Science Editing Seminars Archives - Knight Science Journalism @MIT

by Knight Science Journalism / November 10th 2021 / KSJ News & Events

KSJ Debuts Brazilian Edition of Science Editing Handbook

The Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT is thrilled to announce a new Portuguese translation of the KSJ Science Editing Handbook, in collaboration with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas and Brazil’s Serrapilheira Institute. The new translation was announced in a November webinar that featured five Brazilian journalists: André Biernath, Meghie Rodrigues, Juliante Duarte and Mariana Lenharo, who worked on the translation and adaptation of the new edition, and former Knight Science Journalism Fellow Thiago Medaglia, who discussed the current state of science journalism in Brazil.

The KSJ Science Editing handbook draws lessons from many of the world’s top science journalists, with the goal of making their insights, knowledge, tips, and resources freely available to all editors. The aim is to help ensure that science journalism meets the highest standards of quality no matter what the publication or the audience. The book was made possible thanks to support from the Kavli Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education.

The handbook is now available to download for free in Portuguese, Spanish, and English.

by Shafaq Zia / October 15th 2021 / KSJ News & Events

In Latest KSJ Webinar, Journalists Reflect on Science’s Human Side

Ed Yong, the Atlantic staff writer whose Covid-19 coverage earned a Pulitzer Prize this year, knows a thing or two about how science works. He also knows the dangers of placing science on a pedestal. “Science is not just an abstract thing,” Yong said at a September webinar hosted by the Knight Science Journalism Program. “It’s not a march of progress or a series of objective truths; it’s in fact an intensely human endeavor. It’s done by people and is subject to all the frailties and foibles that humans contain.”

Those frailties and foibles, Yong noted, have been magnified during a Covid-19 pandemic that has pushed the scientific enterprise — usually painstakingly slow and methodical — to operate at breakneck pace. It has become difficult, he said, to tell the signal from the noise — to discern reliable, meaningful scientific results from those bound to buckle under scrutiny. And in that way, the pandemic also serves as a potent reminder: Now more than ever, science journalists have a responsibility to understand not just formulas and results, but the human side of how science works.

That message was a recurring theme of “The Fundamentals of Science, from Funding to Publishing,” a webinar featuring Yong, New York Times reporter Apoorva Mandavilli, award-winning freelance science journalist Emily Anthes, and moderator Joshua Hatch. The 90-minute session was the sixth in a series of live events held in conjunction with the release of the KSJ Science Editing Handbook. (A full recording of the webinar is available here.)

Anthes kicked off the session by going over the basics of the science publishing process, including the vetting process known as peer review, wherein outside experts review a scientific study, as Anthes put it, to check “that the methods and the experiments are sound, that the results add up, and that the conclusions the scientists draw are justified.”

Although peer-review plays an important gate-keeping role in scientific literature, it is not infallible, Anthes warned. For proof, one need only look back to June of last year, when two Covid-19 research papers published in two of the world’s top peer-reviewed medical journals — The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine — were retracted over concerns that they were based on unreliable data.

Such missteps are sometimes a biproduct of competing incentives, Anthes explained. For scientists, publishing — and publishing prolifically — is not only a means to communicate results but a way to build prestige and advance one’s career. It can be tempting to cut corners, which is one reason Anthes says it is imperative that science journalists continually be on the lookout for “massaged,” manipulated, or otherwise questionable data.

Yong echoed that sentiment. “The competition in academia is absolutely ferocious,” he said. “And, to make matters worse, the metric that most defines an academic success isn’t publishing high-quality, rigorous work that solves societal problems. It’s publishing as many papers as possible in high-profile journals.”

Instead of pushing scientists toward careful work, such skewed incentives in academia drive them towards practices like slicing data from a single research study into multiple smaller “publishable” pieces, as well as “cutting methodological corners, and trying to do work as quickly as possible with smaller sample sizes.”

Although these problems existed before Covid-19, and will likely remain long after, Yong urged reporters to be savvy about them. “When we look at the literature, when we talk to people, we have to really ask hard questions about all of these structures, and the incentives, and the processes that led to the kind of work that we are seeing in front of us.”

