Sophie Scott has been the face of ABC’s health reporting for around two decades, but now she’s making a career change. Bianca Nogrady caught up with her to talk about health reporting, Covid, and the future.
How did your career in health journalism start?
I got interested in it when I lived in the United States about twenty-something years ago. It was the first time I had really been exposed to the media reporting on health and science in any way, because we hadn’t really been doing that much of it in Australia, not like we do now.
I started doing some health reporting for the ABC when I was working in the US, and really got into it. The big thing that I enjoyed about covering health is that you get to tell positive stories. You’re able to talk about things that are going well, whereas a lot of journalism – I had worked in other areas of journalism, like political reporting – it’s very negative, always focusing on what’s not going well.
With health, on the whole the majority of stories – or a large proportion of stories – tend to be more on the positive side, so research breakthroughs, big developments and stories of patients doing well who would otherwise have not been doing well.
But I definitely never thought when I started that I would stay doing that job for as long as I did.
What has kept you on this beat for so long?
The biggest reason is because of the way journalism is evolving. Even though your job title was the same, what you did day-to-day would be different from one year to the next because of different technologies, different platforms, different audiences migrating to different platforms.
So even a few years ago – pre-Covid – we were doing Facebook Live, and then we stopped doing those and turned to looking more on Instagram and Tiktok and things like that. The role was always evolving and the nature of the stories were changing and how we did them would change.
I started off mainly doing TV reporting and then branched out to be multi-platform quite early. I was doing that a long time before it became pretty standard for reporters to be filing for all platforms; radio, TV and online.
So I had a lot of diversity in what I was doing, and a lot of variety. Being able to tell the story for different platforms was good, although quite time-consuming.
What was it like when you started reporting on health?
I didn’t do science for the HSC. I wasn’t really interested in in science or health when I was younger. I was quite lucky in some respects that I started off reporting on health in a much smaller market, covering health for ABC when I worked at ABC Tasmania.
I did a lot of stories from the Menzies Institute for Medical Research at the University of Tasmania in Tasmania. The guy who was running the centre was Professor Terry Dwyer, who was involved with discovering what caused SIDS. He was a fantastic mentor in a lot of ways because he took me under his wing and explained about clinical trials and the work that he’d done, and the epidemiology and how that worked as a discipline. I learned a lot about that branch of medicine from him. It was an amazing insight to get from someone as prestigious as him.
Did you feel hampered by not having a science background?
I think in some respects that was a bit of an advantage, not having too much clinical knowledge to start with.
As a journalist, I’ve always felt if you don’t understand something, you’re better off to ask people to explain it in simple terms, so that you can then understand and explain it to the audience. If I didn’t understand any terms that scientists might be using, I had to say to them, ‘Can you break that down for me and explain what that means, so that I can then explain to the audience?’
So not having really detailed clinical knowledge in some ways was good I think, because I had to really understand it from the audience’s perspective. Scientists and medical people tend to speak their own language, and the audience doesn’t understand a lot of that language. They don’t understand the acronyms and they don’t understand the jargon yet.
While obviously having scientific knowledge and understanding of what it all means is good, you have to always remember that the audience doesn’t have that.
What stories really stood out for you in those earlier days?
Because I was based in Tasmania, I did a lot of stories about multiple sclerosis. Tasmania has the highest incidence of MS in Australia because of the cold weather. Tasmania also has a really high incidence of people being involved in clinical trials because it’s a really stable population, people tend not to leave and families stay there for generations.
So I learned a lot about how research and clinical trials work. I was able to report on some findings of some pretty significant trials from Tasmania. I was covering research outside Tasmania as well, but when I was going into labs and meeting people and doctors and scientists, a lot of the stuff was to do with the MS research being done in Tassie.
That must have been challenging, interviewing patients with that disease. How has that, and other patient stories, affected you as a journalist?
Patients that I got to know quite well, people that I might have done more extensive stories with like a 7.30 Report or a series of stories with, you certainly do get to know them and I think you do need to be mindful of vicarious trauma.
When I was doing investigative journalism, I was dealing with a lot of patients who had suffered medical errors and whose lives were wrecked. I did investigations into cosmetic surgery and also all the pelvic mesh patients.
The women who have had the pelvic mesh probably stand out as the most psychologically and physically injured group of patients that I ever had anything to do with, so much so that for a lot of them just sitting down to do an interview was agonising for them. They couldn’t sit for more than about 10-15 minutes, so I’d have to do the interview and then have a break so they could get up and walk around.
Did that ever overwhelm you?
It’s just something that you need to be conscious of. When you’re doing more detailed reporting – I guess with any patient story – you need to get to know the person so that they trust you to tell their story. But at the end of the day, it’s their issue and their story and their journey – it’s not yours.
