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Words & Reflectionssimple story line they didn’t realizethat they’d made a 180 degree turn intheir portrayal of this issue. Again,though, they were not interested inconveying the broader, more complicatedcontexts, nor in sharing the factwith viewers that most surrogate arrangementsseem to work out for all ofthe parties involved.Reproductive and genetic technologieswill continue to be of enormousinterest to reporters—both print andbroadcast—because they provide possibilitiesfor telling compelling stories.There is the key ingredient of humaninterest—the couple desperate to havea child or the woman fearful that shewill die from breast cancer as hermother did. There is a gee-whiz scientificangle, too, as new technologiesseem to leap right out of science fictionand into doctors’ offices.But this desire to focus on thosewho are desperate to find ways to havea biological child or on the sciencebehind these advances can lead reportersto miss what, in my view, are someof the most important stories aboutwhat’s happening in this field. Becauseit isn’t possible to visually portray or tointerview a potential child, scant attentionis given to numerous studies thatindicate that some of these technologiesmight pose real risks for the children.High order multiple births areheralded as medical “miracles” withoutattention paid to the statistic that16 percent of the babies die in the firstmonth of life. New options such as eggfreezing are hyped by the press withoutacknowledgement of studies suggestinggenetic damage to the eggs.And because reporters are accustomedto dealing with scientists as neutralexperts, they tend to overlook one ofthe more troubling aspects of this research:the dramatic commercializationof academic and government sciencedue to changes in the law duringthe 1980’s.This latter circumstance has all theelements of what makes greatstorytelling—greed, conflict of interest,big business, politics and potentialrisks to patients. But these story linesare more difficult to dig out than onesthat emerge from interviewing an infertilepatient, and so are rarely told.That said, some newspaper reportersare doing this kind of investigativework and finding compelling ways totell these important stories. Rick Weiss,a reporter at The Washington Post, andRobert Lee Hotz, a reporter at the LosAngeles Times, have each provided indepthcoverage of some of the risks inthe ever expanding fertility business.Mitchell Zuckoff, Alice Dembner andMatt Carroll, at The Boston Globe, researchedand wrote a revealing serieson “a billion-dollar taxpayers’ subsidyfor pharmaceutical companies alreadyawash in profits.” Their reportingpointed to the unfairness of privatecompanies getting exclusive benefit ofpublicly funded research.Tough reportorial scrutiny shouldbe applied also to decisions of taxpayer-fundedresearchers at the NationalInstitutes of Health as they patentgenes for private gain and enter intocommercial ventures with biotech companies.Of course, these types of articlesare more difficult and time consumingto undertake; they require moreresearch and run the risk of alienatingimportant researchers and institutionsthat have been long-standing sources.But reporting such as this is crucial toproviding the public with a more texturedpicture of what is happeningwith these technologies.There remain many more aspects ofthese breakthroughs and practices thatcould use the kind of public attentionthat good reporting can elicit. Suchpotential areas of inquiry include thefollowing:• Deficiencies in informed consent atin-vitro fertilization clinics.• Ways in which clinics routinely exaggeratesuccess rates in their promotionaladvertisements.• Consequences that arise from themisuse of fertility drugs.• The practice some clinics engage inwhen they sell patients’ “excess”embryos to biotech companies foruse in developing pharmaceuticalproducts.• The reason for errors in genetic testingand the consequences.• The deficiencies of regulatory oversightfor emerging technologies.Along the way I’ve also had my shareof strange encounters with the media.And these encounters have led me tohave experiences that I would not otherwisehave had, some of which sentmy thinking in new and valuable directions.Others just served as momentarydistractions or, even worse, as irritants.I was once asked by a reporter on areligious television station whetherclones would have souls. I suggestedthat if the minister/host thought identicaltwins each had souls, then laterborntwins, clones, would as well. I’vesparred on Oprah with a woman whowanted to use her dead son’s sperm tocreate her own grandchild.But more often than not, my contactswith reporters have benefited myown work by serving as a sort of earlywarning system. They find out what ishappening in my field before anyoneelse. They learn about the local couplewho are suing over custody of a frozenembryo or of a judge’s decision to stopan employer from doing genetic testing.I’ve found that the quickest way toget information about developmentsin reproductive and genetic technologiesis to have a reporter fax it to you.I learned about the cloning of Dollybefore the rest of the world did becauseGina Kolata, a reporter at TheNew York Times, called me for an advancecomment on it. Of course, suchinformation flows enhance coverageas well, by allowing the expert to commentmore knowledgeably on the scientificresearch or legal case at issue.Also, by keeping an eye on whatnews shows are covering in this field, Iam able to get a pretty good sense ofwhat people care about. This habit alsogets me out of the ivory tower ofacademia where faculty members assumeeveryone cares about the samethings they do. It propels me into thepopular culture arena where I find outwhat issues these concerns of minewill have to compete with in order tobe made part of the political conversa-Nieman Reports / Fall 1999 77