Yong also noted that Covid-19 has driven a seismic shift in scientific funding: Scientists have faced enormous pressures from funding bodies — whether academic institutes or government agencies — to put their existing research on hold and “work on this new thing.” As of December, Yong said, the medical research search engine PubMed “had archived more than seventy-four thousand Covid related papers, which is more than twice as many as there have been about diseases like polio, measles, cholera, and dengue.”

According to Mandavilli, the webinar’s final speaker, the pressure to please funders is pervasive in science. There are seemingly countless research proposals and limited money to fund them, so scientists are continually searching for ways to “make their research look attractive” to granting agencies and to make their results look good enough to justify continued grants and publications.”

And although Mandavilli believes that science is self-correcting, she said that process of self-correction takes time. “In a pandemic like this, where things are really fast, we don’t have the luxury to wait for science to correct itself.” It’s up to journalists, she said, to do their part in holding science accountable.

Shafaq Zia is a research associate with the Knight Science Journalism Program and a student in the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing.

by Sudhi Oberoi / July 7th 2021 / KSJ News & Events

At Latest KSJ Webinar, Health, Medicine, and Covid-19 Take Center Stage

“With every story, there is a story not being told.” That observation from STAT health and tech reporter Erin Brodwin, made during the Knight Science Journalism Program’s June 17th webinar on health care reporting, spoke to the importance of weighing a health policy’s potential benefits with its potential risks and harms. The comment also helped set the tone for an engaging panel discussion that went beyond the basics of health reporting to explore weighty topics like how to strike the right balance in a story, how to deal with misinformation and science hesitancy, and how to illuminate not just the “products” of science but the process.

The event marked the third in a series of webinars organized in conjunction with the release of KSJ’s digital Science Editing Handbook. Joining Brodwin on the panel were Carmel Shachar, Executive Director of the Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School, and Atlantic staff writer Katherine Wu. (A recording of the webinar is available here.)

The panel was kicked off by Brodwin, who encouraged editors and reporters to look at health stories with a skeptical eye. From health care mergers to the deployment of health care algorithms, she said, there’s always an “overstory” — the rosy narrative found in press releases — and an “understory,” born of a careful, independent review of the evidence. It is the journalist’s job to connect and contrast the two, and fill in any gaps that might emerge, to tell a balanced story, she said. She encouraged reporters to ask themselves, “This thing that I am about to write, or not write about, does it weigh equally the risk of public harm with the risk of public benefit?”

From left to right: Erin Brodwin, Carmel Shachar, and Katherine J. Wu

Brodwin was followed by Shachar, a policy expert who offered insights from her years of experience working with health care reporters. Shachar, who has a background in both law and public health, advised reporters to take time to rigorously prepare for interviews, to conduct background research ahead of time, and to not shy away from asking follow up questions that delve deeper into essential ideas. Citing the recent example of vaccine hesitancy in the U.S., she cautioned journalists against dismissing people who don’t share their beliefs and views. Not only can it hurt the story, she said, it can steer science skeptics even further from facts and truth. “People are trying to weigh the risks and benefits to do right by their families and communities,” she said, arguing that this sentiment should be an important part of the narrative in any reporting on delicate health care topics.

Shachar emphasized that sometimes good policies do not work equally across all communities, and that competing narratives about a policy can shape the way the public understands it. She noted that in some of her earlier work with the Affordable Care Act, which expanded health coverage to millions of Americans, she found it important to ask “who this well-intentioned bill was leaving behind.”

The panel’s final speaker, Wu, a scientist turned science journalist, spoke about her personal experience of reporting science “as it happens.” As a science journalist, she explained, she seeks not only to explain how the science behind a technology or discovery works but also to give readers an understanding of the process that led to it — an approach she says can be especially important when reporting on topics such as health care and infectious disease, where human lives may be at stake.

“Data gathering is this really iterative process,” said Wu. Talking about that process, she says, can help a reader make sense of the twists, turns, and revisions of science — such as the seemingly flip-flopping recommendations given by infectious disease experts when initial data was still being collected during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. If she can help readers better understand that “data is gathered by human beings who sometimes make mistakes or have their own biases,” she says, those readers may be better equipped to recognize misinformation and misrepresentation of data when they see it.

