:

If thorough consideration of an opposing view is the beginning of intellectual growth, much of today’s infotainment sounds brain dead.

As Matt Nisbet wrote in 2001, economic pressure to reduce professional staff and entertain audiences has reduced the quality of news reporting by commercial media. That's a sad state of affairs in a democratic society.

I hope media producers will learn from the natto scandal and strive to tell the truth about science and scholarship as they try to entertain their audiences. Lying and oversimplifying hurts everyone.

As the natto scandal demonstrates, there is very little information in infotainment.