NASW 2003 Annual Meeting (archived)

Plenary Session: "Are We Missing the Real Climate Change Story?" 8:30-10:30 a.m.

Breakout Sessions: 11:00 a.m.-12:20 p.m.

• NIH Director Speaks to NASW on "Medical Discovery in the 21st Century"
• "Break Out of the Global Warming Trap: An Update from the Front Lines of Science, Policy & the Media" (Weather and Climate Track)
• "Infoshop Collaboration Secrets: Increase Your Coverage Power" (Pro track, PIO)
• "Storytelling 101: Pulitzer Tale Telling" (Pro Track)

Please note that the 11:00 a.m.-12:20 p.m. panel session, "Plagiarism: When It Happens to You," has been canceled.

Network Luncheon: 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m.

Breakout Sessions: 2:00-3:20 p.m.

• "Weather and Climate Models: Their Strengths and Limitations" (Weather and Climate Track)
• "Intersection of Marketing, PR, and Science Writing: Selling or Telling?" (Pro Track)
• "Writing Book Proposals that Sell" (Pro Track)
• "Helping Scientists Talk to the Media" (Rookie Track, PIO)

Breakout Sessions: 3:50-5:10 p.m.

• "Extreme Weather Stories: Storm Clouds and Silver Linings" (Weather and Climate Track)
• "Embargoed for Release: Does it Help or Hurt?" (Pro Track)
• "When Marketing Masquerades as News" (Rookie and Pro Track, PIO)
• "Beyond Google: New Strategies for Web Research" (Pro Track)

Organizers: J. Madeleine Nash, Time; Krishna Ramanujan, NASA; Ashley Simons, SeaWeb/COMPASS

Moderator: Kristopher M. Wilson, Professor of Environmental Journalism, University of Texas, Austin, Texas

Hard-to-predict impacts, popular misperceptions, political influences, and scientific complexity make climate change a tricky topic to cover. How can we be sure we are handling it well? Do we, as panelist Andrew P. Dobson wryly observes, sometimes get things half right for the wrong reasons? This session focuses on questions we ought to be asking of our sources, our editors, and ourselves.

• Is there an acceptable concentration of greenhouse gases? A biological perspective.

Thomas E. Lovejoy, President, Heinz Center; former Chief Biodiversity Advisor to the World Bank; Co-Editor, Climate Change and Biodiversity (Yale University, 2004)

• How should we treat the uncertainty in climate predictions? Global change and its impacts on agriculture at local and regional scales.

Linda O. Mearns, Senior Scientist, Environmental and Societal Impacts Group, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado

• Will a warmer world be a sicker world? The complex interplay between ecosystems, climate change and diseases in wildlife and humans.

Andrew P. Dobson, Epidemiologist and Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.

• What do we need to know about the future to make decisions in the present? Could it be that solutions to climate change are right before our eyes, yet we don't see them? A critical look at the role of science in sustaining political gridlock on climate change.

Roger A. Pielke Jr, Associate Professor, Environmental Studies Program, University of Colorado at Boulder, and Director, Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences

Note: The 11:00-12:20 panel session, "Plagiarism: When It Happens to You", has been canceled.

• NIH Director Speaks to NASW on "Medical Discovery in the 21st Century"

National Institutes of Health Director Elias Adam Zerhouni, M.D., will speak at NASW 2003 Denver. Dr. Zerhouni will give a presentation about what he's done since taking over the directorship in May, 2002, and his vision for the NIH and medical research in the future. As NASW President-Elect Deborah Blum puts it, "this is an exciting opportunity for members to talk with the new NIH director in a relatively exclusive fashion. Lots of people may have questions that they wouldn't get to ask him directly otherwise."



Elias Adam Zerhouni, M.D.

Moderator: Boyce Rensberger, Director of the MIT Knight Science Journalism program, former Science Editor of the Washington Post

All members attending the workshops are welcome to attend this special NIH Director session in lieu of the other 11 a.m. breakout panel sessions. No change in prior registration is necessary. Please note that one of the panel sessions ("Plagiarism: When It Happens to You") has been canceled to accommodate this session.

• "Break Out of the Global Warming Trap: An Update from the Front Lines of Science, Policy & the Media" (Weather and Climate Track)

Organizer: Tom Yulsman, Associate Professor, Center for Environmental Journalism, and Environmental Studies Program, University of Colorado at Boulder

As Roger Pielke Jr., one of our panelists, has often said, the climate change debate has unfortunately been framed with a simple-minded question: "Global Warming: yes or no?" To serve our audiences better, we journalists must extricate ourselves from this trap. This panel should help.