But it is it is challenging, and it was certainly dose-dependent – the more you do it, the harder it can be. For journalists who do a lot of investigative reporting, I think it would be quite challenging, because you’re constantly in that environment of dealing with people who have suffered and who are suffering.
I remember one story I did for the 7.30 Report about medical devices. It was a woman who had developed breast implant-associated cancer. We followed her when she was going back in to get a scan to see whether the cancer had come back, so it was quite a pivotal moment to be filming her and to be on that journey with her.
Thankfully it hadn’t come back, but it was only really at the end of that day of filming when I was out for dinner with my husband and I felt this massive sense of relief for her that it had been a good outcome. But while you’re in the moment doing it all, you’re so focused on making sure we’re getting the right shots and getting the right grabs and getting the story that it’s only when you can sit down and exhale and think I’m so glad that worked out well for her and I’m so glad it was a good ending to that story.
On the other hand, I was also doing stories where patients had had remarkable transformations in their health and gone from really debilitated to having fantastic breakthrough treatment where they got their lives back. So I was able to balance out some of the more negative side of things with those stories of hope, and give the audience a sense of hope as well.
How has it been covering stories for multiple platforms?
It can be quite challenging because it’s quite a different approach. With TV, you’re thinking visuals and you’re thinking what are the best images to tell the story, whereas online, you’re thinking you need details.
I was lucky in some ways because I’ve got a newspaper background, so I could call on all those skills as a newspaper reporter. I knew that you need more detail, you need more context, you need to flesh things out more and explain things and step people through the story a lot more in an online story than you do in a TV.
A TV package is really just an overview, and you’ve got to be able to really get to the nuts and bolts of the story because you can’t waste any words, you can’t waste any sentiments. Every line has to be super important, otherwise it’s got to go. You want the pictures to tell a story and for the voiceover to be secondary to that. It’s a visual medium, so you want the pictures to tell the story and then have as sparse a script as possible, and also thinking about sound effects in TV as well.
If we were doing a multi-platform shoot, I’d take a checklist with me, so that I made sure we got everything we needed: all the sequences you’ve made for TV, the longer interview, photos that you’d need for the online story, and then whatever social media stuff that you want as well. It can end up being pretty time-consuming to get all that.
How has health journalism in Australia changed in your career so far?
Probably the biggest change is there used to be a lot more reporting of more basic science, so we’d do a lot of stories on things that were in mouse models. That really shifted to a focus much more on translational research, so patient-focused studies.
I think in a lot of ways that was a good thing. I remember doing so many stories in the past where it’d be interesting science but it was in a mouse and you’d put a line at the end of the script saying the researchers hope they might have a treatment in five to 10 years. You’ve got everyone’s hopes up, talking about the potential in what this science has found, but then you leave them deflated at the end.
I always felt it was not ideal for the person sitting on the couch watching that story who has that condition, because you were in some ways getting their hopes up and then leaving them at the end thinking, ‘oh God, I have to wait all that time’.
Obviously basic science is super important and it needs to be reported, but I think back then we were over-reporting on it and we were over-inflating the importance of it. This is across the media, not just my stories.
Also in the past, while we used to like to have a patient in a story, in the last I’d say at least five or so years, it became crucial that the story was centred on the patient. That’s what people want to want to read online and that’s what people want to see. They want to see human-focused stories.
We know from research about the power of storytelling and the impact that emotion and character-driven stories have on people. We know from research that that’s what motivates people to change their behaviour, so I think that was a good shift.
What do you see as the top five principles of good health journalism?
The first thing would be to go in with a healthy dose of scepticism and not just assume that everything that you’re reading is correct.
The second point would be to think ‘simplicity’, and remove the jargon as much as possible.
The third point would be to seek independent comment. Go outside whatever the researchers are saying and seek someone who’s a leader in the field. I’ve had a group of researchers that I could go to as my independent experts. Having that independent input is really crucial.
The fourth thing I would say would be to follow the money: who funded the study? Ask the more challenging questions.
I left it till last but I’d say probably the number one thing that I aimed to do is see things from the patient point of view. Think about the patient and think about the person who has that condition or has that illness: what are the things that they want to know? What are the things that they really need to know? How are they going to respond to how you’re framing this story?
So really think things through that patient-focused lens. Because at the end of the day, the doctors and the researchers and the scientists are all doing it to improve patient outcomes. And so that was my goal.
What’s a story you’re particularly proud of?
There’s a few. One that is memorable for a few reasons was a story I did for the 7.30 Report. It was called Mackenzie’s Mission, about a little baby who had spinal muscular atrophy. I did a story with her parents, about calling for preconception genetic screening to be available in Australia. We did that story, and then we did a follow up story with them the next week and went to meet with Greg Hunt. That had a massive impact: there’s a Medicare item number for exactly what that family wanted: free genetic screening for the couples to see if they have these genetic illnesses.
