KSJ fellows Archives - Knight Science Journalism @MIT

by Eva Wolfangel / June 12th 2025 / Guest Posts

Under Attack: How Journalists Can Defend Themselves Against Digital Threats

Red and black glitching pattern over cell phones.

Editor’s Note: The Knight Science Journalism Program has often found that the best resource we can offer science journalists is the opportunity to learn from each other. This piece is the first in an intermittent series written by former Knight Science Journalism Fellows sharing their expertise for the benefit of others in the field.

In recent months, an alarming number of journalists and activists have been stopped at borders, pressured to hand over their devices, or subjected to other forms of surveillance. Some have faced heightened scrutiny from state actors eager to access their data. Increasingly, governments and spies want to know what journalists are working on, who their sources are, and what stories they are uncovering. That’s why it’s more important than ever that we journalists take digital security seriously. Protecting our data isn’t just about personal privacy, it is about protecting the very foundation of democracy.

Protecting yourself also protects those around you. If an attacker compromises your email for example, they can send convincing phishing emails to your colleagues. Hackers who gain access to an account within a major media organization can often move deeper into the system, potentially spying on colleagues and causing even greater widespread harm.

The good news is that you don’t need to be a cybersecurity expert to protect yourself. Even a few simple, practical steps can make a huge difference. Good security isn’t about perfection. You don’t have to master technical jargon or adhere to long lists of security measures. I’ve been researching cybercrime for many years. Based on that experience, here are seven practical and realistic tips that can deliver a lot of protection with minimal effort. Want to go deeper? Look at one of the many resources linked in this article to delve into the details of digital security and learn even more ways to protect yourself.

1. Keep Your Device Lean and Up to Date

One of the simplest but most crucial rules is: Keep everything updated. When a company such as Microsoft or Apple releases a security patch for an app or parts of the operating system, the accompanying notes will typically explain vulnerabilities in the previous versions of the software. As a result, attackers know exactly which vulnerabilities they can target in outdated systems. I know of at least one major institution that fell victim to ransomware simply because they were a few minutes too slow to update a vulnerability in their operating system.

The next rule follows naturally: The fewer apps and programs you have, the fewer vulnerabilities you’re likely to have on your device. Every additional piece of software is a potential weak spot, so uninstall what you don’t need.

2. Use Secure Authentication

Passwords should be long — ideally, a full sentence. This makes them significantly harder to crack using raw computing power. If the system allows, write out an entire phrase. Always use a unique password for every service. A password manager can help.

Even more important is two-factor authentication, or 2FA. Yes, it’s an extra step, but using an authenticator app like FreeOTP or Google Authenticator makes it exponentially harder for attackers to take over your accounts.

3. Be Cautious with Emails and Attachments

Emails are still one of the easiest ways to get hacked. Just because an email appears to be from a trusted source doesn’t mean it actually is. Even if the sender’s address is an exact match, be cautious with attachments. Avoid clicking on links in unsolicited emails, and if a website asks you to enter your credentials, double-check the URL carefully — attackers often create fake login pages to steal passwords. When in doubt, I often verify a message’s authenticity with the sender through another communication channel, such as Signal.

If an attachment isn’t sensitive — a press release, for example — I sometimes upload it to VirusTotal, a Google-owned service that scans files with multiple antivirus programs. You can also paste links for them to check. But be careful — anything you upload to VirusTotal is accessible to others, including security firms and intelligence agencies and all other paying customers of Virustotal, who could also theoretically read the documents.

4. Use Secure Messengers (and Reduce Email Dependence)

Email encryption is complicated, and most people don’t use it. That’s why I rely more and more on encrypted messengers like Signal and Threema. They offer end-to-end encryption by default, and you don’t even need a phone number to register.

I also publish my Signal and Threema ID to make it easy for sources to reach me securely. This reduces reliance on email, which remains a high-risk tool. However, it is important to note that one major vulnerability of these apps is the people using them. For example, the usernames are not restricted, which means that if a high-ranking government official suddenly writes to you, it could be a scam — or a mistake on the part of the official, as in the case of Atlantic Editor Jeffrey Goldberg and then-National Security Advisor Michael Waltz. In addition, if attackers have infiltrated the smartphone hosting the app, they can intercept all communications. This is why particularly secure, controlled devices are usually used for highly sensitive communications, ideally in a tap-proof environment.

5. Avoid Public Wi-Fi (or Use a VPN)

Public Wi-Fi is risky, no matter how legitimate it looks. Attackers can easily create fake networks that look like “Free Airport Wi-Fi” or “Starbucks Guest Wi-Fi.” Connecting to one could give them access to your surfing data.

I personally use mobile data whenever possible. A large data plan (e.g., 30 GB per month) allows me to avoid public Wi-Fi entirely, even for video calls. If you must use public Wi-Fi, don’t let your device automatically connect to networks, enable “hide my device” mode, and use a trusted VPN (in my case Mullvad) to encrypt your traffic.

6. Protect Your Devices Physically

Digital security measures are essential, but physical access to your devices can undermine even the best defenses. In trains and other public spaces, I use a privacy screen to prevent shoulder-surfing. When I stay in hotels, I almost never leave my laptop in the room, to minimize the chances of someone gaining unauthorized access. If I must leave my laptop, I place a cable or other object in a specific position on the device and take a photo before I leave. When I return, I compare the scene to my photo to check if anything has been moved. Simple precautions like this can help you notice if someone has tried to access your equipment.

