✍️Science Writing News Roundup #225
Is insurance the next big climate story? + How to make your news articles more accessible for visually impaired readers.
Emily Foxhall on Natural Disaster Reporting: Nanticha Ocharoenchai spoke with Emily Foxhall about her journey in climate journalism, what it’s like to report on natural disasters, and how young climate reporters can navigate today’s challenging journalism environment. (Image via Knight Science Journalism @ MIT)
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🌎Articles
Climate misinformation is rife on social media – and poised to get worse. The U.S. public by and large wants the industry to moderate false information online. Instead, it seems that big tech companies are leaving fact-checking to their users.
The EFSJ Statement on independent science journalism aims to describe some of the rights and freedoms science journalists have and routinely exercise, with the aim of better informing the expectations scientists and others have of them.
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🌥News
The European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN) has opened a call for climate researchers to join a database of experts to facilitate collaboration with fact-checkers as part of its EuroClimateCheck (FactCRICIS) project.
Watchdog Science Journalism: A team of researchers is looking for journalists to participate in a study on how journalists act as “watchdogs” of science—that is, how they monitor, scrutinize, and hold science to account when it puts the public interest at risk.
🎙Videos
Editor's Night: An Open Session of Prof. Claudia Dreifus. Ten top science journalists talk about what they do and how they got to do it in an open session of Professor Claudia Dreifus' science writing class.
WMO-UNESCO Online session on Glaciers for journalists. The United Nations has declared 2025 the International Year of Glacier Preservation. This year will feature events, new data releases, and key announcements focused on glaciers.
Press Briefing: Is Insurance the Next Big Climate Story? In this Covering Climate Now press briefing, leading insurance experts and journalists who’ve covered this subject offered substantive insights and practical suggestions for how you and your news outlet can tackle what promises to be a central, and contentious, part of the climate story going forward.
Online gambling: The stakes for public health. In this discussion, a panel of experts examine the forces driving the rise of online gambling, the emotional, health and economic harms of problem gambling, and how policy change and treatment can reduce the burden.
Powering Change: How Journalists in Asia Can Report on Successes in the Renewable Energy Sector. In this webinar, you will discover solutions angles and story ideas related to how renewable energy addresses critical challenges across society, from education to agriculture to healthcare, and enables the coexistence of a healthy economy and a clean environment.
Falling for Misinformation: This presentation explores how our brains and social circles can make us vulnerable to false or misleading information and how curiosity and skepticism can help us navigate today’s information landscape … and even connect with people who disagree with us.
🌖Resources
How to make your news articles more accessible for visually impaired readers: BBC journalist Johny Cassidy shares guidance on improving alt-text descriptions to enhance user experience for around two million Britons affected by sight loss.
With President Trump’s return to the White House, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law will begin tracking his administration’s actions on climate change. They are launching three publicly-accessible online tracking tools: the Climate Backtracker, the Inflation Reduction Act Tracker, and the Silencing Science Tracker to monitor anti-science actions.
How to help your audience understand the unprecedented LA fires: In disaster research, there are two concepts relevant for reporting on the LA fires: compounding climate disasters and cascading disasters.
How to get the most important climate story of the decade right: A new project by South African Journalist Fellow Lameez Omarjee grapples with how journalists should navigate reporting on the 'just transition' – a shift away from non-renewable and polluting energy sources and towards renewables without disadvantaging workers and communities.
🕙Opportunities and calls for pitches
🧪Events
Building Trust in Science for a More Informed Future, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Cambridge, MA. (March 10, 2025)
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🔍Jobs
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