ARE the costs of becoming involved in public life too high? Last week, Edinburgh University public health professor Devi Sridhar told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry about her experiences over the pandemic.
Sridhar needs no introduction. Like Jason Leitch, she became ubiquitous on the nation’s airwaves for months on end from the beginning of the pandemic to its concluding stages – becoming in the process one of the best-known academics in the country.
As her public profile rose, she also gained direct access to a range of political figures during the long months of changing policy to tackle Covid-19, contributing to policy debates about freedoms and restrictions not only in public but behind the scenes.
Sridhar didn’t position herself just as a neutral mapper and explainer – which can be a comfort position for academics dipping their toes into the public domain – but as an analyst and critic of government policy. She not only shared her knowledge of the state of the science on Covid-19 but gave her opinion on that evidence.
Jason Leitch (Image: PA)
Experts should. Most of us aren’t equipped with the background and education to decode the strengths and weaknesses of emerging scientific studies. We need a friendly guide to take us through the detail if we’re to begin understanding it at all. That requires interpretation as well as facts. Interpretations sometimes vary.
Participating in hundreds of media interviews, Professor Sridhar was given countless opportunities not only to explain the latest knowledge about the novel coronavirus to the public but to make errors in the heat of the moment, to misspeak or mis-predict the future.
Live broadcasts
There were moments where she probably misspoke or was asked to speak beyond her expertise. This often happens in live broadcasts – sometimes because of the compressed nature of the format, sometimes because of scientific uncertainties, sometimes because experts are invited to steer out of their academic lanes by presenters.
But I reckon most folk who tuned in to the telly or radio during this uncertain period in our shared history were grateful to have the opportunity to hear directly from expert voices prepared to talk in a........