7. Turn Off Your Phone Regularly

In a typical attack, the malware that gives the attacker access to the phone operates in a device’s temporary memory, and if the victim restarts the phone, the attacker will lose access. Of course, this won’t stop the most advanced attacks, like so-called zero-click exploits, which don’t require any action from the target, such as clicking a link or opening an attachment, because attacker can easily re-infect the phone after it’s rebooted. However, more sophisticated attacks are much more expensive to carry out, which makes them less likely.

If you will be crossing a border, that is another reason to shut off your phone. Just because your phone is locked, that doesn’t mean your data is encrypted. At border crossings, authorities often have tools to extract data. However, if your phone is switched off, the data is encrypted and harder to access with these forensic tools. It’s worth noting that authorities can still try to make you enter the passcode. Non-US citizens can be denied entry at US borders if they refuse to comply with requests to unlock phones or provide passwords, even without a warrant. Nevertheless, the Electronic Frontier Foundation recommends that travelers power off their devices and disable biometric unlocking methods before crossing the U.S. border to better protect their data from warrantless searches. The EFF offers various travel and pocket guides to help individuals safeguard their digital privacy when crossing international borders.

One Last Thought: Stay Vigilant, But Don’t Panic

When dealing with security, it’s easy to become paranoid, or worse, overwhelmed, which is especially dangerous because feeling powerless leads to inaction.

There is no absolute security. But if you follow these steps, you are already far ahead of most targets. And always trust your instincts — if something seems off, investigate. Organizations like Citizen Lab Amnesty International’s Security Lab, and Reporters Without Borders help journalists and media organizations targeted by digital threats. The goal of this article is to highlight the key steps that can significantly improve your digital security. While this guide is designed for everyday use, those in high-risk or conflict situations may want to seek out more specialized advice tailored to their needs. So most importantly: Don’t hesitate to ask for help.

More Cyber Security Guides for Journalists

Freedom Press Foundation: The 2025 Journalist’s Digital Security Checklist

Reporters Without Borders Helpdesk: Digital Security Guides

Global Investigative Journalism Network: Introduction to Digital Security

Center for News, Technology & Innovation: Journalists & Cyber Threats

ACOS (A Culture Of Safety Alliance): Digital Security Resource

Eva Wolfangel (KSJ ’20) is based in Germany.

by Pratik Pawar / May 2nd 2025 / Fellowship Life

Anil Oza is Decoding the Dynamics Behind Science Policy

When Florida’s surgeon general Joseph Ladapo recommended that communities stop adding fluoride to their water last November, Anil Oza recognized it wasn’t merely a state-level public health decision. In an article for STAT, Oza, a 2024-25 Sharon Begley Science Reporting Fellow, placed the move within the broader political context of the growing influence of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — then President Trump’s nominee for HHS Secretary and an outspoken critic of fluoridation. Oza’s coverage examined both the scientific evidence supporting water fluoridation and the emerging political forces aligned against it, illuminating what was really at stake: a decades-old public health intervention that experts had long considered one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century, but which suddenly faced an uncertain future.

Since Oza joined STAT last fall, he has established himself as a journalist with an uncommon talent for detecting the ripple effects of policy decisions across scientific communities. He covers issues ranging from controversial meta-analyses of fluoride’s health effects to executive orders that now threaten billions of dollars in NIH funding. Drawing on his background in neuroscience and science communication, Oza brings analytical precision to these politically charged topics. His work is further distinguished by his pursuit of diverse expertise — including bench scientists, historians, economists, and politicians — to dissect how scientific priorities form. As Oza puts it, he seeks “every possible version of expertise that could exist on a topic.”

In a recent conversation, Oza discussed the merits of covering the social process of science, the complications of reporting on contested scientific territory, and the challenges of building trust with sources who are hesitant to talk with the media. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Your reporting explores the machinery of science policy rather than just scientific discoveries — like your recent coverage of NIH grants being abruptly paused. What first sparked your interest in examining these power dynamics?

I think there’s a question of what we as science journalists can offer that is unique and powerful. For me, that’s much more about the social process of science rather than just the published research.

When I talk to friends in academia, there’s this straightforward vision of science journalism: research happens, you publish, talk to a journalist, and it goes out into the world. But I think what we can uniquely offer is insight into the social process that led to that – how people get grants, the political processes by which research is funded and conducted, and how it impacts the world.

Any researcher can write about their own work, but we have something special to offer by taking a step back and examining that process. For better or worse, this involves politics, public interpretation, and how research creates change. That’s where the intrigue lies in stories like fluoride regulation or executive orders that misconstrue science.

Right now, there’s also a practical necessity to this approach. Our sources who are researchers and academics can’t focus on traditional study stories when it feels like the whole research enterprise is at risk. The appetite just isn’t there. Why read about a mouse study when the whole system feels precarious?

Oza interviews Bill Nye, famed science educator, about Ataxia, a genetic disease that rus in his family, and the state of science funding in the U.S. alongside Andrew Rosen, the CEO of the Ataxia Foundation. Photo credit: Brooke Alexander for STAT

Your interest in health disparities predates your journalism career. How has that perspective shaped your coverage of issues like genetics research and biomedical funding?

