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| Volume 46, Number 1, Spring/Summer 1998 |
All candidates for election as members-at-large of the executive committee were asked to submit a brief biographical statement. Regrettably, the editor didn't stipulate whether to use first- or third-person. At any rate, they follow:
In two decades of full-time freelancing in magazines, books and elsewhere, nothing has helped me more than the friendship and guidance I've gained through writers' organizations. I'd like to see NASW both free-lance friendlier and more congenial and helpful to all its members, however they earn their daily bread. Service on the boards of ASJA, DCSWA and WIW has taught me lots about what writers working together can accomplish. Please see the archived NASW-talk constitutional debate at the NASW website for more on my views.
Rick is the manager of media relation for Oak Ridge National Laboratory and former White House S&T press aide. He's also worked in media relations for the US House of Representatives Science Committee, the National Academy of Sciences, and the University of Maryland. He is in his second term on the NASW Board representing the associate membership, and served this past year on the Constitution Committee recommending changes in NASW governance. For the past three years, he also has coordinated the NASW mentoring program for science writers entering the field, and is a contributing author to the Field Guide for Science Writers. A naturalist by training, Rick is leading a three-year study for NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and the University of Florida to recommend future directions for science communication research and to assess "best practices" in communicating science to general audiences.
I'm the executive editor of Popular Science, where I've held various titles since starting as a copy editor in 1987. As executive editor, I help direct the magazine's coverage of science and technology, but I still write and line edit as often as I can. Before Popular Science, I was a municipal reporter for a Gannett daily newspaper in Westchester County, New York, who found excuses to cover science stories whenever I could. Like many people, I became a science writer to satisfy my endless curiosity about how the world works, and to then (I hope) entertain and educate others with the storytelling. Along those lines, I'm keenly interested in helping young science writers. I run Popular Science's internships, and one thing I'd like to do for NASW is help to expand the Mentoring Program. Because learning is never complete, I'd also like to work on the professional program and on promoting quality science journalism.
I've been a science writer for 12 years, and an NASW member for most of that time. I've worked for Nature, the biotech fax newspaper BioWorld, Science News, and the late, great Journal of NIH Research (for which I was science editor). I'm currently on the board of editors at Scientific American. I was a board member of DCSWA for four years (one year as program chair and one year as president). I'm greatly saddened by the divisions that have arisen between NASW members over the past year. I support abolishing the two-tier membership system. It's time to heal our wounds and recognize that the changing face of science writing means that the old distinction between "associate" and "active" members no longer applies.
Ira Flatow has spent 30 years as a radio/television science broadcaster. He got his first taste of television news working on a morning TV news program at his New York City high school. Starting in 1971, Flatow has covered medicine, health, technology and the environment as a staff reporter and correspondent for National Public Radio. Currently, Flatow is host of NPR's Talk of the Nation: Science Friday. He is also president of ScienCentral, Inc., a company dedicated to increasing the amount of science news shown on television. Flatow has done science reporting for the CBS This Morning program and was host and writer of the Emmy Award television science series Newton's Apple. Flatow is the author of a number of books and is a double winner of the AAAS-Westinghouse science award, the only person to win for both radio and television in one year. He currently serves on the NASW board member and seeks reelection.
Catherine Foster, now in her second term on the NASW board of directors, has been director of science communications and manager of media relations at the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory since 1991. From 1986 to 1991, she was science editor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She began writing about science in 1979 at The Oak Ridger, the newspaper in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Foster was one of the first group of Vannevar Bush Fellows (now Knight Fellows) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Jon Franklin has almost 30 years' experience as a science writer, including 15 years at The Evening Sun in Baltimore. He also spend 11 years in academia before returning to newspapering at The News and Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1998. He has won a variety of prizes, including two Pulitzers, and is the author of five books, including Writing for Story and Molecules of the Mind.
