Beyond the Hype: The Inside Story of Science’s Biggest Media Controversies

By Fiona Fox

‘Reveals how frontline science can be just as messy, complex and feudal as any political drama’

– Anjana Ahuja, contributing writer for the Financial Times

‘Depending on whom you ask, Fiona Fox is either saving science journalism or destroying it’.

Thus wrote Nature in 2013 about the charismatic and sometimes combative head of Britain’s Science Media Centre. Fox was appointed to set up the centre in 2002 after scientists reeling from media frenzies about mad-cow disease, the MMR vaccine and genetically modified crops realized they would have to emerge from their ivory towers and join the fray.

Seventeen years later, she is still there, having enjoyed a ringside seat on some of the biggest, most contentious stories in science – a period during which scientists finally found their voice and press coverage and the public perception of science improved dramatically. Since then her science PR model has spread around the world, with similar centres now established in several other countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Germany and the United States.

In Beyond the Hype, Fox recounts her anecdotes, revelations, opinions and perspectives from her unique vantage point at the heart of some of the most fascinating science stories of the past two decades – including, most recently, her central role in the UK’s covid-19 news coverage. The book aims to have wide appeal, and not just to those in science. It is a compelling, enjoyable and informative read for anyone interested in how science interacts with the public as well as for those who devour books about news and journalism; the ever-growing global community of science press officers and science communicators; students taking courses in science communication and science journalism; science journalists and science writers; and general readers who love candid political diaries and memoirs, or popular books that lift the lid on topical scientific issues.

Indeed, at a time when public interest in health matters is at an all-time high, these gripping dispatches from the frontiers of science look set to become essential reading for us all.