Even before I was a journalist, when I was still figuring out what I wanted to do professionally, I was always interested in health disparities. I used to work at a hospital and did communications research on the coverage of health disparities. That was always my professional interest.

I started reporting as a student journalist at my college newspaper, where I did some coverage of health disparities — how the pandemic was affecting students, vaccination issues, those kinds of stories. When I graduated and started taking internships and fellowships, I definitely wanted to do more of this work.

But when you’re early in your career, it’s easier to get buy-in on straightforward study stories. Those are easier to tell, and it’s harder for a young reporter to mess them up. That made it challenging to pursue the more complex stories I do now.

Last summer at Nature, I wrote a story I was proud of about South Asians’ high rates of cardiovascular disease and the growing market for genetics research in that area. It took on an angle I hadn’t seen elsewhere — questioning the assumption that genetic differences explained these disparities when societal factors like intergenerational trauma and immigration likely played bigger roles. But that’s not the kind of story I would have gotten greenlit in my first internship. It was too complicated, even if I could see where it was going.

Your fluoride coverage examined an issue where scientific opinions, regulatory decisions, and public perceptions don’t neatly align. How do you approach reporting on such contested terrain?

The fluoride debate is so contentious because it uses the language of science. If you talk to certain researchers, they would argue the science is settled — that the benefits outweigh the harms unequivocally. Others disagree vehemently.

What makes it complicated is both sides have their own journals, published data, and lines of inquiry. Pro-fluoridation researchers point to epidemiological studies showing benefits, while anti-fluoride researchers highlight Canadian studies suggesting effects on IQ in prepubescent boys.

Navigating this requires substantially more work than a straightforward study story. It gets at fundamental questions about what we’re looking for from research: How much certainty is enough? Some researchers argue we have enough certainty to continue fluoridation at current rates, and most of the public is comfortable with that, but some aren’t. There’s a tricky line between not invalidating legitimate concerns and recognizing when we’re simply repeating studies to no effect. It’s similar to vaccine debates — you don’t want to dismiss people’s worries about their children, but at some point, continually studying the same question produces diminishing returns.

What fascinated me was RFK Jr. making fluoride one of his first priorities after Trump won. With all his valuable airtime immediately after the nomination, fluoride topped his list for “making America healthy.” That signaled something important about priorities.

Oza walks next to KSJ fellow Aaron Scott during a KSJ field trip to Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

One distinctive aspect of your reporting is how you integrate diverse voices beyond traditional scientific sources. How does this interdisciplinary approach enhance your coverage of complex policy issues?

I don’t know that I have much expertise in anything, but what’s important is quoting many different types of people. Yes, I’ll talk to whoever represents the “basic science” of a field — biologists, epidemiologists, public health experts — but I’m also often talking to social scientists like historians and science and technology studies scholars who critique the sciences. That’s often where the most interesting insights come from.

I try to seek out every possible version of expertise that could exist on a topic. I had a story a couple weeks ago that quoted a historian, an economist, a biologist, a politician, and a scientific funder — all very different people with insight about this narrow thing. You just have to be aware of all the different facets that affect the process of science.

I love that discomfort of interviewing new people when I don’t know what will come of it. They could say the most insightful thing you’ve ever heard, whereas if you only ever speak to evolutionary biologists, you hear the same things repeatedly. When I’ve talked to many health equity people from the physician side, I start to hear the same perspectives. That’s when it’s nice to ask: What does a sociologist have to say? What does an economist have to say? What does a politician have to say? Those interdisciplinary perspectives make for much more interesting stories.

Your reporting on NIH policy shifts has clearly earned trust from high-profile sources. How do you build relationships with officials, scientists, and advocates when many feel their work is under threat?

Good reporting leads to more good reporting. With topics like fluoride that I’ve covered for months, researchers read my work and decide, “I’ll talk to this guy again.” As you build those relationships, you get more detailed analyses beyond surface-level answers. Sources start telling colleagues and friends, creating a network of trust.

Sometimes people I’ve reached out to who didn’t respond initially will see my published work and contact me saying, “This is actually quite good — if you need someone in the future, let me know.” Consistency and quality create credibility.

Equally important is thoroughly explaining our journalistic process. Many researchers simply don’t understand what journalists do. From my first contact, I explain what I’m hoping to achieve, why I’m reaching out specifically to them, and what the final product will look like. Before interviews go on record, I ask if they have questions about me, my outlet, or my approach — and whether they have concerns about speaking on this topic.

People appreciate this transparency because they often assume the worst — that journalists want something flashy rather than scientifically rigorous. The onus is on us to demonstrate we’re seeking truth just as much as they are. This builds trust that we’re worthy of their time and expertise.

Pratik Pawar is a student in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing.

by Knight Science Journalism / April 18th 2025 / Announcements

KSJ Announces 2025-26 Fellowship Class

The internationally renowned Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT is pleased to announce the eleven esteemed science journalists who will make up its 2025-26 fellowship class. Ten academic-year fellows and this year’s Africa and Middle East fellow were selected from a combined pool of almost 400 applicants. The group comprises award-winning journalists with extensive experience in a wide range of reporting mediums.

