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Category: About Journalism
Introduce or comment on journalism topics
Last week, while most of the trackers at ksj were scampering here and there but posting only in frantic, short windows, came word from Tulare County in California that a cow in a slaughterhouse had BSE, aka bovine spongiform encephalopathy aka mad cow disease. We missed it. Good call, even if it was accidental.
Fortunately at the...
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If you don't know the website, Double X Science, I'd like to bring it to your attention. Its self-declared emphasis is on women in science and/or women interested in science - and you'll find that there, ranging from profiles of female scientists to a...
25Apr 2012
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Last week, I wrote a piece here, On the Corn Syrup Theory of Autism, which took a critical look at a Grist story concerning a scientific paper proposing that high fructose corn syrup consumption was responsible for the rise in autism cases in the United States. My point was that the author, Tom Laskaway, was...
This Tracker is taking the week off for meetings and business, but must...
This Tracker is taking the week off for meetings and business, but must pause to give a shout out to the superlative, star-laced "Science Writing in the Age of Denial" program that the University of Wisconsin-Madison's crew of science writing department and communication specialists put on today, continuing with workshops tomorrow. It even got a full-on flame blogpost from the contrarian and angry side of the room. So it's not just the expected group that paid attention to its existence. Tweets, at last...
Ed Yong, ...
Ed Yong, prolific science journalist and almost certainly the most active tweeting science-oriented blogger in this or most any other solar system, has some admiring things to say about another tower of science writing power. He provided an analysis of Carl Zimmer's style in the Guardian yesterday. His aim- which includes a nod to the monumental Tim Radford - is to give some hints to amateurs how a pro does it. The occasion is the annual Wellcome Trust science writing...
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I want to take a moment to call your attention to a fascinating discussion on what defines good science journalism resulting from a conference earlier this month at the Royal Institution in London.
The meeting, on March 13, was billed as a...
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Ohio State University is highly-regarded in science journalism circles, and not just because it has an iconic glaciologist and polar research center and many other centers of excellence. It has also had for decades the redoubtable, ever so slightly lugubrious in opinion, and ever-thoughtful Earle Holland at the helm of its research-oriented PIO work - demanding straight-shooting by his team and integrity in explanation...
Last January, the Public Radio International show This American Life broadcast a program on the harsh treatment of workers in Chinese factories that produce iPhones and other...
Last January, the Public Radio International show This American Life broadcast a program on the harsh treatment of workers in Chinese factories that produce iPhones and other Apple products. The show, called Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory, was an excerpt from a theatrical production by Mike Daisey called "The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs." On Friday, This American Life, and its host, Ira Glass, devoted an entire show to broadcasting an extraordinary retraction, in which Glass said that Daisey had lied to him, and that "the most powerful and memorable moments in the story all seem to be fabricated."
Science...
Science journalists and others interested in the business, looking for some talking points on any expected conversations about the state of the craft, ought to take a look at a collection amassing at the UK's Guardian newspaper. On March 13 the Royal Institution, aka Ri, which is different from the Royal Society but similarly old & distinguished and that's about all I know offhand (Sir Joseph Banks is in the mix), is sponsoring a public discussion about science journalism and the art of getting things right. Nobody suggested this plug to us. I just got lost jogging along the links that the Guardian has in blogposts helping to rev up the audience in advance and figured there's no...
22Feb 2012
It's been almost a year now since the Canadian Science Writers...
It's been almost a year now since the Canadian Science Writers Association posted an open letter to their national government citing "numerous examples of instances where Canadian journalists have been denied access to government scientists doing research in areas of public interest."
Two examples from that letter:
1) After radiation releases from Japan's crippled Fukishima power plant, journalists asked for information from the country's sensitive radiation monitoring network. They were denied all reports and found out about levels in Canada only from a global sampling report released by Australia.
2) In...
An esteemed, top member of America's corps of science journalists, Deborah Blum...
An esteemed, top member of America's corps of science journalists, Deborah Blum, has her name gracing a fine post-Valentine's Day post today (next one down) here at ksjtracker. She's so new to our cozy fold that she has not even yet had her bio attached to our staff list. That'll happen quick (Hey Deb, send me one!). If you can't wait I do see a good one on line at a place called EnlightenNEXT, The Magazine for Evolutionaries, of which Ive never heard but the bio looks correct to me and aren't most of us tracker-readers evolutionaries? The short version is that she's a ball of energy and much...
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Ksjtracker, mainly via yours truly's posts, has over the years included offerings from the UK's Daily Mail newspaper in many roundups. Usually those mentions come with a sneering remark on, but grudging admiration for, the nerve that paper has and the competent composition of its nonsense. US lefty TV watchers who...
Here's a little...
Here's a little episode - in this world of instant e-publishing, open-access-everything, and large international teams of scientists rolling their data out lickety split - that seems worth a few followup calls from any astronomy reporter interested in the sociology, collaboration, and competition of science.
In case you missed it, we received a very interesting comment on the post that ran a few days ago about GJ 667Cc, the apparent super-Earth in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star 22 light years away. It is from...
Here's a quiz: How many real-life magazine or newspaper editors...
Here's a quiz: How many real-life magazine or newspaper editors would ever say something like this without his or her stomach churning in self-dismay?: "I'm honored to be joining Smithsonian, a magazine brand that is loved by more than 7 million readers....my challenge is to continue the legacy of journalistic excellence while evolving our brand for the future multimedia needs of our consumer."
Hmpppf. Brand? I know some of the suits in the front offices of media, old line and new, talk like that but I thought they were only on the ad-sales and circulation side of the business. And how about using 'evolve' as a transitive verb? Or referring to one's readers as consumers. I don't know Michael Caruso, former editor of Wall Street...
Beryl Lieff Benderly is among the people, when at annual...
Beryl Lieff Benderly is among the people, when at annual ScienceWriters20XX meetings or similar confabs, it's always a particular pleasure to run across. Friendly, thoughtful as a sage, and sane as judges should only hope to be. Not that we're close friends, but the feeling is always one of security and gratitude that stems from being in good company. She won the Diane McGurgan service award from the Nat'l Assoc. of Science Writers a few years back for being such a beaver on committees and such (she's now on the NASW board as secretary). Funny thing is, I have tended to forget between encounters exactly what it does she does, you know? I have a bad trait of forgetting who does what in general and she's high on my list of how's-it-going...
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