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| Volume 51, Number 1, Winter 2001-2002 |
PRESIDENT’S LETTER
In late October, I represented NASW and Business Week at the International Conference of Science & Technology Journalists in Tokyo. This was a follow-up to a meeting Joe Palca attended in Budapest in 1999, while he was president of NASW. The meeting was organized with the intention of establishing a federation of the world’s science-writing societies—NASW’s counterparts in Europe, South America, Japan and wherever else we can find them. There are more science writers’ groups than you might expect, including a European federation of the national sciencewriters’ groups in Europe. The participants at the Tokyo meeting issued a declaration of intent to form such a federation. The idea is to get the national science-writers’ groups together to encourage good science writing, to share information and resources, to encourage exchange visits, and to train journalists, especially in the developing world. All of these are worthy goals, and in keeping with NASW’s mission here. And so I think it’s important that NASW participate in this new federation. We have a lot to contribute to the training of journalists overseas. Some of our members are doing that already, through programs established by foundations or universities. I hope the World Federation of Science Journalists will give NASW more opportunities to do that. But we can learn something here, too. The writers I met at the Tokyo
meeting (their names are listed at the bottom of the declaration) shared
a profound dedication to science writing, and an idealism that I found
inspiring. Much of the discussion dealt with how science writing can contribute
to an educated public, and how that, in turn, contributes to cultural
life and good government. Those are not the kinds of things we’re
likely to be thinking about when on I look forward to seeing many of you at the NASW workshops and the AAAS meeting in February. Please make time to attend the annual members’ meeting on February 16. # Paul Raeburn is a senior writer at Business Week. He can be reached at praeburn@nasw.org.
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