Elaine Freeman has been a member of the Office of Communications and Public Affairs at The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions for more than 20 years, serving as executive director of that office since 1982. Previously, she was first director of the Cancer Control Communications Unit of the National Cancer Institute and established the nationwide Cancer Information Service, a telephone resource for citizens on up-to-date NCI information. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Goucher College, Freeman started her career at the Baltimore News American while still in college, was a staff reporter for the Palo Alto Times, and has written articles for publications ranging from The New York Times Magazine to the Hopkins Magazine. She is a two-time winner of the Newsweek Grand Award for news and information writing presented in conjunction with the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and a recipient of the CASE/National Science Foundation award for research communications.
Sharon M. Friedman has directed the Science and Environmental Writing Program at Lehigh University and studied trends in media coverage of science and environmental issues for 20 years. Previously she was a science information officer for the National Academy of Sciences and Pennsylvania State University. A lifetime NASW member, she believes that membership issues have been overemphasized since science writers come in many classifications, far too numerous to fit into easy categories. She would direct NASW's energies toward increasing activities for members including the pre-convention programs at AAAS, providing tipsheets about upcoming stories and offering an orientation/career program for new science writers and students at AAAS meetings.
As senior science editor for Purdue University's News Service, Susan Gaidos has covered science and engineering news since 1982, and has directed the university's national science news efforts since 1987. Her science-writing team has received numerous awards from CASE for news and science writing, as well as innovative use of electronic technology. She has been a faculty advisor to a student communications group and a guest instructor for a science journalism course at Purdue. Her educational background is in journalism and biology. Gaidos is interested in working with NASW members to promote science communications at all levels. She helped organize the first NASW workshop for PIOs, and has presented information on Purdue's use of computer-related technologies at workshops during each of the past four years. As a board member, she would promote efforts to find ways to reach other member PIOs, perhaps through a Web-based mentoring program. She would also initiate efforts to establish a formal recognition/award program for excellence in writing and/or service for PIOs in NASW.
For the past decade, I've been a freelance writer/editor and an active NASW member. I've written about science, medicine, and technology for Discover, Earth, BioScience, and HealthNews, among others. Recently, I've worked as an editorial consultant for OnHealth, a new on-line health magazine and information site. Ever since NASW Online was a bulletin board run by the American Chemical Society, I've traded advice and ideas with fellow NASW members electronically. With others, I lobbied for the formation of a Freelance committee and have served on that committee ever since. I organized the 1997 NASW freelance workshops at the Seattle meeting, and am working on the 1999 freelance workshops in Anaheim. NASW has taken steps in the past few years to become a modern professional organization and to recognize and support freelancers, who make up about half the active membership. If I'm elected to the board, I will work to make sure that progress continues.
When my first daughter was born 18 years ago, I joined NASW and became a full-time, freelance writer. Prior to that, I'd been a staff writer for The New Physician, The Blue Sheet, and BioScience.) Since then I've written more women's magazine articles than I care to count, articles for The New York Times Magazine, and six books. I'm now working on two more books, and in between write a semi-regular opinion page column for USA Today. The recent debate over NASW membership categories led me to run for the board. Based on my experience with the American Society of Journalists and Authors (DC chapter president for two years) and the DC Science Writers Association (board member for one year), I support the adoption of a single membership category for NASW. If we think of ourselves as a members' service organization, rather than a lobbying or credentialing group, then the fewer complications and differentiations we will make for ourselves.
Earle Holland has been director, science communications at Ohio State University for 20 years. As senior science writer, he's responsible for reporting on university research and edits three national news services and two periodicals. He teaches a graduate science writing course in OSU's journalism school. As a freelancer, he has a weekly column distributed through The New York Times Syndicate. An incumbent board member, he produces the web version of ScienceWriters and serves on the membership and workshop committees. He's a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and EurekAlert!'s national advisory committee.
