In part of a Guardian series, David Dobbs answers eight questions about science writing, starting with "What's a good science story?" His reply: "In terms of material, I look for three things in particular: an alluring scientific idea or discovery; a scientist who is a highly intriguing figure on his or her own or who can talk engagingly; and either a subject or an event in which we see the idea or process at work." Answers from other writers.
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President Obama's nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy, is being pressed to improve that agency's transparency, Curtis Brainard reports: "The day before McCarthy … faced off with the Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works, a group of Republicans on the committee and the Society of Environmental Journalists released separate statements, with different motivations, accusing the agency of secrecy and calling for more openness."
Tommy Tomlinson deconstructs the 1976 hit "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" for Nieman Storyboard and shows how it resembles a well-written short news story, complete with a literary hook, shifts in perspective, rising tension, and details that foreshadow the ship's tragic sinking: "He even has a nut graf! It’s not explicit, but you know the gales of November did something bad to a very big ship. That’s enough — and better than revealing everything up top."
It wasn't the first non-profit to win journalism's biggest prize, but it may be the smallest. Jeff Bercovici in Forbes explains how InsideClimate News outdueled the media behemoths, and where it plans to go now. More from the Brian Stelter in the New York Times, Charlie Petit on the Knight Tracker, Curtis Brainard in CJR, and Joe Pompeo at Capital New York.
Bombs at the Boston marathon and explosions at a Texas fertilizer plant: compare and contrast. Terrorism vs. (probable) accident. Is Twitter getting better as a news tool? After the marathon blasts, the best of medicine leapt into action. Action at the Supreme Court on human gene patenting. The dismal (non)science: Is worldwide economic misery due to an Excel coding error?
Traditional news brands are dying, but in a Nieman Journalism Lab post Nicco Mele and John Wihbey propose a solution: Turn them into talent platforms. "This means that were you to buy the Los Angeles Times, you might reorient it as 50 to 100 blogs that all have a common institutional home but are driven by news talents who convene discrete audiences. They could be armed by their news institution with video, audio, data visualization, research resources, and support."
As we submit this article, the election season has just wrapped up in the United States. During our observation of the various campaigns, we noticed a general lack of discussion about science in the political discourse. Some recently published research gives us some ideas about what level of engagement is appropriate in raising these issues and how that engagement sways public opinion.
Gabrielle Rabinowitz and Emily Jane Dennis offer tips for reading science news critically, including how to search the scientific literature for the data behind the story, and how to evaluate it after you've found it: "Even if you can’t access or understand an article, you can still find out if the research was published in a reputable journal. Look for the 'impact factor' of the journal where an article was published (search for the journal name + 'impact factor')."
Poynter's Susanna Speier surveys the platforms available to writers who want to post their work online but aren't willing to create their own web sites or pay for a custom-made site: "Do they offer a substantial enough advantage to justify the time required to compile, archive, digitize, organize, optimize, connect, upload and then maintain an anthology of brand-consistent clips, feature stories and — in some cases — multimedia work on yet another social platform?"