The journalists have covered global issues such as climate change, international tech competition, and infectious disease. They have also reported on local matters such as lead contamination and water scarcity. Their work has reached audiences through a variety of platforms, including a prominent pop-science show, an Emmy award-winning film, a Ted Talk, a book on disaster defenses, and impactful journalism in some of the most prominent outlets in the world.

“We’re delighted to host this distinguished group of science journalists here at MIT,” said Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism Program (KSJ). “And their work serves as a reminder of the importance – and the necessity – of good science journalism in the world today.”

The academic-year fellows will join KSJ for the 2025-26 academic year. The Africa and Middle East fellowship is a fall-semester appointment. All the fellows will be in Cambridge studying at MIT and other leading research universities in the Boston area. They’ll also attend seminars by leading scientists and storytellers, take part in hands-on masterclasses and workshops, and visit world-renowned research laboratories. Each journalist will also pursue an independent research project focused on a topic that advances science journalism in the public interest.

“This is a great opportunity for these journalists to dive deep into science that is shaping society and impacting people’s daily lives,” said KSJ associate director Ashley Smart. “I think the work they do here is really going to be transformative.”

Now in its 42nd year, the Knight Science Journalism Program is supported by a generous endowment from The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and is recognized around the world as the premier mid-career fellowship program for science writers, editors, and multimedia journalists. Since its founding, the program has hosted over 400 journalists representing media outlets from The New York Times to Le Monde, from CNN to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

In addition to science journalism fellowships, the program publishes the award-winning digital magazine Undark and administers a national journalism prize for local science journalists, the Victor K. McElheny Award. The Knight Science Journalism Program’s academic home at MIT is the Department of Science, Technology and Society, which is part of the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

The 2025-26 Knight Science Journalism Fellows

Yvette Cabrera is a climate and environmental justice reporter whose work illuminating the long-term impacts of systemic environmental practices was honored by the National Press Club Journalism Institute with a 2024 Neil and Susan Sheehan Award for Investigative Journalism. She has reported extensively on the pervasiveness of toxic lead contamination, including the series “Ghosts of Polluters Past,” an investigation into the legacy of lead pollution in urban residential neighborhoods. She presented a 2024 Ted Talk on solutions to this problem and also created a journalist’s guide for reporting on soil lead contamination through a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center residency. Her reporting won a 2023 international Sigma Award for Data Journalism, and a 2023 Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communications from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. She’s worked at Grist, HuffPost, and most recently at the Center for Public Integrity, where her work on the devastating effects of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation won a Paul Tobenkin Memorial Award from Columbia University and a national Edward R. Murrow Award. She is immediate past president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and is a founding member of The Uproot Project, a network for environmental journalists of color.

Leslye Pritz Davis is an independent filmmaker and journalist. Her current work focuses on the future of human learning and the technologies that will someday replace modern mobile computing devices. Davis studied photojournalism at Western Kentucky University, where she learned to tell observational stories emphasizing intimate, long term connection. Starting in 2012, she worked for nine years as a staff photojournalist, filmmaker, and audio producer at The New York Times. She was a member of the climate reporting pod for The Daily. She has shot, produced and directed award-winning films for outlets including Netflix and PBS. Her work has been recognized by Pictures of the Year International, World Press Photo, The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and she was part of a team of Times journalists who were finalists for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting.

Liza Lin is the technology reporter and editor (China) for The Wall Street Journal, focusing on topics such as the U.S.-China tech rivalry, supply chains and semiconductors. Currently based in Singapore, she previously reported from Shanghai for the Journal. Liza is a co-author of the 2022 book, “Surveillance State: Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control.” A former Fulbright Scholar, she was part of teams that won The Gerald Loeb Award, and awards from the National Press Foundation and the New York Press Club; Lin was also named a 2021 finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in international reporting. Prior to the Journal, she worked for Bloomberg News in Singapore and China.

Smriti Mallapaty is a senior reporter for Nature magazine based in Sydney, Australia. She covers the Asia-Pacific region and reports on infectious diseases, biological sciences, and the environment, among other issues. Before joining Nature, she worked as a freelancer in Kathmandu, Nepal. Mallapaty won the inaugural Best Science Journalist award at the Samsung Australian IT Journalism Awards in 2025. She has an MSc with a focus on environmental technology from Imperial College London.

Sarah McBride is a business reporter who places an emphasis on technology and ethics. She worked at Bloomberg Businessweek in San Francisco until recently, and was previously a reporter for Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. McBride has a master’s in journalism from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Her reporting, including on questions surrounding tech billionaires such as Elon Musk, has led her to be a sought-after expert on talk shows including CNBC, CNN, and Dateline. Her work and detailed investigations have been honored numerous times by the Association of Business Journalists.

Paula Moura is a multimedia science journalist with 20 years of experience at both U.S. and Brazilian media outlets – including Frontline PBS, The New York Times, Boston’s WBUR, The Washington Post, and NPR’s São Paulo bureau. Since last year she has covered the Brazilian immigrant community for the Martha’s Vineyard Times on Martha’s Vineyard and in Brazil. She received her graduate degree from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY in New York City. She’s received numerous awards for her work, including an Emmy and a Peabody for her work on the 2022 National Geographic film, “The Territory.”

