A close encounter with a sea turtle in 2005 sparked Melissa Gaskill’s interest in protecting this endangered species. Her co-authored book, A World-Wide Travel Guide to Sea Turtles, tells how people can support this goal by volunteering or visiting conservation sites.
Science writing news
Magazines are famous for having teams of fact-checkers who strive to verify everything their publication prints. Book publishers, however, generally make no such effort, Kate Newman writes for Atlantic: "What many readers don’t realize is that fact-checking has never been standard practice in the book-publishing world at all. And reliance on books creates a weak link in the chain of media accuracy, says Scott Rosenberg, founder of the now-defunct MediaBugs.org."
The Islamic State's execution of Steven Sotloff and James Foley should prompt news organizations to improve their treatment of the correspondents who provide their foreign coverage, Tom A. Peter writes in New Republic: "When people ask me about the stress of covering wars, more often than not what comes to mind is the two and a half years I spent working in Afghanistan when I paid about $30,000 out of pocket to cover basic work expenses that were never reimbursed."
Jodi Kantor talks to Nieman Storyboard about her story on a young single mother struggling to cope with low wages, constantly shifting schedules, and other hardships of life in the part-time economy: "Jannette told me that she had a three-hour commute and that she was constantly worried she was going to lose her son’s child care because her schedule is so crazy," Kanot said. "As she was speaking, my brain was thinking, 'How fast can I buy a ticket to San Diego?'"
You probably saw the news early this week about the latest study touting a low-carb diet, but Tabitha M. Powledge writes that the results may not have justified some of the breathless coverage. In contrast, a second study comparing a wide range of diets, with mixed results, got considerably less media attention, Powledge writes. Also, what Thursday's Knight Science Journalism Tracker post on CJR means for the Tracker's future.
The venerable Columbia Journalism Review devotes its new cover to a glowing profile of Elise Andrew, creator of the popular IFLScience Facebook page. But as Nadia Drake writes, the story includes only a brief mention of a long history of complaints against Andrew for copyright infringement and other sins: "For CJR to celebrate the rise of IFLS and its creator without giving proper weight to legitimate, serious concerns is a major misstep."
Roy Peter Clark revisits the New York Times' 2013 Pulitzer winner, saying that its multimedia often got in the way of its story: "The problem is that the narrative line is interrupted, time and again, by elements that are marginal to the storytelling. Embedded in the text are tiny icons that signify the visual tools: a video, a slide show. Every time I clicked on one of these, it took me away from the story. Instead of time moving, time was frozen, so to speak."
Catherine Dold had no experience writing about addiction, and didn’t think she wanted to write about it. She had never written a book, either. After responding to an ad seeking a co-author, however, she accepted the challenge.
The disruptions associated with global warming have become the "new normal" in many news stories, but Dawn Stover sees a problem with that formulation: "There’s a dangerous psychology at work here. The 'new normal' meme, put forward by climate scientists as well as headline writers, is intended to make people realize how weird the world’s weather has become, and to encourage them to plan for an altered climate. But what if the phrase is having just the opposite effect?"