 PRESIDENT’S
LETTER
by Paul Raeburn
Awards program unchanged
At the NASW membership meeting in February, we had a discussion
on the merits of creating an NASW award to honor public information
and public relations work. I asked Earle Holland, who advocated such
an award, to prepare a memo on the pros and cons of establishing a
PIO award. Earle, who is the director of research communications at
Ohio State University, delivered a long and thoughtful report to the
officers a day or two before this year’s membership meeting.
We discussed the matter again, but did not make a decision. We did,
however, ask Andrew Skolnick to do a
piece exploring the issue for the Summer
2002 edition of ScienceWriters. Andy did a nice job collecting
opinions from many of our journalist and PIO members, and the officers
considered those opinions. And we talked to as many NASW members as
we could.
After much thought and discussion, the officers have decided not
to create an NASW award for PIOs. Each of us has his or her own reasons,
but we agreed that we do not need another award. As Andy pointed out
in his story in ScienceWriters (which you can see on the NASW Web
site), science pieces written by PIOs are already eligible for NASW’s
Science-in-Society
awards. It’s also true that the Science-in-Society awards
are aimed at writing that digs a little, gets below the surface, and
often makes powerful interests unhappy. A lot of public-information
work does not do those kinds of things, and so it would be unlikely
to win. Nevertheless, if PIOs enter work that sheds light on the societal
implications of scientific research, it will be eligible. Writing
by PIOs can be very good. Their stories can be very newsy and eloquent,
but institutional writing rarely shakes the status quo. A PIO award
could be established to recognize good writing, but the officers feel
that good writing is what we expect of ourselves all the time. Our
award should recognize something more than that.
Become involved
For the first time this year, the officers decided to get together
for a mid-year meeting. We met in New York in June to discuss various
issues that have come up before the officers and the board. I’d
like to take this opportunity to fill you in.
The most important thing we did, I think, was to vow to make NASW
a much more active organization. We want to be able to respond to
public-policy issues relating to science writing. And we want our
voice to be heard on broader journalism questions, such as whether
it is reasonable to restrict access to government information in response
to terrorist threats. We agreed that we would establish more committees
to address issues of concern—not only policy issues, but issues
related to jobs, the workplace, and training and education, among
others. We will be creating new committees, asking the board and officers
to do more—and looking for more volunteers.
We will soon be forming a committee, for example, to draft a statement
of “good standards and practices” that would apply to
NASW members—a kind of code of conduct for journalist members
and PIOs. We have also joined a group called the Council of Presidents
of Journalism Organizations. The council, whose members include the
Society of Professional Journalists,
the Society of Environmental Journalists,
and many other professional groups, is working to improve the training
of journalists and to establish itself as a voice on public-policy
issues related to journalism.
We would like to do more to protect the jobs of science journalists
during times when newspapers and magazines are cutting back. We’re
looking for opportunities to expand the kind of training we do with
our annual workshops. We may decide to seek foundation grants to support
such programs.
And we would like to address other issues of concern to you. Please
send us your ideas about what we can do to meet your needs. There
will be more opportunities for you to get involved in NASW activities,
and we hope many of you will volunteer. We will let you know when
we are forming new committees and undertaking new projects. We are
just in the process of putting together a committee to look for ways
to improve the nasw-jobs listserv, for example. And we’re looking
for other ideas.
Please let us—me, the officers, and the board—know what
we can do to serve you better.
#
Paul Raeburn is a senior writer at Business
Week. He can be reached at praeburn@nasw.org.
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