The NASW business meeting at ScienceWriters 2009 in Austin began at 8 am on Saturday. Happily, it included both hot coffee and some fresh organizational news.
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The first rule of on-camera interviews: "casting, casting, casting." That bit of advice — from Mary Miller, a writer, producer and webhost at The Exploratorium in San Francisco — was one of several suggestions offered to the audience at "The Art of the Interview — Extreme Edition," organized and moderated by freelance science journalist, Jill U. Adams, at ScienceWriters 2009 in Austin, Texas.
News organizations are more legally protected on the Internet than in other media, media lawyer Jonathan Hart of Dow Lohnes PLLA told attendees at ScienceWriters 2009 during, "Mini-Law School for Science Writers," an NASW session organized by Peggy Girshman.
Dan Gillmor is very optimistic about the future of journalism — whether it includes journalists or not. At the opening plenary session of ScienceWriters 2009 Oct. 17 in Austin, Texas, and just a few days away from observing the 10-year anniversary of his first journalist-blog posting, Gillmor talked about mining the great potential he sees in the rapidly morphing ways that people can get and use information.
Journalists — science writers, especially — are accustomed to reporting on innovation. Now many are living it. Today's tumult is forcing our profession to reexamine what we're really about and realizing our roles in society. Just as musicians were not about LPs or cassette tapes, we are not about printed-on-paper publications, many of which are being undermined by accelerating losses of ad and subscription revenue to often-free Internet alternatives.
Subscribers to the NASW-Talk list recently had a lively discussion on the ins and outs of finding images — and using them legally. Member Matt Bille summarized the findings for NASW All About Freelancing. Please add to this list. When you find a good source of images, add it in the comments section below, or send it to cybrarian@nasw.org, with a few words about the site.
Merck paid an undisclosed sum to Elsevier to produce several volumes of a publication that had the look of a peer-reviewed medical journal, but contained only reprinted or summarized articles — most of which presented favorable to Merck products — that appeared to act solely as marketing tools with no disclosure of company sponsorship.
NASW member Jennifer Frazer, an award-winning science writer, explores the age-old problem of how to record interviews without losing your quotes, your notes, or your mind.