NEWS FROM AFAR

by Jim Cornell

AAAS Meeting inspires a European Clone

The AAAS annual meeting—for all that American journalists bemoan its faults and failings—has become a major stop on the “Science Writing World Tour.” The AAAS’s ability to attract media attention has not gone unnoticed abroad, with other countries and regions hoping to emulate its success.

Among the many foreign visitors at last February’s meeting in Boston was one special group: six young science-writing wannabes from Germany. Sponsored by the Robert Bosch Foundation of Stuttgart, the journalists—for the most part, young general-assignment reporters from regional newspapers—were selected on the basis of a competitive application process and interest in science/technology/medical reporting.

Informally paired with ISWA “mentors,” the six reporters attended scientific sessions, press conferences, social events, and NASW workshops (after first joining NASW, of course).

This Boston test run of the Bosch Fellows Program was deemed a great success. The young reporters gained valuable experience and their readers back home gained new insights into American science, technology, and society. The Bosch Foundation subsequently approved a proposal to send up to 10 science-writing rookies to the AAAS meeting for the next three years.

The Bosch Foundation (www.bosch-stiftung.de/english/), established in 1964 and named for inventor-industrialist Robert Bosch (1861-1942), is one of Germany’s largest foundations—and one of the few anywhere that support science journalism. The foundation funds several exchange programs between the United States and Germany, including one that brings American reporters there for a first-hand look at German science and society. In keeping with its broad mandate to promote international understanding, Bosch hopes to support the travel of several American journalists to the first EUROSCIENCE meeting in Stockholm in 2004.

EUROSCIENCE 2004 is loosely based on the AAAS meeting model. The exact date for the meeting is yet to be announced; however, there is some thought that it might be held immediately following the Nobel-prize announcements in October. For more information, see www.euroscience.org; or contact Carl Sundberg, carl.j.sundberg@fyfa.ki.se, at the Karolinska Institut in Stockholm.

This fall the Bosch Foundation contacted German regional newspapers and selected a new group of young journalists who will attend the 2003 AAAS meeting in Denver. NASW members who are planning to be at that meeting might consider joining their ISWA colleagues to serve as mentors for the 2003 Bosch Fellows. Those writers who did so this year found it a most undemanding and quite satisfying experience.

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Jim Cornell is president of the International Science Writers Association. Send items on interest—international programs, conferences, events, etc.—to cornelljc@earthlink.net.

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