✍️Science Writing News Roundup #62 (September 19, 2021)
Covering Climate Now Journalism Awards to Honor Excellence in Reporting
Please don’t ignore me: Requesting interviews with scientists. “From the subject line to the sign-off, a strategic approach to what you say and how you say it can increase the chances that your source will read your message and agree to an interview,” writes Karen Kwon.
🐬 Opportunities
NASW helps launch Spark Grant Initiative. Science journalism across the globe will get a boost through a grant program launched by the World Federation of Science Journalists (WFSJ) with funding from NASW and four other science writing associations. Apply now.
Call for applications: TON/BWF Early-Career Fellowship. This ten-month fellowship is remote and part-time. Thanks to a generous grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, each fellow will receive a stipend of $4,000.
Two new grant programs for environmental journalism. These two new grant facilities will provide more than €9 million in direct support to investigative journalism in Europe over a course of six years.
Mongabay is accepting pitches for a special reporting project on reforestation.
🦊 Resources
KSJ Science Editing Handbook is available in Spanish. The handbook aims to draw lessons from those who specialize in science writing and editing — to provide their insights, knowledge, tips, and resources to all editors. The goal is to help ensure that science journalism meets the highest standards of quality.
🦥 Articles
COVID coverage concerns from a health & science journalist’s perspective. The COVID Data Dispatch’s Betsy Ladyzhets dishes on sensationalist school COVID headlines, useless federal data, and the importance of including denominators and talking to non-teaching school staff.
Covering climate and the pandemic: Disaster reporting in the 21st century. In these uncertain times, it is critically important for media organizations, especially those focusing on science, to share knowledge on new practices for researching, reporting, vetting and disseminating accurate and timely information to the public.
To care for nature, this writer says, we need to change how we talk about it. Lindsey Brodeck, the first-place winner of Imagine 2200, Fix’s climate-fiction contest, on how her study of environmental science and language influences her work.
🐿️ News
Mass Media Fellows look back on summer in journalism. Stephanie Castillo, Priya Dames and Brianna Barbu reflect on their fellowship experiences working as science journalists and look ahead to the next steps in their careers.
Meet the winners of the 2021 European science journalism awards! This year’s first-place winner is Hristio Boytchev, an entry from Germany, for reports on the results of an extensive investigation into conflicts of interest in science and medicine.
🐘 Videos
COVID-19 vaccines: How to report on potential side effects. A webinar with Kerry Dooley Young, freelance journalist and core topic leader for patient safety with the Association of Health Care Journalists.
Skype a Scientist: Science Journalism with Vicky Stein. After majoring in biology as an undergrad, she spent a few years working as a whale watch naturalist before pivoting to science writing through the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication program.
Press Briefing — Countdown to COP26: What's at Stake? Ahead of the COP26 summit in Glasgow this November, Covering Climate Now and Climate Central co-hosted the first of a series of press briefings.
🐢 Events
Using the Media to Connect Science and Humanity with Amy Harmon, National Correspondent (Science and Society), The New York Times (September 20, 2021)
Imagine 2200: Climate fiction for future ancestors (September 20, 2021)
What solutions journalism has to offer health care reporters (September 21, 2021)
Building Passive Revenue Streams as a Freelance Writer (September 21, 2021)
Free Climate Reporting Resources: Make it Local, Make it Real (September 22, 2021)
The Fundamentals of Science, from Funding to Publishing (September 23, 2021)
Opinion writing masterclass (September 24-25, 2021)
The 2021 Atlantic Festival (September 22-24 & 27-30, 2021)
ScienceWriters2021 (September 28 - October 8, 2021)
Freelance Contracts: a Public-interest Roundtable. New Agreements for Investigative Freelancing (September 28, 2021)
🐎 Jobs and Internships
Editor at Large, Grist, US
Climate Editor, Bloomberg Green, New York, NY
Student Science Writer, University of Wisconsin–Madison, WI
Science Writing Internship, Fermilab, US
Science Writer, AbCellera, Vancouver, Canada
Senior Staff Writer, American Medical Association, Chicago, IL
More jobs 👉 Science Writing News Roundup #61
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