Rodrigo Pérez Ortega is an award-winning bilingual journalist at Science magazine covering science, medicine, health, policy, diversity and academia. He holds a MS in Science Communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He lives in Mexico City and his work has also appeared in The New York Times, Nature, Quanta, Science News, and El País, among others. He won the inaugural Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communication in 2022, and a Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism in 2019. Most recently, he received the National Association of Science Writers (NASW) Science in Society Award in 2024.

Sara Reardon is a freelance journalist and consulting editor for Nature based in Bozeman, Montana, where she covers biomedical research and the intersection of science and society. Sara has previously worked as a staff reporter for publications including Nature, FiveThirtyEight, Science, and New Scientist. She has an MS in molecular biology from the University of Washington and an MS in physiology from Southern Illinois University. In addition to writing and editing work, Reardon is a trained videographer. Her documentary films, which have focused on issues such as the impact of climate change on farmers’ mental health and tribes’ efforts to save endangered species, have won awards from multiple film festivals.

Stephen Robert Miller is an award-winning freelance journalist specializing in adaptation to climate change. His writing has appeared in National Geographic, Wired, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Sierra Magazine and many others. He has edited for national and regional publications and taught journalism at the University of Colorado-Boulder. A graduate of the University of Arizona, he is the author of the 2023 book, “Over the Seawall: Tsunamis, Cyclones, Drought and the Delusion of Controlling Nature,” which investigated the unintended consequences of disaster defenses in Arizona, Japan and Bangladesh.

Christian von Preysing-Barry is a documentary producer, wildlife cinematographer and reporter for KRGV from McAllen, Texas. He’s covered the U.S.-Mexico border for more than a decade, reporting in both countries in English and Spanish. Christian is Ecuadorian-American. He’s closely covered the issues of water scarcity, oil and gas, commercial space development, immigration and biodiversity. His work explores the resources, species and people that are split by borders, laws, and cultural differences. His news stories have appeared on ABC and CNN. His wildlife documentary work is shared by National Geographic, the BBC, NBC and PBS.

Africa and Middle East Fellow

Samira Hamza is an editor, researcher, and science journalist based in Egypt. She heads the visual research team for “Al-Daheeh,” a prominent pop science show in the Arab region. She covers various scientific topics, including health, biodiversity, and climate change. Previously, she was a senior editor for National Geographic for Youth Magazine and led the content team for the tech program “Al-Araby Tech” on Al-Araby TV. Her experience also includes scriptwriting, media research, and translation for outlets like Al-Jazeera and Scientific Arab. Samira holds a journalism degree from the University of Cairo and a media translation diploma from the American University in Cairo. Hamza is the second recipient of the Africa and Middle East Fellowship, which launched in 2024.

by Celina Zhao / April 16th 2025 / Fellowship Life

Evan Urquhart Wanted Better Trans Coverage—So He Made It Himself

Evan Urquhart in front of some newspaper clippings collaged with a flower in a sidewalk crack

Evan Urquhart didn’t set out to fight a fight. Instead, he set out to tell the truth. Three years ago, while he was working as writer and commenting community manager at Slate, Urquhart found himself frustrated by the lack of trans representation in mainstream news despite the issue’s political prominence. He decided to take matters into his own hands.

The result was Assigned Media, an independent news site serving the trans community with everything from deeply reported features to a monthly comic to a rant column. “We are coming from a perspective that trans people deserve to exist and thrive,” he says.

Urquhart’s insistence on following the facts, no matter how uncomfortable, has made him one of the leading voices in transgender media coverage today. “There’s definitely a throughline of doing things that I think are hard — or that other people say are hard and not worth trying — because I think no one else is going to, or will do it as well,” he says.

Now at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow, Urquhart is honing in on US v. Skrmetti, a lawsuit challenging Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. The case could decide whether states can block transgender healthcare. But Urquhart sees something even bigger at stake: how medical evidence itself is interpreted—and possibly perverted—in court.

I sat down with Urquhart to chat about why he launched Assigned Media, how he navigates the political weaponization of trans coverage, and what’s on the line in US v. Skrmetti. (The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Celina Zhao: What failures did you see in mainstream news or legacy outlets that made you want to start from scratch for Assigned Media?

Evan Urquhart: For a long time, I — and many other transgender writers — noticed freelance work drying up. By the summer of 2022, I got frustrated. We have two major political parties, and one of those two party’s top legislative priority has to do with transgender people: to ban trans girls from sports, to ban transgender healthcare, to define women in certain ways. I made the argument to two or three different editors that, by all rights, a news organization should have a writer dedicated to covering this. It was very clear how far I got down the road that I was onto something.

I was lying in bed after I’d gotten a final no, and it just occurred to me: you need to just do it yourself. I gave it some time because sometimes you have wild 2 a.m. ideas. But I couldn’t let go of it.

I launched in October of 2022, and I gave myself six months to see if this was anything. Because most of these things don’t go anywhere. But it was very clear, even in the first month or two, that there was a lot of interest, and that this was filling a niche that people wanted to see filled.

Jane and Evan are in conversation while they point at a big white bin with a few starfish in the water at the bottom. — *Urquhart talking about starfish with Jane Zhang, another KSJ fellow on the Gemma, a research vessel at the Marine Biological Laboratory.*

CZ: Why is it called Assigned Media?

EU: It’s a joke on assigned sex at birth. Assigned media at birth. I’m really proud of this name. It has an almost boring and mainstream sound to it. But then there’s a trans joke that slides under the radar.

