✍️Science Writing News Roundup #30 (February 9, 2021)
✍️Science Writing News Roundup #30 (February 9, 2021)
Diving into COVID-19 data + How to handle a mistake + Sharpen your toolkit with 50 new tools and resources for journalists.
‘I’m ridiculously positive about the media’s coverage of COVID-19’. Scientific reporting has come a long way since the days of 'frankenfoods' and vaccine scare stories, says Fiona Fox, head of the UK Science Media Centre. “I’ve heard nice accounts from science journalists about suddenly being the most important person in the newsroom. Some have gone from writing maybe one major article a week to writing half the newspaper.”
🚂 Opportunities
Grants for science journalists: Journalismfund.eu wants to stimulate in-depth science journalism in Dutch-language media in Belgium. All journalistic end products qualify for a grant: newspaper and magazine articles, radio and television documentaries and series, photo-reportages and books, podcasts and journalistic non-fiction books.
🌾 Tips
When writing about SARS-CoV-2 variants, utilize metaphors. “You don’t have to explain the nitty-gritty details for people to understand genetics,” says Marla Broadfoot, an independent journalist. “If you can give people something to relate to, then they can more easily grasp complex concepts.”
How to handle a mistake: At some point in their career, most journalists will make a mistake, from minor ones such as misspellings to more significant ones like misunderstanding the conclusions of a study. How do you avoid them? Shira Feder provides a handy step-by-step guide for what to do if/when this happens to you!
✨ Resources
New source databases look to encourage journalists to diversify their sourcing. Check out these two new source databases — one from the Asian American Journalists Association, the other from Spotlight PA — that are making it easier for journalists to diversify their stories’ sources!
Here’s a multilingual list of resources for journalists covering the COVID-19 vaccines. In late January, the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas held a multilingual webinar, "Covering the COVID-19 vaccine: What journalists need to know." As an extension of this training, their partners at UNESCO and the World Health Organization compiled a list of resources for journalists.
Sharpen your toolkit with 50 new tools and resources for journalists. Here are some tools to help you create newsletters, find diverse illustrations and sharpen your word choice!
The National Association of Science Writers released their first annual Diversity Report, an examination of how they are doing in assessing and addressing the myriad areas and initiatives in which their organization and community can support diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility within NASW and the broader field of science writing.
🏡 Videos
"From pipette to pencil: My journey to a career in science writing" - Chambana Science Cafe (Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Science Writing with Dr. Leigh Cooper, a science and content writer with the University of Idaho.
Introduction to Solutions Journalism (rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems)
The Next Step for Aspiring Journalists, Communicators, & Writers: SABJ/NSWA/AAJA Seattle Panel
📮 Events
AAAS 2021 Annual Meeting (February 8-11, 2021)
Medium in Conversation: Vaccine Questions, Answered with Tara Haelle, a freelance science and health journalist (February 9, 2021)
AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards Ceremony (February 9, 2021)
Reporting on the Pandemic: A Virtual Conversation with New York Times Reporter Apoorva Mandavilli (February 10, 2021)
Journalism, Science, and Policy: Communicating Risk and Relevance (February 11, 2021)
CITY OF SCIENCE: Truth and Lies: Covering COVID-19 (February 24, 2021)
🏆 Career opportunities
Science Communications Manager, The American Physical Society, US-based
Social Media Manager, The American Physical Society, US-based
Audience Engagement Editor, Knight Science Journalism Fellowship Program (KSJ) and Undark Magazine, Cambridge, MA
Climate Reporter, The Boston Globe, Boston, MA
More jobs 👉Science Writing News Roundup #29
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