Not all social media are created equal for news purposes, three studies find. Rick Borchelt discusses them in "Scholarly pursuits: Academic research relevant to the workaday world of science writing." Excerpted from the Summer 2011 ScienceWriters.
ScienceWriters magazine
The party leaders vying to form the next Canadian government are being urged to “take off the muzzles” from federal scientists. Emily Chung explains the details in an excerpt from the Summer 2011 ScienceWriters.
Thinking of taking a home office as a tax deduction? Not so fast, says ScienceWriters columnist Julian Block. Just because you can walk 20 feet from your bedroom to your work area and conduct business in your bathrobe doesn’t mean the nook with the computer qualifies as a bona fide office. Excerpted from the Summer 2011 issue.
Mobilizing to cover a complex, breaking story on the other side of the world is never easy. Doing it when reliable sources are clamming up is even harder. In this except from the Summer 2011 ScienceWriters, Joe Palca discusses how National Public Radio covered Japan's earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown.
Americans paid dearly for the space shuttle. Was the investment worth it? George Alexander, who covered the shuttle for the Los Angeles Times from the project's initiation in 1972 until 1985, reviews the evidence for and against that proposition. Excepted from the Summer 2011 ScienceWriters.
An AAAS media/science panel delves into the proper role of media in convincing the public about climate change and explores differing views on what precisely makes news, helping illustrate scientists’ and media’s sometimes vast cultural differences. From the Spring 2011 ScienceWriters,
Competition with Internet blogs could stir science journalists in traditional media to correct systemic faults in science reporting, says John Rennie. An excerpt from the Spring 2011 issue of ScienceWriters.
Dennis Meredith writes that Explaining Research and Working with Public Information Officers are making him more money through workshops and speaking engagements than from sales. Meredith, who created the Marketing and publishing resource on the ScienceWriters web site, offers advice on promotion and self-publishing in the Spring 2011 issue of ScienceWriters magazine, free to NASW members.
Reviews and "buy now" links for eight new books have been posted in the ScienceWriters Bookstore, including the story of a renegade physician named Jean Denis, who transfused calf’s blood into one of Paris’s most notorious madmen in 1867 and was charged with murder, and two works on global climate change. Use the search box on the Bookstore page to buy these books or anything sold at Amazon.com. Your purchases through this site help fund NASW programs and services.
The Spring 2011 issue of ScienceWriters is now available for downloading in PDF format in the members area. Included is a story in which author Dennis Meredith shares his cash flow report. Also, the differences between science and journalism; lower self-employment taxes for 2011; and how science blogs could improve traditional science reporting.