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  • Oct 25 2007

    The future of science journalism

    Stand-alone newspaper science sections rose to prominence in the late 1980s as a popular venue for in-depth science coverage, reaching a peak of 95 sections in 1989. Since then, they have been dropping in number and size, particularly among smaller papers. Those that remain have shifted dramatically toward softer consumer-oriented, "news you can use" medicine and personal health coverage and away from science topics like physics, astronomy, and earth sciences.

  • Oct 23 2007

    Technology Outside the Box

    By Emma Marris

    At a session filled with video clips, multimedia web surfing and, yes, someone muttering at the display computer "I am a Mac person. How do you ... ," panelists at the "21st Century Science Writing: New Tools for Thinking Outside the Box" session of this year's NASW meeting talked blogs, YouTube, Facebook and online gambling. Each panelist presented a case study or two of how they use new technologies to tell stories better and faster.

  • Oct 23 2007

    Perfect Pitch

    By Alison Drain

    NASW took place as baseball's best were on the verge of a World Series — and players and writers alike worked to perfect their pitches.

  • Oct 23 2007

    Taming the Digital Office

    By Sharon Levy

    The speakers at "Taming the Digital Office" would find it odd, perhaps even perverse, that I'm drafting this story using pen and paper. My work style is clearly very different from that of the computer-savvy members of the panel.

  • Oct 23 2007

    E.coli to Con Agra: Deconstructing the food, wine, and agribusiness industries

    By Jennifer Weeks

    Session organizer and freelancer Karyn Hede designed this session for the 2007 NASW Science in Society meeting to spotlight intersections between food, wine, and science, and to suggest new story ideas in this field. As she noted, food safety stories have important science elements. For example, the nationwide outbreak of E. Coli 0157:H7 in 2006 that was traced to California spinach raised questions about how to avoid similar contamination and how often produce should be tested.

  • Oct 23 2007

    PR Stays True to Science

    By Krista West

    Science writers are in the business of communicating real, worthwhile, exciting science — working either as science journalists or public information officers. It's not about the job title; it's about communicating new scientific discoveries to the intended audience.

  • Oct 20 2007

    NASW Science in Society meeting

    More than 300 science writers from around the world gathered in Spokane, Washington, on October 19 to kick off the annual NASW Science in Society meeting. Early highlights included a trip to the world's only adult grizzly bear research facility, located at Washington State University in Pullman, and the "Science Cabaret," which featured performances of music, theater, and comedy skits about science. Stay tuned to the Web for reports on all the NASW workshop sessions by this year's NASW Travel Fellows.

  • Oct 11 2007

    NASW mentoring program travel stipends

    Thanks to a generous grant from the William T. Golden Endowment Fund at AAAS, the NASW Mentoring Program can offer as many as 10 undergraduate students interested in science journalism up to $1000 in travel expenses to attend the 2008 AAAS meeting in Boston. The meeting will be held from February 14 to 18, 2008. NASW's education committee will select the students independently from AAAS and will pair each one with a veteran writer for a one-day mentorship program.

  • Sep 15 2007

    Geeta Anand wins 2007 Victor Cohn Prize

    Geeta Anand, a New York-based senior special writer for the Wall Street Journal's investigative group, has been awarded the 2007 Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting for a powerful series of exhaustively reported stories displaying extraordinary narrative technique, emotional power, and sharp, intelligent analysis.

  • Sep 13 2007

    Science-in-Society Journalism Award winners

    The winners of the 2007 Science-in-Society Journalism Awards, sponsored by the National Association of Science Writers are: Nicholas Wade for his book Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors (Penguin), Kenneth Weiss and Usha Lee McFarling for their Los Angeles Times series "Altered Oceans," and David Sington for his documentary Dimming the Sun, which appeared on PBS's NOVA television series.