The problem of global environmental protection has been framed in a way that has led to political gridlock with no realistic prospect of a solution. To break out, we must reframe the issues. Once we know the science and policy issues, how can we better communicate them to our audiences? More specifically, how can we use effective story telling to communicate certainty, consensus, and uncertainty?

Panelists:

• James White, Professor of Geological Sciences and Director, Environmental Studies Program, University of Colorado at Boulder
• Kristopher M. Wilson, Professor of Environmental Journalism, University of Texas, Austin, Texas
• Jack Williams, Weather Editor, USA Today
• "Infoshop Collaboration Secrets: Increase Your Coverage Power" (Pro track, PIO)

Organizer and Moderator: Craig Hicks, National Academy of Sciences

Whether you're working on a shoestring or simply want to get the most bang for the buck, collaborating with other news and information shops can increase your institution's "coverage power." Join a panel of your peers representing research journals, scientific societies, federal granting agencies, and universities as they discuss the most effective strategies for mutual gain. Learn how to make the most of collaborative relationships to keep track of important publication dates and research, coordinate release plans and embargoes, and achieve national coverage.

Panelists:

• Joseph Bonner, Director of Communications, the Rockefeller University
• Leslie Fink, Media Relations Section Head, National Science Foundation
• Harvey Leifert, Public Information Manager, American Geophysical Union
• Peter Wrobel, Managing Editor, Nature
• "Storytelling 101: Pulitzer Tale Telling" (Pro Track)

Organizer: Diedtra Henderson, Science Writer, the Denver Post

You've read other science writers' breathtaking narratives filled with strong story lines that hook you from start to finish — pieces filled with sights, sounds, and captivating characters. But how can you take your own science stories from 12-inch dailies to 50-inch (and longer) narrative pieces? Learn the fundamentals of spinning a compelling yarn from a panel of Pulitzer winners.

Panelists:

• Tom Hallman, Senior Reporter, the (Portland) Oregonian
• Jon Franklin, Philip Merrill Professor of Journalism, University of Maryland
• Bruce DeSilva, National Enterprise News & Features Editor, Associated Press; former Editor and Investigative and Medical Writer, Hartford Courant and Providence Journal

Organizers will announce table topics prior to the workshops. Contact lavendel@nasw.org to request or offer to host a table on a topic of your choice.

• "Weather and Climate Models: Their Strengths and Limitations" (Weather and Climate Track)

Organizer: Jarrett Cohen, Senior Science Writer, Computational Technologies Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Computer models are being employed in tasks ranging from seven-day weather forecasts to interannual predictions of El Niño/La Niña and their climatic effects, to simulations of decades-long global warming scenarios. This backgrounder panel will provide a brief history of weather and climate modeling and report on current practices, recent improvements, and expected near-term advances. Panelists discuss how well the models represent the world and how much governments can rely on them for making policies. The panel also evaluates if the media have paid adequate attention to these issues, especially in communicating both the power and limitations of these models.

Moderator: C. Roberto Mechoso, Professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles

Panelists:

• Lisa Goddard, Research Scientist, Forecasting and Prediction Research, International Research Institute for Climate Prediction
• Stephen H. Schneider, Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University
• Andrew C. Revkin, Environment Reporter, the New York Times
• "Intersection of Marketing, PR, and Science Writing: Selling or Telling?" (Pro Track)

Organizer: Suzanne Clancy, Scientific Liaison, The Burnham Institute

During the last decade, marketing has had a profound impact on public relations offices in universities, hospitals, and basic research institutions. This workshop examines the positive and negative impact of marketing techniques on communications efforts when the "product" is scientific or medical research. Since most academic PIOs do not have marketing backgrounds, do they need to re-package themselves as marketing types? If science PR professionals need to gain marketing expertise in order to be competitive, how do they go about gaining these skills?

Panelists:

• Earle Holland, Director, Research Communications, Ohio State University
• Joyce Peterson, Public Information Manager, The Jackson Laboratory
• Franklin Hoke, Director of Public Relations, Wistar Institute
• "Writing Book Proposals that Sell" (Pro Track)

Organizer: Rebecca Skloot, Associate Editor, Popular Science and Author, HeLa: The Immortal Cells of Henrietta Lacks, (Times Books, forthcoming)

Writing a successful book proposal is an art all its own: Crafting introductions that hook an editor's attention; focusing the essence of your book into a one or two sentence pitch that will grab agents and editors; developing a cohesive outline of your book . . . it's enough to make you mad. But fortunately, you're not in it alone. Through this panel, you will meet the many people involved in proposal writing and learn from their experience: Learn how writers craft successful proposals, how writers find agents who work behind the scenes to help develop those proposals, how they sell them, what editors look for in a proposal, and more.