It was a hugely heartbreaking story that we told, but I was really, really happy with how that story came together. I was also really happy with the impact that it had in terms of the advocacy that the family did and our storytelling. I got to know that family really well and I still know the family and still keep in contact with them.
How has the Covid pandemic been for you as a health reporter?
It was massive. It was huge. I actually was in the US at the very start of COVID in January 2020, and I was seeing this big story break. It was in China and it was starting to come to the US. I knew it was a big story, and I knew I wanted to get back to Australia and work on it, but I don’t think I had any scope of just how big a story it was going to be.
My husband has a production company, so he and I were able to set up our house as TV studio and do live crosses, and he was able to film pieces to camera and record voiceovers. So I was lucky in a lot of ways because I had that production support at home.
The workload was intense. I’d be doing stories for the news, and the news would go to air and then I’d turn around and while the family was having dinner, I’d be thinking and starting to write the online story for the next day. So it just was full-on; the hours were just crazy.
What have you learned from covering the pandemic?
I learned a lot from a scientific point of view. I had a lot of good contacts in the virology community already because I’d covered swine flu. I learned a lot about virology, probably more than I ever wanted to know.
I did a lot more live TV than I’d ever done before. I was doing live crosses much more regularly, which I enjoyed, so I think my live TV skills definitely improved.
The biggest thing was thinking about how to stay ahead of the story. We wanted to not just report on what was happening, but think about what’s going to happen next. The big thing that really helped me was having great contacts on social media, with connections in the US and the UK. I could see from what they were putting out what was going to come. Then we could prepare and start to do stories based on what we knew was happening overseas.
We were very audience-led, particularly for online. I think that was a great shift: rather than just thinking, ‘we know what’s best’, we said ‘let’s find out what the audience really wants and let that be an important factor in what we cover.’
What were the biggest challenges of the pandemic for you?
It was a challenging period as a journalist because people had very strong opinions and a lot of them were wrong. In some ways, it was a privilege that people saw you as a source of information to go to. But it was also challenging when people didn’t agree with what you were saying, despite the fact I was only saying what the facts were.
Twitter became very toxic so I actually got off Twitter for a while, and I’m only just now getting back into it. I got a lot of online abuse and I’d never really had that before, so that was very challenging to cope with.
I had a massive falling out with one of my best friends, because she became very tied up in the whole conspiracy theory about vaccines. It was really hard, and it got to the point where it just became untenable. I knew from dealing with anti-vax people in the past that you can’t change their minds, but it’s challenging when it’s someone that you were very close to. I know that I wasn’t alone in having that experience.
Even though it was a challenge to cover the pandemic, it was still a great experience to have access to amazing doctors and scientists that you were talking to on a regular basis. That was the upside I think; having much closer relationships with people who are just at the top of their field.
What’s next for Sophie Scott?
One of the things that I realised with covering the pandemic was the impact it was having on people’s mental health. I also realised that the audiences were switching away from watching the seven o’clock news and being much more online.
I’ve got four sons who are all in their twenties, and none of them sit down and watch the seven o’clock news. They’re on Instagram. I was pretty early adopter to social media because of my kids.
So I set up an Instagram account, switched it to be about mental health at the start of the pandemic, and just started putting out evidence-based resources and information on mental health through my Instagram. I’ve now expanded that to writing on LinkedIn.
I was absolutely blown away by the response that I got to that, both Instagram and LinkedIn. People were finding obviously it was a very challenging time, and a lot of people were saying that they didn’t have access to resources and help, apart from going on things like social media and looking for help there.
I could see there was a huge need, so that was really my inspiration to want to use the same skills but for a different audience. I’ve just moved from the reporting side of things to education in another way. I’m also doing a lot of workshops now with companies and teams on mental health and communication.
I’ve always been fascinated by and interested in mental health. When I was younger, I wanted to be a journalist or psychologist. I think there’s a lot of crossover between the two professions: you’ve got to be good listener, you’ve got to be empathetic, you’ve got to be open-minded.
Any advice for people interested in a career like yours?
The way people are consuming information now, it’s a much more level playing field. Now you don’t necessarily need to be a TV reporter to have a massive audience and a massive influence. if you look at where young people are going to get information, they’re going to YouTube, they’re going to social media.
If I was starting out now wanting to do what I had done, I’ll probably start a YouTube channel, because that’s where the eyeballs are. If you want to have impact, and you want to tell stories that people are going to hear and read and see, you need to go where the audiences are.
But it was a fantastic career and it was such a great opportunity to meet amazing patients and researchers. I hope that the media continues to cover science and health in the same way that we’ve been able to in the past, to really make sure we’re highlighting the best research that’s being done.