CZ: What sort of impact are you trying to achieve?

EU: Before the election, one of my primary focuses was on helping mainstream journalists understand whether they were being misled, or where they might be allowing activist groups to frame the narrative in ways that they weren’t realizing.

After the election, while that is still important to me, I am more resonating with people from the community who feel that our coverage is giving them hope and giving them stories of resistance and protest. We want to show people that they’re strong and that they can get through this.

CZ: Unfortunately, some people will conflate lived experience with activism, which is completely different from journalism. At Assigned Media, how do you approach criticism from people who don’t truly read the story and only see who the reporter is?

EU: My response, individually, is to get up on my high horse and list all of the ways in which you could never call me an activist. I’ve never gone to a trans rights protest except to cover it as a journalist. I’ve never joined or donated to any transgender organization. So at that point, if someone is calling me an activist, it’s about my identity, or it’s because I have opinions.

I would lean a little bit away from doing that for the website. There’s a really proud tradition of civil rights reporting for black communities. I would much rather be seen as in that tradition than as trying to distance myself unnecessarily or too much from it.

But we hold ourselves to a very high factual standard. If someone points out a correction, it doesn’t matter how rude they’re being. It doesn’t if they’re calling us every name in the book. We say thank you, and we run the correction immediately. Even The New York Times has commented on our pieces. What we are doing is journalism, and if you find a fact that’s wrong, we want to correct it. But you’re not going to find a fact that’s wrong.

Urquhart in the audience of the Victor K. McElheny Award ceremony honoring the journalists behind “The Air We Breathe,” a first-of-its-kind analysis of Cicero’s air quality by the Cicero Independiente and MuckRock.

CZ: What was it like being there in person on the day of the US v. Skrmetti hearing?

EU: On the one hand, it’s just an absolute dream to be a journalist with a press credential in the room with the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments. And to have that also be at this time, which is characterized by loss of rights and a rollback of acceptance — it creates this feeling that can’t be fully reconciled.

I don’t think it helps anyone for me to not take a little bit of joy in my work, and the fact is that this is an incredible milestone to do something like that. At the same time, I have so much grief for what’s already happening, for what I fear will happen with the case and with the community. Those two things just both exist.

CZ: And this case has a potentially huge scope.

EU: Yeah, I think people see it as a trans case, and there is a lot more that people haven’t realized. The expectation is that the justices will rule in favor of the states and allow them to ban gender-affirming care, and medical evidence will not play a significant role. Now, the question I’m really interested in is how the US courts approach, or choose not to approach, medical evidence.

What does it mean if states can declare that they’re acting for the public health if the evidence is that they’re doing the opposite of that? Does this mean that states could ban vaccines? Does this mean that states could declare orange juices against public health, and ban orange juice? Where would we be if the courts aren’t interested in saying: “Well, what does the evidence actually say?” What would be the limiting principle in terms of using public health laws in ways that harm people rather than help them?

CZ: Are you tired? I realize the answer is definitely yes, but how much more do you have in you?

EU: Oh, that’s a great question. That’s a better version of the question that people usually ask, “Are you worried about burnout?” The way you phrase that question is much closer to how I think about it. Everyone that I know who has done this and is not doing it now says it’s because of burnout. I very consciously don’t think of that as something that could be avoided or that I’m immune to.

Instead, I think of it as doing my piece of the work while I can do it. I’m going to do it as long as it’s fun, as long as it’s satisfying, as long as I feel I’m like I’m effective. And then I’m going to find something else and trust that the people who do it next will do a great job, too.

Celina Zhao is a student in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing.

by Anika Jane Beamer / April 3rd 2025 / Fellowship Life

Yarden Michaeli on Covering Crises in the Digital Age

Knight Science Journalism Fellow Yarden Michaeli is good in a crisis. And for more than a decade, he’s covered one after another for Haaretz, Israel’s newspaper of record.

Michaeli took over as editor of Haaretz’ science desk less than one month before the first reported case of Covid-19. He led coverage of the pandemic, then founded the paper’s climate desk and went to Greece to cover the deadliest Mediterranean cyclone in recorded history. On the first day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Michaeli was sent there to report on theground. For the first 10 months of the war in Gaza, he led a team that reported on what was happening inside the Strip.

While journalists were restricted from entering Gaza, Michaeli drew on technology to document the reality on the ground. His coverage of the war combined satellite data analysis, traditional journalism, and compelling visual storytelling to present the scale of destruction to a skeptical Israeli public.

In an increasingly digital age, Michaeli thinks technology and traditional journalism go hand in hand. Through intensive digital investigations, he’s helped readers cut through a vast sea of social media photos and footage, directing attention — and conversation — toward evidence-based facts. At MIT, Michaeli continues to explore how journalists can harness emerging technology and science to overcome reporting challenges.

I sat down with Michaeli to talk about covering crises, multimedia journalism, and the changing relationship between journalists and tech. (The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

AJB: You’ve covered science and climate, but recently you’ve been contributing to Haaretz’s war coverage. Are there similarities in the way you approach these rather distinct beats?

