I'm a big advocate of social networking and spend a lot of time convincing scientists that these platforms aren’t mindless time-sucks. But while it’s easy to make the argument for social media, it’s a whole lot harder to quantify the benefits and show that online efforts are actually paying off.
ScienceWriters meeting coverage
In his NASW workshop, "Tools for tackling nightmare documents and data," freelancer reporter Tyler Dukes presented an Internet toolkit that can make investigative stories a more feasible prospect. To this end, he presented three online resources that make handling data and documents cheaper and easier: a PDF-file converter, a document sorting program, and a website that allows you to recruit people online to transcribe your interviews and complete other methodical jobs.
Jobs in science journalism at traditional media organizations are starting to return after their recession-driven decline, but these positions have emerged changed and much busier, said speakers at the ScienceWriters2012 session “Not dead yet: How science journalism is evolving at traditional news organizations” on October 27.
A public information officer writes up a press release for her institution, runs it past her source, and hands it off to a journalist who publishes a story about it. Research institutions have been using this news model for ages, but as Dylan put it, the times they are a-changin’.
On her deathbed, David Dobbs’ mother asked her children to cremate her body, releasing the ashes in the Pacific so she could be with a man named Angus. Dobbs embarked on a search for Angus, leading him to a story of wartime love, heartbreak, forensics and family. But no one seemed anxious to publish it. The New Yorker and Wired both rejected the idea. The story languished for years, until he pitched it to Evan Ratliff, editor at The Atavist, a newly launched publisher of ebooks.
In an intimate workshop designed to show writers how to transition to multimedia, Tom Linden moderated the panel, "As seen on TV & heard on radio: Science writing cross training" with panelists Cynthia Graber and Helen Chickering.
Three sessions from our recent Flagstaff conference were caught on video and are now available for viewing on our conference reports page. They are: "Straight to the Source: Helping Scientists Speak Directly to the Press," "How to Sell That Story You Can't Let Go," and "Science News, Spot News, or Both? Managing and Covering Science Protests." Also available is an audio recording of "Writing about Science for Non-Science Publications."
Three sessions from our recent Flagstaff conference were caught on video and are now available for viewing. They are: "How to Sell That Story You Can't Let Go," "Straight to the Source: Helping Scientists Speak Directly to the Press," and "Science News, Spot News, or Both? Managing and Covering Science Protests." Use the "read more" link to watch and listen.
John de Dios, a student in the journalism masters program at the University of Arizona in Tucson, captured dozens of images from ScienceWriters2011 in Flagstaff, Ariz., Oct. 14-18, 2011. Use the "read more" button to see them all.
Moderated by Czerne Reid, the session "Straight to the Source: Helping Scientists Speak Directly to the Press" was full of useful advice to PIOs. To me, the biggest message was delivered by Dennis Meredith, who said that scientists should get communication training rather than just media training, since "media is becoming one of the many outlets for scientists."