"There's a huge value in doing things just because they're fun," said tumblr's Mark Coatney. Sounds great, but for those of us who are untutored in the ways of new media, where to begin?
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.
Trigger happy? You're in luck. Christie Nicholson, video producer and contributor to Scientific American, says now is the best time to get involved with online video. People’s TV and online video streaming are soon going to be one and the same, and Web video is growing at a phenomenal pace.
David Dobbs, accomplished author and moderator of the session "Rebooting Science Journalism: Adapting to the New Media Landscape," described his dismay at finally feeling like he "made it" in the freelance writing world, only to have the industry change and the magazine he worked for close.
There they are: hundreds of digits nestled in their little cells, staring back at you from within the Excel file they call home. Like a swarm of bees, the numbers assault your mind with a collective buzz signifying nothing. But there is a language to learn. You need to pull the melody out of the static, to give these pixelated numbers color, texture, flavor and symbolic meaning. You've got to visualize this data.
Last year, 14 stem cell biologists from outside the US complained to journal editors that their papers were being sabotaged in the peer review process, resulting in delays or rejections. A provocative claim — but was it true?
A growing share of science news – particularly online – is produced with funding from foundations, industry and government. For science journalism, this reality raises a bundle of ethical questions: How much disclosure is enough? Is it possible to have a meaningful editorial “firewall” at an organization that gets all its money from a single funder? And are these new content sources contributing to the decline of in-house coverage of science at old-line media organizations?
"Social tools are a way to answer the phone for your readers," said Mark Coatney, director/media evangelist at tumblr. Its value is in interaction with your reader.
Annie Paul, author of Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives, did not take the usual, ho-hum road to pen her book. “I went to extreme measures,” she jokes. “I got pregnant.”
Overheard last night from a sleeping science writer who wishes to remain anonymous: "Mumble mumble Twitter mumble."