Carey Goldberg knew the Boston Globe was in a full-blown financial crisis. Still, she was shocked when told in March that she had been laid off along with the rest of the Globe's part-timers. Effective immediately. No severance pay. Please schedule a time with security to collect your things.
Carey Goldberg knew the Boston Globe was in a full-blown financial crisis. Still, she was shocked when told in March that she had been laid off along with the rest of the Globe's part-timers. Effective immediately. No severance pay. Please schedule a time with security to collect your things.
"I had foolishly thought that my resume would protect me," Goldberg said. The former New York Times Boston bureau chief had joined the Globe staff six years ago to write about science on a part-time basis while her children were young.
In fact, she had been on the playground with her kids when a phone call brought the devastating news. She recounted her experience for Boston public radio station WBUR under the headline "Globe Journalist: 'It Wasn't You' Is No Consolation."
Now Goldberg faces a question shared by many science writers whose skills suddenly feel superannuated as traditional journalism and communications jobs seem to going the way of the dinosaurs that they still want to be write about.
"The central question for everyone is: Where is the future?" Goldberg said. "I've got another 20 years of a career. Where should I invest it?"
Goldberg has lots of company in grappling with these soul-searching questions. Whether they leaped or were pushed, health and science writers are figuring out how to leverage their storytelling, reporting, and strategic communications skills in a variety of ways to pay the mortgage and to find job satisfaction. Their personal stories offer a chronicle of the changing times and serve as models of hope for others trying to figure out what to do next.
Changing course in mid-career
Mid-career transitions are not new for science writers. For example, journalism fellowship programs have long been populated by restless writers looking for new professional opportunities. But widespread financial upheavals in the media industry and the dire state of the overall economy have transformed the emotional landscape of career moves.
"Now, you can't leave your chair, or your job will be in danger," said Phil Hilts, director of the MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship in Cambridge, Mass. In recent years, program demographics have changed from secure employees of major media organizations to apprehensive refugees of buyouts and layoffs — and freelances. Hilts' responsibilities now include retrofitting reporters with new media skills, such as creating audio podcasts or producing videos for the web.
"Never has there been such a sheer volume of highly talented people pursuing such a limited number of options," said Sabin Russell, who is setting up a freelance office and looking for work after 22 years with the San Francisco Chronicle. In March, during his MIT Knight fellowship, Russell opted for a buyout package to preserve his newspaper pension.
One popular next step for science journalists in transition is teaching journalism. "Paradoxically, at a time when journalism is in so much turmoil, many students want to be journalists," said Alison Bass, who teaches at Mount Holyoke College and Brandeis University in Massachusetts. Bass abandoned the Globe in 2000 to become executive editor of CIO Magazine. She's also produced a book, "Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower, and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial," which won a NASW Science in Society Journalism award (see page 4).
In another twist on teaching, Sky & Telescope editor Rick Fienberg left the magazine, after 22 years, and taught astronomy at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., as a visiting scientist. "I grew tired of the monthly grind and the incessant bad news about the publishing business," he wrote in an e-mail. "I'm not sure what I'll be doing next, but after two decades of relative stability, a little uncertainty isn't so terrible." Or so he tells himself.
Jobs Beyond Journalism
Mike Lemonick considers himself "seriously unqualified to do anything else" but science journalism. In 2007, he left TIME magazine after 20 years, taking what he estimated might be the last good severance package. He dived into teaching and writing. In the process he finished a book.
Just as he was assessing himself as unsuited to the uncertainties of income from book contracts and freelance articles, Lemonick got wind of Climate Central, a new nonprofit science and media organization created to provide clear and objective information about climate change to the public. Once again, Lemonick has a full-time job with benefits as a part of a staff that produces stories for mainstream media, such as Newsweek, TIME, PBS's The NewsHour, and Scientific American. The nonprofit relies on grants and foundation money, but "it's more comfortable being part of an organization that's asking for money than being an individual who is selling himself."
Nancy Shute, on the other hand, relishes her return to freelancing, which she did for 13 years before running the science section at U.S. News & World Report. "It's not for everybody," she said. The senior writer for health and medicine took a buyout in April, but she still blogs and writes features for the print monthly on contract. Enthusiastic about the way in which new media can empower writers, she trains journalists in how to use Twitter and other social networking tools. And she teaches science writing and multimedia for Johns Hopkins University's advanced academic program.