YM: I think that in your journey as a journalist, you pick up so many skills and ways of thinking about topics and challenges that some inevitably become useful in other beats. When we did this big digital project trying to map the destruction inside the Gaza strip, we were working with data directly from scientists. And the fact that I had a background in science reporting meant I knew how to ask the right questions and have a very meaningful conversation with those scientists.

You know, a science reporter works on all beats. You’re not a person that specializes in physics, or geology, or something like that. You get a little taste of the details in each field, and when you go into complicated studies or complicated events, you just need to know how to ask certain questions and how to mediate the answers to the public.

Michaeli asks a question during a tour of edible plants in the Cambridge, Massachusetts.

AJB: Your coverage of the Gaza Strip drew heavily on open-source satellite imagery, as well as videos and photos posted to social media. You took this approach, in large part, because most journalists weren’t being allowed into the Strip. How do you see the ubiquity of personal technology changing investigative journalism?

YM: I think it opens tons of possibilities. It’s very exciting. In Gaza, technology gave us a lot of advantages in a situation in which we were disadvantaged, as journalists. With social media, you can produce some very hard-hitting investigations that are not built in the traditional way that people imagine journalism — you know, two guys meeting in an underground parking lot with documents. Instead, we now get this abundance of imagery all the time.

But, still, it’s very hard to pick up a certain image and raise it above the bar of journalistic standards of verification. If you want to actually report on a digital image, I think that is the place where the human factor becomes very, very important.

AJB: What do you mean by that — the “human factor”?

YM: I think that the most powerful work comes when you harness the advantages of technology and use them combined with traditional tools of journalism. In all the big digital projects we published during the war, we also spent a lot of time speaking with relevant sources — people in NGO’s, people in the army, Gazans inside the strip. We managed to get important pieces of information from them that, together with what the technology produced, made everything much more robust.

It’s like in science. You know, when we talk about having various avenues of evidence? Robust theories of science stand on various avenues that all lead to the same idea or to the same argument. The same is true in journalism, the more variety you have, then the stronger and more robust your result is. I think it’s very important for journalists not to get too reliant, imagining that technology will do the work for them and that they will be able to let go of all those other avenues.

Michaeli looks at a timeline of scientific discovery at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

AJB: For digital investigations, you’ve produced immersive, visually rich stories. What do you think visual components add to a story?

YM: Ah, tons! We live in a world where the question of “What are we going to show?” is one of the first questions that you should ask when you set out to tell a story. I think every reporter should be thinking about it consciously, even in the reporting phase. When you collect information, when you speak with sources, you should be asking them about what kind of images they have and thinking about the way that people consume information today. Most readers don’t even make it to the end of the first paragraph. Competition for people’s attention is very tight.

In those visual investigations in Gaza, we thought about all these things constantly. Because to tell those stories, showing was very important. Satellite imagery, in an era of so much disbelief, is something which is very hard to argue with. We could show before and after satellite images, and people would come to me and say, “OK, I get what you say because I can see it.”

AJB: As you mentioned, you wrote about the horrors of the war in Gaza for a very disbelieving population at home in Israel. In both the U.S. and globally, distrust of media is rampant. How do we break through echo-chambers and write for skeptics?

YM: Sometimes in journalism, we tend to think about a story we publish like, “This is the story that’s going to solve the issue. I’m going to put it out there and then, aha!” But, actually, you are building with bricks. You’re having an ongoing discussion with your audience. When people push back, you can learn from the comments that you get. You can identify the things that people went after, and then you phrase your next story in a way that addresses those issues. Your texts become stronger when you look at them as an ongoing conversation with the public. I also think that there’s this bigger question of, what’s the purpose of journalism? As journalists, we need to acknowledge that sometimes our power is limited. But we do create a basis for discussion. We do create information that serves other entities in the public sphere. It’s important to have those archives of information for the moment when people will be able or will be willing to take action.

Anika Jane Beamer is a student in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing.

by Pratik Pawar / March 18th 2025 / Fellowship Life

Ahmad Gamal Saad-Eddin on the Intersections of Science and Human Experience

As a child, Ahmad Gamal Saad-Eddin would sneak into his uncle’s library, reading books across genres, from science fiction to philosophy. “One of the writers that I loved most was Naguib Mahfouz,” he says, “And I was fascinated by his use of language to express feelings.”

Inspired, Saad-Eddin began writing his own science fiction stories as a teenager. “Colonizing mars, laser guns, fight with the aliens, a lot of that,” he recalls. This passion and love for writing stayed with him, and he continued writing even during his ten years of rigorous medical training at Zagazig University in Egypt, where he specialized in psychiatry.

Eventually, Saad-Eddin transitioned to science writing, first as the science section head for Manshoor.com, and then as an editor at Nature Arabic Edition. He then became a scriptwriter, and eventually a fact-checker, for a leading Arabic science YouTube show called “El-Daheeh.”

All these years later, Saad-Eddin still carries the literary spirit that was kindled in his uncle’s library, weaving human experiences into his stories about science.

“Science is the finest product of human nature,” he says, “but it also has conflicts and flaws, because it’s a human product.” This view of science through a human lens is a throughline in almost all his work.

As a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, Saad-Eddin is working on his most personal project yet – a book that weaves the history of medicine with his own story of loss and discovery. I spoke to him about his journey from medicine to journalism, his unique approach to science writing, and how a personal tragedy deepened his understanding of medicine and its role in society. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Pratik Pawar: Your work often melds science and philosophy in very interesting ways, different from typical matter-of-fact science reporting. How and why do you take this approach?

