If there was one take-home message from the workshop on Covering Controversies, it might be that science journalists have the obligation to investigate whether something is a legitimate controversy — and if it’s not, the obligation to avoid covering it at all.
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What makes a good editor and how do you become one? In a packed room at the annual NASW conference, four science editors discussed that question, as well as an editor’s duties, the relationship between editors and writers, and the ethical challenges editors regularly face.
After Melinda Wenner Moyer’s son was diagnosed with sensory processing disorder, she wrote an article called “My Son Has a Disorder that May Not Exist” for Scientific American Mind. She struggled, though, with whether to include her actual son and their family’s actual story. While their experiences were the motivation for exploring this topic, she worried that he could later be discriminated against because of the article (or mocked by his peers when they learned how to Google). In the end, she and her editors decided to use his real identity in the print version but an alias in the immortal online text.
From starting your own podcast to self-publishing an e-book, sometimes a science writer just feels the need to go it alone. Although it can be a challenge to make such ventures turn a profit, they can be worthwhile, said panelists during a session titled "DIY publishing — Does it yield?" held during the Science Writers 2015 Conference in Cambridge, Mass.
Is Magazine X late in paying you again? Unsure how much to charge for Project Y? We've all been there. We've collected some strategies for dealing with these situations — and preventing them in the first place. We even have some example emails you can send to editors, for different situations. Available to NASW members only.
In Heal: The Vital Role of Dogs in the Search for Cancer Cures, Arlene Weintraub describes promising collaborative research on cancers that are similar in dogs and humans, including gastric cancer, lymphoma, osteosarcoma, breast cancer, and melanoma. Benefits from this research, Weintraub reports, include new medications benefiting both people and pets. Spurred by the death of her sister, Beth, from gastric cancer at age 47, Weintraub visited eight universities and interviewed veterinarians, oncologists and other scientists, as well as drug company executives, pet owners, and others.
When you decide it’s time to write your will or update it, it’s also time to prepare a “letter of instructions.” Ignore the legalese. The letter is an informal document that spells out where you keep important personal papers and what your assets are, among other things.
For Getting Screwed, Sex Workers and the Law, Alison Bass interviewed sex workers, lawyers, sociologists, community activists, and others. Decriminalizing adult sex work, she asserts, would help sex workers protect themselves better from exploitation, and encourage them to practice safe sex and seek access to health care that could stem the spread of HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases. Funds diverted from pursuing prosecution, she contends, could benefit teenage runaways and the homeless, as well as individuals addicted to drugs.
In The President’s Salmon, Catherine Schmitt uses a one-time tradition — the presentation of the first salmon caught on the fly in Maine’s Penobscot River to the President of the United States — to chart the fate of both the salmon and the river in each President’s tenure.