This program is sponsored by the Covley Foundation based in Los Angeles, California.

The Covley Foundation is dedicated to advancing science for the benefit of humanity.

I'm Alan Alder, and this is Clear In vivid conversations about connecting and communicating.

By one count since roughly January, the start of the pandemic, although of course it began in China in late 2019, there have been 5,000 preprints alone related to COVID-19.

Preprints, of course, are the papers that get put up on servers. They have not been peer reviewed, you know, 5,000 just preprints.

Probably a comparable number of papers that have been actually published in journals. That's a fire hose that we're all trying desperately to drink out of.

Sharon Begley is a veteran science journalist, and she's now turning her skills in interpreting the complexities of scientific research to helping the rest of us understand the complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And she does it with the tenacity of a beat reporter and the instincts of a storyteller.

This is great to be able to talk to you today because you're such an extraordinary communicator, and that's what this show is all about.

And I really look forward to the chance to talk to you.

I saw this very interesting talk. You gave where you were talking to scientists about how to talk to the press.

And it was so interesting because you could have been giving a talk at the Center for Communicating Science.

What do you think are the main things that scientists have to remember when they talk to the press?

The key thing is that you, the scientist, know just worlds more than I do, and also worlds more than I can get into my story.

One of the frustrations I often have when I interview scientists is that I'll ask them what I think is a fairly simple question.

And it's like pressing the go button as if I've asked them to please download everything you know about your entire field.

And I feel bad about that because they're now spending a lot of minutes telling me something that probably is not going to make it into whatever story I'm doing.

Well, we all have the tendency to get mired in the details of things we know deeply.

That's one of the problems in knowing something deeply.

Right. And it's admirable. And the reason the obvious question is why don't I cut them off? Because I don't.

I think the answer to that is just eternal optimism that like maybe by minute three or seven or even God forbid 12, they will say one amazingly insightful or off the cuff or funny thing.

And I don't want to you know, squelch that from happening, but really, you know, when you the scientist are speaking to a reporter, try to hear the question and answer the question.

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