Ahmad Gamal Saad-Eddin: Some people would say that you shouldn’t [intermix] science and the tools of literature. But I disagree with that because science is a human product. And as a human product, you should always deal with that in your understanding and your ability to formulate ideas about that, and you couldn’t do that without literature.

Fiction is about how people understand themselves, and how they interact with the world. And that’s also science because a lot of scientific phenomena around us can only be understood by understanding yourself and how science affects people. For example, Covid was something that really affected people’s life, but you can’t understand the real impact of the pandemic without addressing how people dealt with being in the middle of it. How they deal with vaccines, why there is suspicion against vaccines, why there is all this huge amount of misinformation and disinformation. We can’t understand that only by science, we have to dig deep into ourselves.

Saad-Eddin stands on the Gemma, a research vessel at the Marine Biological Laboratory, during a KSJ trip to Woods Hole.

PP: You transitioned from being a psychiatrist to a science writer. How did that shift occur?

AGSE: The transition from medicine to science writing happened bit by bit. I was a psychiatrist back home, and psychiatry is very complicated and different from traditional medicine. It has this element of dealing with the mind, dealing with the untouchable things. In most medicine specialties, you know what you’re dealing with. You can describe it, there is a physicality. But psychiatry is something [where] you have to depend on the language and on the way of understanding the world around you.

Beginning third year of medical school, I began publishing these articles and short stories I was writing. My main focus was the Arabic audience. But now I’m thinking of expanding a little more, writing in English, writing to a broader audience. I realized that voices from places like ours, the Global South, aren’t well represented in the global talk, and we have a right to be there. We have a right to express ourselves, or telling the world about how we see things.

PP: What was your first job in science journalism, and how did it shape your approach?

AGSE: After finishing my psychiatry [degree], I got an offer from this journalist named Ahmed Harbia. When he contacted me, he was establishing his own website, which is called Manshoor.com. Manshoor was a pan-Arab website that’s interested in a lot of subjects, like science, philosophy. And Manshoor was trying to explore the big questions rather than focusing on the moment.

I established the science section at Manshoor, and it gained a lot of interaction with people, because it was a new way of understanding science and trying to get the audience to engage with scientific themes and scientific ideas without just reporting about science. This was a way of trying to understand science as a social phenomenon, and actually appealed to a lot of readers. For example, there was this Chinese scientist He Jiankui, who made gene editing on humans, and got into a lot of trouble. We decided not only to just report the incident, but also to think about, what does it mean to edit human genes, and why we don’t do that.

And then I began to work with Nature Arabic edition. Manshoor was a startup, so you have all the liberty in the world, but Nature was an institution, a very established one, a very routine one, a very bureaucratic one. But that benefited me a lot, because you have to deal with this rigorous fact-checking. And when you are this big, you can’t make mistakes, especially when there is a pandemic.

Saad-Eddin joins KSJ Program Administrator Myles Crowley at the railing on a whale watch headed for the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.

PP: And then from working at Nature Arabic Edition you went on to work at a YouTube science channel. How was that experience different from print journalism?

AGSE: El-Daheeh is a very popular science show in Arabic. It can be roughly translated to English as “the nerd.” I think that is one of the most important experiences in my life because here it is, a science show that targets the Arabic audience. And science isn’t – like anywhere else – a very popular subject in the Arab world. And people deal with science with a lot of suspicion. Despite all of that, the show was beginning to gain a huge impact on the Arabic audience. People loved the show, loved what we are talking about, loved that we are able to deliver interesting stories about science and entertaining stories about how science works.

In script writing, you are actually imagining how these words will be spoken loudly, and you are not writing to be read. When you are writing for the video form, you have to grab the viewer’s attention. And I began to actually deploy these techniques in my usual writing.

PP: What are you working on now at the Knight Science Journalism Program?

AGSE: KSJ is one of the most amazing opportunities science journalists can get in their life. I applied to the program with an idea about a book project. I’m writing a book about the history of medicine and how it affects people’s lives. I’m also intending to incorporate a very personal aspect into the book.

I had a hard experience because my father died due to Covid. I had this very strange experience because I had to deal with this disease and the pandemic on three different levels. A science writer, a past doctor, but also, as a son who is seeing his father deteriorating because of an infection that medicine can’t treat [yet]. So, I thought maybe I should write about what role medicine played in my life and in my father’s life, and how medicine evolved to this moment we are living right now, and how we can understand it.

Everything we do is somehow to stay alive in the most basic sense, we are always trying to survive, and medicine in a way has helped us do that. People’s lives are going up, not down, and that’s great but also maybe at these times we have to think, what does it mean to be alive in this moment? What does it mean to be affected by medicine to this limit?

After my father died, I began writing about the personal stuff. Then I realized that there is something missing in this story. I realized that the missing element here is the history. I can’t continue writing this story unless I get to understand how things unfolded around me. This is a bit contradictory, but I realized that in order to write about yourself, you will have to write about everything else. So, in order to understand myself, in order to continue writing this personal story, I have to go on a journey to write about the history of medicine and the philosophy of medicine and how medicine affects our lives, and how science affects our lives.

Pratik Pawar is a student in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing.