✍️Science Writing News Roundup #10 (October 8, 2020)
Science journalism during a pandemic and beyond + How to turn an interesting idea into a story worth writing + How to use reporting skills from any beat for science journalism
Science journalism during a pandemic and beyond: Read how science writers Carl Zimmer, Azeen Ghorayshi, Angela Saini and Maggie Koerth have adapted to pandemic reporting and how they think the past eight months could change the future of science journalism. (Image by AAAS)
🛩️ News
The Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism has chosen its inaugural cohort of 20 media entrepreneurs! Congratulations to science writer Betsy Ladyzhets, check out her newsletter, the COVID-19 Data Dispatch!
The Student Publication Association announced the winner of the Best Science Piece: Javier Bautista, for his piece “Can UCL scientists win the race against single-use plastics?” This award, sponsored by ABSW, recognizes the best overall coverage of science in a student publication!
The Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS) announced their new Journalist in Residence: Canadian science journalist Siobhan Roberts! During her stay, she will learn about the fields of computational carbon chemistry, astroinformatics and computational evolutionary biology.
This year’s winners of the UNSW Bragg Student Prize for Science Writing have been selected from a competitive field of entries from across Australia. Congratulations to the winner Elena Canty, and runners up Philippe Mouawad and Jeremy Simonetto!
✏️ Tips
How to deal with pushback on an investigative story. How do you deal with the aftermath of a critical story? Mallory Pickett asked investigative journalists to share their tips for managing legal threats, angry emails, and more.
How to use reporting skills from any beat for science journalism: Reporters share how they adapted their skills from a different kind of journalism into science writing (read the article in Spanish or read it in English).
How to turn an interesting idea into a story worth writing. There are a couple of ways you might approach this, but in general, Anna Funk likes to think about “Why should anyone read about this topic?” and “Why now?”
So, you want to write about science? Author and biologist Oné R. Pagán explains how to write and publish a science book in 10 easy(ish) steps. Here is a link to the episode notes.
🧰 Resources
🎁 Opportunities
Freelancing with Tim is looking for pitches! Got a great idea for an advice/guidance story on how to be a better freelancer or writer? Email your pitch to freelancingwithtim@gmail.com and put “Freelance pitch” in the subject line.
If you are a student in Ireland, applications are now open for the €2,000 Mary Mulvihill Award for best ‘virus’ story
👀 Videos
The politics of the pandemic: In this panel discussion, a journalist, a health advocate, and a scientist shared views from the front lines of a political pandemic. “Science and science journalism are never just about what happens in a laboratory, and the Covid-19 pandemic has tangled the worlds of science and politics into some particularly spectacular knots.”
MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing Thesis Presentation Day
🌄 Ideas
Why Nature needs to cover politics now more than ever. “The conventions that have guided the relationship between science and politics are under threat, and Nature cannot stand by in silence,” according to an editorial.
Covid-19: Why we need to hear the evidence directly from the scientists. “Too often the scientists who are doing the research and gathering the data are being robbed of the opportunity to present their science to the public in the best way,” writes Fiona Fox, the Chief Executive of the Science Media Centre.
Reporting Covid-19 research responsibly. “For many science journalists, the pre-print is now serving as their opportunity to be first. But this does come with significant risks,” according to Professor Sammy Bedoui (University of Melbourne) and Catherine Somerville (Doherty Institute).
Heather Buschman talks about the many types of science communication she does for UC San Diego Health Sciences, and encourages you to call yourself a science writer. “Now with Covid-19, I’m optimistic that more employers will be open to remote workers, and that’ll open up many more opportunities to work for institutions and publications no matter where you live.”
In this episode of Hot Take, Drew Costley, staff writer at OneZero, talks about climate change, the collapse of local news media, East Coast media bias, the California wildfires and police brutality.
France’s top science magazine in turmoil over editorial independence. Science & Vie’s top editor has resigned after articles, written by a corporate employee, were published on the magazine’s website without the knowledge of its editors, according to News from Science.
🎬 Events
Angela Saini: The Legacy of Scientific Racism (October 8, 2020)
Friday Covid-19 News Review: Altman, Blum and Garrett on the Press, the Pathogen and the President (October 9, 2020)
Freelancing With Tim events — Pitch perfect: Everything to know about pitching stories (October 11, 2020). How to be a better freelancer (October 11, 2020). The business of freelancing: Contracts, rates, platforms and more (October 18, 2020)
Disrupting disinformation: A skill set for journalists (October 13, 2020)
Covid-19 Science & Coverage: The pandemic’s impacts on families, kids, and college students (October 14, 2020)
Top Ten Works of Journalism of the Decade by NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute (October 14, 2020)
Covering Climate Change: Connecting the Dots (October 15, 2020)
Freelancer Etiquette: Navigating Writer-Editor Relationships (October 29, 2020)
How I Found My Job in SciComm: Into the Digital Realm (by Science Networkers, November 8, 2020)
More events 👉 Science Writing News Roundup #9
🗺️ Internships and jobs
Washington Correspondent, STAT, Washington, DC
Technology Reporter, New Scientist, London, UK
Science and Marketing Writer/Editor, Agilent, Santa Clara, CA
Outreach and Communications Intern, Pulitzer Center, Washington, DC
Communications Manager (50%), The Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI), Basel, Switzerland
Science Communications Specialist, California Sea Grant, UC San Diego, CA
Here’s a list of more than 20 newsroom internships around the United States for summer 2021
More internships and jobs 👉 Science Writing News Roundup #9
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