Panelists:

• Simon Lipskar, Literary Agent, Writers House
• Ingrid Wickelgren, Author of Gene Masters: How a New Breed of Scientific Entrepreneurs Raced for the Biggest Prize in Biology, Times Books, 2002
• Wendy Hubbert, Senior Editor, Putnam
• Laura van Dam, Senior Editor, Houghton Mifflin Co.
• "Helping Scientists Talk to the Media" (Rookie Track, PIO)

Organizers: Mary Hanson, National Science Foundation; Melissa Blouin, Science and Research Communications Manager, University of Arkansas

PIOs everywhere sing the same refrain: "Where media are concerned, scientists just don't get it!" This panel will showcase techniques to help them "get it." If a journalist-scientist gap exists, PIOs know how to fill it. If the message loop is incomplete, PIOs can help close it. We don't need more research — only more good examples and some perseverance. Panelists reveal what works — and doesn't, while sharing their best examples of "PIO as go-between."

Panelists:

• Judy Jackson, Public Affairs Director, Fermi National Accelerator Lab (Fermilab)
• Mary Hanson, Senior Project Facilitator, Office of Legislative and Public Affairs, National Science Foundation
• Nancy Shute, Senior Writer, U.S. News & World Report
• Ron Atlas, American Society for Microbiology
• Breakout Sessions: 3:50-5:10 p.m.

"Extreme Weather Stories: Storm Clouds and Silver Linings" (Weather and Climate Track)

Organizers: Deborah Blum, Freelance, and Professor of Journalism, University of Wisconsin; Robin Marantz Henig, Freelance

Natural disasters offer writers a way to blend first-class science with dramatic story-telling. Stories about hurricanes, blizzards, record floods and sweeping storms have recently been among the most successful science books. This panel explores how different writers make use of such events to tell compelling stories on multiple levels.

Moderator: John D. Cox, author, Storm Watchers: The Turbulent History of Weather Prediction from Franklin's Kite to El Niño (John Wiley and Sons, 2002)

Panelists:

• David Laskin, author, Braving the Elements: The Stormy History of America's Weather, (Anchor Books, 1997)
• McKay Jenkins, author, White Death: Tragedy and Heroism in an Avalanche Zone, (Anchor Books, 2001)
• "Embargoed for Release: Does it Help or Hurt?" (Pro Track)

Top journals like Science, Nature, and the New England Journal of Medicine say that the embargo system helps science journalism by giving writers the time and information they need to produce accurate stories. Many journalists agree — but others consider the embargo to be the bane of the profession. This session explores whether embargoes help or hurt journalists, their audience, scientists, and science journals.

Organizers and Moderators: Nell Boyce, Associate Editor, U.S. News & World Report; Josh Fischman, Deputy Editor, U.S. News & World Report

Panelists:

• Peter Wrobel, Managing Editor, Nature, and Supervisor, Nature's Press Service
• Harvey Leifert, Public Information Manager, American Geophysical Union
• Vince Kiernan, Reporter, Chronicle of Higher Education, and author, PhD. Dissertation on Embargoes
• "When Marketing Masquerades as News" (Rookie and Pro Track, PIO)

Organizer and Moderator: Karen Blum, Assistant Director of Media Relations, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore

The explosion of cable channels, television production companies, and Internet sites has led to almost unlimited chances to get your institution in the spotlight. But look carefully: Some of these so-called news operations are cleverly disguised marketing vehicles for private industry or the producers themselves. Our panel will teach you how to evaluate these "opportunities" and prevent your expert from unknowingly becoming a spokesperson for someone else.

Panelists:

• Joann Rodgers, Director of Media Relations and Deputy Director of Public Affairs, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore
• Barbara Hyde, Director Of Communications, American Society For Microbiology
• Rick Borchelt, Director of Communications and Public Affairs, Whitehead Institute
• "Beyond Google: New Strategies for Web Research" (Pro Track)

Organizer: Tom Roberts, The National Academies

Stop wasting time on the Web and increase the speed, accuracy, and value of your online searches. A panel of journalists, researchers, and technologists discuss strategies and demonstrate tools for uncovering and using information on the Web. Participants will learn how to find answers faster on deadline, add depth and dimension to stories, uncover new expert sources and "supercharge" their reporting by using sophisticated search tools and techniques.

Moderator: Tom Roberts, Deputy Managing Editor, National-Academies.org

Panelists:

• Michael Jensen, Director of Web Communications, The National Academies
• Cary Schneider, News Research Manager, the Los Angeles Times
• Alan M. Schlein, author, Find It Online: The Complete Guide to Online Research.