Don't expect an easy transition, cautions Matt Crenson. He left the Associated Press two years ago because "things were changing rapidly, and people were trying to figure out how to make money," he said. That aspect seems exactly the same in his new job as the content manager for 23andMe, a personal genomic-testing startup.
For the most part, Crenson feels far removed the days of being one of the "New Yorker writers of the AP," as the long-form colleagues on the national desk once styled themselves when times were good, "I really miss (reporting), but I did the right thing," said Crenson, who doesn't see a future in journalism.
Nils Bruzelius agrees. The former science editor is on his second buyout, first from the Boston Globe in 2001 and this year from the Washington Post. During his first full summer vacation since the eighth grade, Bruzelius explored a number of options. In September he took the post of executive editor at the Environmental Working Group, a D.C.-based research and advocacy group. "I have skills and insights useful for communicating to the public about science," Bruzelius said. "Everybody is talking about one thing: It's no longer the old model where if you have a story to tell, you go to a reporter at a newspaper, wire service, or major paper." At EWG, Bruzelius works alongside another former journalist, Elaine Shannon, who had a long career at TIME and Newsweek.
Another former Washington Post journalist, Rick Weiss, spent nine months as a senior fellow at the think tank Center for American Progress where he immersed himself in science blogging. Then came an e-mail asking: Have you ever considered public service? "I thought, 'Now is the time,"" Weiss texted from his Blackberry. In April, Weiss joined The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in April as assistant director of strategic communications and senior science policy analyst.
"The possibility of working on science and technology policy in an Administration that really 'gets science' was intriguing, even exciting," he said. Weiss didn't want to work solely as a flack, though he was willing to do so part-time for the right cause. He was able to create a position that is half communications and half policy work. It gives him access to the fascinating, if Byzantine and sometimes frustrating, world of federal science, technology, and R&D policymaking. "I am working harder and longer hours than I've ever worked in my life," he said.
Over on the Hill, Paul Thacker works as an investigator for Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA). Thacker revels in his role as watchdog shedding light on hidden or improper financial relationships between doctors and drug companies. "I feel much more effective now," said Thacker, who resigned from the American Chemical Society after his investigative reporting raised hackles internally and prompted one angry ACS board member to characterize Thacker's reporting as "anti-industry." Thacker's work for Grassley has changed national policies about the relationship between physicians and companies, he said.
Rick Borchelt also likes being in a position to make a difference in government policy and to ensure the public knows where their tax dollars went. He'll have plenty of opportunity to do just that in his new job as communications director to the chief science officer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. At the start of summer, Borchelt lost his favorite part of the job when the Center for Genetics and Public Policy, at Johns Hopkins, parted ways with the Pew Charitable Trusts in the foundation's transition to move projects in-house. The Pew money has supported "cool things like policy reports, Hill briefings, and policy seminars," Borchelt said.
On the communications side, it's not a rosy picture, but Borchelt and others report that there are jobs out there. Elizabeth Thomson advises looking for communications jobs at universities. That's exactly what she did when her job overseeing science and engineering news at MIT was cut in June. In a lateral move that barely interrupted her 22-year career, Thomson became associate director of communications in the MIT development office.
Former WBUR health and science reporter Allan Coukell not only survived his project's move this year to Pew, he received a promotion. Two years ago, the trained pharmacist returned to his roots, where he now directs the Pew Prescription Project, a prescription drug policy and advocacy initiative. Coukell is frequently quoted in stories about the need for tighter regulation of conflicts of interest created by the extensive financial ties between doctors and drug companies.
In the process of writing a book about how scientists can explain their work to their audiences, Dennis Meredith, the former director of research communications at Duke University, launched his own publishing business from the wooded mountains of North Carolina. His advice for science writers who see their future as book authors and want to self publish is posted on the NASW website.
"Basically," he said, "don't do it unless you have money, time, and a target audience you can persuade to buy your book." When it comes to making a living, "the book is only a centerpiece of a broader career," he said. "You have to think of yourself as an information industry. You have to find a productive niche with enough customers that pay enough."
Carol Cruzan Morton is a freelance journalist and science writer at Harvard Medical School. She recalls early career advice from an Oregon journalist/nurse who wrote for the New Yorker: Don't try to make a living as a writer.
(NASW members can read the rest of the Fall 2009 ScienceWriters by logging into the members area.)
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