When you look for “expert” sources, make sure to vet their expertise — and read up on any controversies

Journalists rely upon, and defer to, those considered expert sources. We are more likely to trust those who can be perceived as “official” and those who have some external mark of authority: they’re the director of an organization, a medical specialist of some kind, a government spokesperson, for example. We journalists want to get the facts, and we believe that experts are more likely to have those facts.

But we have to consider our expert sources more critically.

 
If we’re covering a story about health care and disabled people, our first instinct is probably to turn to a doctor. But what kind of doctor — and with what kind of expertise? The problem is that many doctors don’t actually have much expertise when it comes to disability. Most disabilities are not covered to any great extent in medical school; a student in medical school might get a couple of hours of instruction on a disability, or the school might invite a person with that disability to interact with the medical students for an afternoon. A medical school might present students with a class on what to do if they suspect a child is autistic. For some disabilities, your potential doctor source might not have heard of the disabilities at all. Specialists may know how a particular disability affects the organ or organ system they focus on but will have to work with other specialists to figure out a treatment plan (if the disabled person is able to get in to see the right specialist in the first place, and if a treatment plan is even possible). Many disabled people have multiple disabilities and illnesses and so will have to (try to) see a variety of specialists.

Due to the divide between scientific research and clinical practice, many working in the former may never meet the people they are researching — meaning that their expertise doesn’t have much to do with disabled people’s lived reality. When disabled people say that a disabled person is the expert on their own life and disability, that’s because they know more about their circumstances than anyone else. They are at the forefront of emerging issues, which researchers may (or may not, or may not yet) research.

How does this play into finding sources? We in the media should avoid presenting one doctor as the voice of all expert knowledge when it comes to all disabilities. When we do interview doctors, we should try to get an idea of their expertise, their research and clinical practice, how current they are in their knowledge, and what they are and are not qualified to comment on.

 
As so many people are often involved in maintenance treatment for one disability, a sound bite from one medical expert certainly can’t provide a full and accurate picture of the state of disability in Canada. (And even within smaller areas of specialization, there can be major differences of opinion.) If a doctor says, for example, that a new policy will hurt their disabled patients, we should try to make time to learn and explain to audiences how that would actually play out in the real world. Many people have no idea about the complex bureaucracies that affect the lives of disabled people or the trade-offs people have to make in terms of privacy and some semblance of financial security. Simple solutions almost invariably will not work (and many have already been tried), but journalists don’t always know how to ask the right questions to figure that out.

 
When vetting an expert source, make sure to look at their work and the rest of their public comments. Try to establish whether other experts have challenged the first source’s work or added to it, or to their area of study. What questions have been raised, and what corrections, clarifications, and updates based on new evidence have been made in recent publications? Journalists who put the work into research and sourcing are more likely to identify the controversies and disagreements among experts that should be discussed upfront — and thus make the story richer and more complete.

An example related to this is the subject of cochlear implants. If you’re interviewing an expert on cochlear implants who has seen good results among deaf children, journalistic balance requires that you also cover the major debates in Deaf culture about cochlear implants for children and for adults, their impact, and what cochlear implants might mean for acquiring languages (a sign language, an oral language, or both), Deaf culture, the positions of various advocacy groups and more[1].

 
Another example: we’ve seen a lot of stories about the opioid crisis lately, and there is no question that the introduction of fentanyl and carfentanil has caused suffering and death that could have been avoided. But how many stories have included mention of chronic pain and the suffering that has been endured by people who have lost access to their medication because of backlash to the crisis?[2] Covering that would involve reaching out to a different set of experts, both credentialled and not.