Event coverage

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Coverage begins in 2006 for the ScienceWriters meeting and 2009 for the AAAS meeting. To see programs for past ScienceWriters meetings, go to the ScienceWriters meeting site.

Three new online ventures in publishing have two things in common: top editors with old-school, self-described dead-tree credentials, and decent traffic — 150,000 or more unique views per month — for even long-form narratives. And all are managing to avoid or not rely on advertising to pay the bills.

Voice, story, character, structure, and authority. The elements of a great novel wouldn’t look much different (with the possible exception of authority). And the message of this afternoon's session "Great science writing part II: Building the big book" was clear: science writing, at its very best, is great literature.

Near the end of "Great science writing II: Building the big book" session, Robert Lee Hotz presented the panelists with a thought experiment. It was an update / modern cousin of the classic scenario: If your house is burning and you can grab one book from your bookshelf, what would it be?

The conflict between new media and old media or bloggers and journalists may seem like the hot topic these days, but at least one panelist this afternoon believes that such thinking is out of vogue. What is more important is talking about innovative ways to get science stories to people who don’t know it can be fun, even if that means mixing science in with news of Britney Spears, said panelist Bora Zivkovic at today’s session on “Rebooting science journalism."

Science writers aren’t just learning to write anymore; in these digital times they want to learn about Web video. Confession: I stole that lead. It’s the opening narration for a short video produced and directed by volunteers who attended the NASW workshop “Producing video, on camera and off.”