Review: Ms. Information

In Ms. Information, Microbiologist and science communicator Dr Siouxsie Wiles suffers a pandemic backlash. Reviewed by Dan Slevin.Back during the ancient history pandemic days of anxiety, lockdowns and vaccine campaigns, there was one voice - apart from the Prime Minister and the Director-General of Health - who felt like a ubiquitous presence on our screens and on our radios.Dr. Siouxsie Wiles, a microbiologist from the University of Auckland - acclaimed researcher into infectious diseases and an award-winning science communicator - was never an official part of the Covid communications campaign.But her tireless willingness to say yes to every media offer of airtime - over 2000 interviews over two years - helping hammer home important lessons about the risks to public health, meant that she was critical to the success of the first wave of Aotearoa's response.It also meant that, when the public opinion tide turned, she had a target on her back.The new documentary, Ms. Information is an extension of a short documentary that was put online in 2020 as part of the excellent Loading Docs scheme. That was a much more celebratory story than the one we have now.Director Gwen Isaac continued to follow Wiles through 2021, culminating in the bizarre parallels of a New Zealander of the Year Award at the same time as the hate mail and online harassment was becoming almost unbearable.Wiles is a paradoxical figure. On one hand she stubbornly insists on getting up at sparrow fart to try and school breakfast television hosts about the nature of infectious diseases and at the same time she protests that she hates to be the centre of attention and wishes she'd never said yes to being in the documentary.Before Covid the reasons why she was such a public figure were clear. Her Bioluminescent Superbugs lab at the University of Auckland is chronically underfunded and anything she can do to draw attention to it helps meet the growing shortfalls.In the film she tells some Victoria University students how every fee for public speaking she ever received is donated back to her lab.But there's also the fact that she's really good at it - science communication that is. Not many people are. So, why shouldn't she continue to do something that she's excellent at?Well, it appears that the science community are conflicted. A loud, opinionated, pink-haired media star can't possibly be a good scientist at the same time. I'll leave you to discuss why those conclusions are held by so many on so little evidence.I was quite shaken by Ms. Information - largely the reminders of that anxious time in early 2020 when we knew so little and feared so much…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details