David P. Ropeik

David P. Ropeik is a consultant in risk communication. A former television reporter, he was Directer of Risk Communication for the largely industry-funded Harvard Center for Risk Analysis from 2000 through 2006. and has continued teaching a Harvard extension school course.

Education
Ropeik has a bachelor's and a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

Career
Ropeik was "a television reporter for WCVB-TV, Channel 5, in Boston for 22 years", and had a Q&A newspaper science column from 1997 through at least 2000, before joining the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis as its Directer of Risk Communication in 2000 ; he left this position in 2006.

At the the Harvard School of Public Health, he was an "Instructor in Risk Communication" until 2006.

As of 2011, Ropeik is listed as teaching 'Critical Thinking about Environmental and Public Health Issues' in the Harvard Extension School's Environmental Studies program.

An independent consultant by 2011, he received funding from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation to speak to newsrooms on how to write about risk.

Views
Ropeik's articles typically express the view that the risk reporting in the media is misplaced and/or overblown, saying in 2000, "There's a huge disconnect between what people are afraid of and what the data suggests are the real risks."

On Mad Cow Disease
In the piece ("Mad Cow and the Media," 31 Dec. 2003), Ropeik argues that recent reporting on the mad cow case in Washington state is overblown, with reporters emphasizing the scariest aspects of the story, which is causing the public to develop an irrational fear of mad cow disease. Such reporting, the author contends, "drives demands that the government spend time and money protecting us from risks that aren't as big as such coverage leads us to believe." In support of his argument, Ropeik cites a study by "our center at Harvard" showing that the chance of mad cow disease threatening human health is "extraordinarily low." 

At Harvard Center for Risk Analysis
In a circa-2006 email to a SourceWatch editor, Ropeik listed his clients while at Harvard. Some of these clients were:
 * Office of the White House Communications Director
 * U.S. Department of Homeland Security
 * U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
 * Federal Aviation Administration
 * Federal Emergency Management Agency
 * U.S. Public Affairs Council
 * Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association
 * American Meat Institute
 * Consumer Federation of America
 * American Nuclear Society (northeast chapter)
 * Dow Chemical
 * DuPont
 * Entergy Power Corp.
 * Edison Electric Institute
 * Electric Power Research Institute
 * Bayer CropScience
 * National Nanotechnology Initiative
 * Foundation Coal Company
 * Nuclear Energy Institute

Books

 * David P. Ropeik and George Gray, Risk: A Practical Guide for Deciding What’s Dangerous and What’s Safe in the World Around You, Houghton Mifflin, October 2002. ISBN 0618143726
 * David Ropeik, How Risky Is It, Really?: Why Our Fears Don't Always Match the Facts, McGraw-Hill, February 2010. ISBN-13: 978-0071629690

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Risk communication
 * Harvard Center for Risk Analysis
 * George M. Gray
 * Richard Lounsbery Foundation

External resources

 * David Ropeik's website
 * "David P. Ropeik", Harvard School of Public Health, accessed October 2006. No longer online.

By Ropeik

 * David Ropeik, "Mad Cow and the Media", Opinion, The Washington Post, Wednesday, December 31, 2003. (The Washington Post's archived version displays only an extract of the original column).

General

 * "Mad Cow Fears Hard to Quell", Sandi Doughton in The Seattle Times, December 29, 2003.