It's not the first complaint from a writer who was asked to work for free, but Tim Kreider's op-ed in the New York Times appears to have struck a chord, with more than 600 comments so far: "People who would consider it a bizarre breach of conduct to expect anyone to give them a haircut or a can of soda at no cost will ask you, with a straight face and a clear conscience, whether you wouldn’t be willing to write an essay or draw an illustration for them for nothing."
Science writing news
NASW member Steve Nadis and Harvard mathematician Shing-Tung Yau report on the development of novel mathematical concepts at Harvard, and the contribution of Harvard researchers to the shaping of their field.
Absolutely not, Olga Khazan writes in an Atlantic post that won her a deluge of criticism: "If you want to be a reporter, learning code will not help," Khazan writes. "It will only waste time that you should have been using to write freelance articles or do internships — the real factors that lead to these increasingly scarce positions." Rebuttals from Noah Veltman, Steve Buttry, and others.
Thanks to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, up to five science journalists will have the opportunity to attend the Kavli Prize in Olso, Norway, Sept. 8-11, 2014. Meet and exchange with the winners of the Kavli Prize awarded in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience. The scholarships cover the costs of transportation from your own country and your stay in Oslo.
Nobel laureate Alice Munro has shared some thoughts in the past on writing and reading, and Maria Popova collects a few for a post on her Brain Pickings site. Quoting Munro: "A story is not like a road to follow … it’s more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows."
The oldest adult hominid skull ever found was unearthed in Georgia at a site called Dmanisi, along with other fossils, and Tabitha M. Powledge weighs the news in her blogs roundup: "The five individuals are very different from one another in shape of cranium and heaviness of features. So different that if they had been found in geographically different locales, they might well be classified as different species – even though present-day people vary just as much."
The GuideStar Blog was recently ranked 15th among the top nonprofit blogs, and its curator, Lindsay J.K. Nichols, explains how she raised it out of its previous obscurity: "As in all things communications-related, you have to know who you’re writing for, speaking to, learning from, etc. We all know that, right? Then why is it so hard to remember that when we’re blogging? Frankly, I think it’s because we (or the powers that be) want to be all things to all people."
From the Committee to Protect Journalists and former Washington Post editor Len Downie comes a report on the Obama Administration's war on leaks: "Journalists and transparency advocates say the White House curbs routine disclosure of information and deploys its own media to evade scrutiny by the press. Aggressive prosecution of leakers of classified information and broad electronic surveillance programs deter government sources from speaking to journalists."
A passion for biology prompted Teisha Rowland to write on a wide range of biology topics for her local newspaper while still in grad school. Now she’s collected and updated her columns in two books.