A science writer for The Los Angeles Times, Robert Lee Hotz moved to California in 1993 after many years as a science writer and editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He has three times won the AAAS Science Journalism Award, as well as the Walter Sullivan Award from the American Geophysical Union. He shared a 1995 Pulitzer Prize with his colleagues at The Times for coverage of the Northridge Earthquake and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1987 for his coverage of genetic engineering issues in Atlanta. He also is an active free-lancer and has been involved in several new media projects such as EurekAlert and the LA Times Web Site. If elected to the board, Lee said he would support efforts to broaden the organization's regional activities and work to broaden its excellent professional development programs. Furthermore, he also would help foster NASW's web site and Internet discussion groups, which already have done so much to knit together the organization's members across the country.
I am a science writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch and have been a NASW member since 1986. I've been a member of several regional groups -- DCSWA, founder of PASWA (Philly), and founder of GASWA (Atlanta). If elected to the board, I'd try to get more members involved by strengthening the relationship between NASW and the chapters. I would encourage NASW to work with the local groups in pursuit of its goals, such as the success of the mentoring program. Stronger ties and active members are especially important as NASW rewrites its constitution.
Many members know me from my sysoping on NASW Online on CompuServe. I was co-leader of the committee that ultimately moved us onto NASW Web. I am one of NASW's few writer-publishers, having written not only for magazines and book publishers but also for my own Hermograph Press. I'm very interested in what NASW can do for book writers, a large and largely ignored NASW subset. As a board member I will work to get a book category added to NASW's various awards. I think members' books should be archived permanently, and I will work to find them such a home. I have successfully worked as sysop with both "actives" and "associates." There are people on both sides of the process with NASW's well being in mind. So I believe all members should be able to vote for any candidate of the two sides. Let the best ones win. Finally, because I do travel a lot, I will *try* to attend a meeting of each affiliate (or cause one to happen when I'm in the area!).
On the NASW board, Carol Cruzan Morton aims to initiate and to support creative and innovative activities to advance the diverse professional interests of our entire community of science writers and broadcasters who shepherd research stories from the laboratory to the general public. Morton plans to nurture the best efforts of public information professionals to accurately and effectively communicate research news; to help raise the standards and practices for freelance contracts, pay and opportunities; and to build upon and expand efforts to diversify our blindingly white profession. For the third year, Morton will co-organize the annual NASW workshops, concentrating on training journalists in the skills and issues of investigative reporting, computer-assisted reporting and online media. Morton is a freelance journalist in the Boston area. For the past 15 years, she also has worked as a freelance journalist for national magazines, regional newspapers and health newsletters.
Profile of James Shreeve. (with apologies to Dewars Scotch.) Occupation: Freelance science writer. Accomplishments: Wrote The Neandertal Enigma without realizing it was a "journalistic book." Also writes for magazines. Founded the MBL Science Writing Fellowship Program. Most frequently heard comment on freelance career: "But Daddy, we're hungry." Two bits: If you write about science for a living, you are a science writer and should be listed as one by NASW. Candidates for board offices should not be engaged primarily in public relations, but disqualifying freelancers because they sometimes work for vested interests ignores the circumstances of their chosen trade (see frequently heard comment, above.) Once everyone knows what to call each other, NASW can get on with more substantive activities. Scotch: Sorry. It's Johnnie Walker.
Joel Shurkin, a full-time freelancer, has served two terms on the NASW board and is chairman of the NASW freelance committee and a member of the constitutional committee. He has been a member of NASW for more than 20 years. Shurkin also serves as chairman of the NASW Science-in-Society Award. He is the former science editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer and science writer at Stanford University, where he ran the science journalism internship program for a dozen years. He has not been subpoenaed.
I have a PhD in biochemistry although I have worked mainly in human genetics. Currently, I direct the Banbury Center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. The Center holds small discussion meetings on molecular biology and science policy, as well as workshops for science journalists, Congressional staff, Federal and State judges, and high school teachers (http://www.cshl.org/Banbury). I have written technical papers as well as articles on humor in science. I am a co-author of Recombinant DNA (Scientific American Books). More recently I have become involved in web publishing. I am on the editorial board of Trends in Biochemical Sciences and was on the board of The Journal of NIH Research. I have been an associate member of NASW since 1988. If elected to the board, my major goal will be to promote a greater degree of understanding between writers and scientists.