As the panelists’ presentations drew to a close, Wu spoke about the value of highlighting the people behind scientific discoveries, which she says can be a useful way to showcase the interplay between science, culture, and human behavior — and bring diverse perspectives into a story: “For a reader to see themselves reflected in a human being in a story can be just as salient as a quippy metaphor.”

by Anna Blaustein / May 27th 2021 / KSJ News & Events

In KSJ’s Science Editing Webinar Series, a Masterclass on Climate Journalism

When Neela Banerjee and her colleagues at InsideClimate News set out to report on Exxon’s knowledge of the dangers of burning fossil fuels, they began with a question: “What did large fossil fuel companies know about climate change, and when did they know it?” That inquiry grew into a 2015 exposé that prompted states and cities to sue fossil fuel companies for their knowing role in causing climate change. Journalists around the world began digging into similar questions about how much other fossil fuel companies knew about the havoc they were wreaking.

“All of those articles taken together have changed our understanding of the responsibility that fossil fuel companies bear for climate change,” Banerjee said, recalling the investigative series during last week’s KSJ Science Editing webinar, “Covering Climate Change and the Environment.” The anecdote underscored a recurring theme of the 90-minute session: That climate journalists have an opportunity — and a responsibility — to speak truth to power.

Banerjee was joined at the event by Fenwick Montaigne, a senior editor at Yale Environment 360, and Lyndsey Gilpin, founder and editor-in-chief of the award-winning magazine, Southerly. Hosted by Joshua Hatch, co-editor of the Knight Science Journalism Science Editing Handbook, the webinar provided an illuminating crash course in climate reporting. (A recording of the event is available here.)

Montaigne kicked off the session with a recap of the state of climate-related science. He reminded the audience that the science on the climate crisis is settled. As such, he encouraged journalists to disregard skeptics, unless the skepticism is part of the point, as it is in stories about climate-change-denying politicians or articles describing public opinion in the US, for example. Otherwise, he said, there’s no reason to give airtime or credibility to deniers.

Montaigne also emphasized the importance of covering local climate stories, politicians, and the private sector, focusing on how climate change affects people, and situating stories within the context of global changes and the unprecedented rate at which these changes are occurring. He cautioned against sensationalizing developments in climate research. Being straightforward is imperative, he said, as he advised against putting too much weight on any one new study.

It’s important not to exaggerate promising developments in technology, either, Montaigne said.

This last statement came with another note, though: the climate beat is a bleak one right now, and it’s helpful to cover solutions in a responsible and measured way. “Keep hope and keep the faith,” he said, “because it is, right now, a pretty grim story.”

“Keep asking questions of the powerful people and institutions in your communities that are responsible for cutting emissions and keeping us safe from climate change.”

During her presentation, Banerjee focused on investigative climate journalism. She talked about finding stories and using journalism to hold those in power accountable. “The best stories are just lying in plain sight,” she said, adding that “the most interesting questions about climate change have to do with accountability.” Banerjee defined accountability, insofar as it relates to the climate crisis, as “the gap between what scientists and independent experts recommend we do to reduce emissions or adapt to climate change, and what politicians, government agencies, and corporations are actually doing.” Right now, she said, that gap is enormous. “Keep asking questions of the powerful people and institutions in your communities that are responsible for cutting emissions and keeping us safe from climate change,” she urged.

The last presentation of the event came from Gilpin, who spoke about the importance of taking a collaborative and intersectional approach to climate and environmental reporting. “A climate story is about power and equity and justice and race and class and gender and healthcare,” she said. “We have to give context to what other systems are at play that cause a certain population to be affected by a storm …. We have to talk on race and class in all of those ways.”

Gilpin also had a suggestion for getting people to care about climate change: Write place-based stories that meet people where they are; connecting the changes someone sees in their own surroundings to the effects of climate change can help people acknowledge and begin to understand the issues. Find out what people are observing in their communities and build partnerships with people who are familiar with local issues, Gilpin suggested. “People are experts of their own lives.” Whether or not they are able to talk about climate change or environmental policy, she explained, they are aware of changes affecting their communities. Gilpin argued that journalists need to make a concerted effort to include local people in the process of finding and telling climate stories about their communities. “More listening on that front can lead to better stories that are really serving the population that you’re trying to reach,” she said.

Climate change is real, but current policy isn’t proportional to the magnitude of the threat we’re facing, the panelists argued. And climate journalists can hold people in power — from politicians to polluters — accountable for protecting the public through investigations and consistent coverage. Another takeaway message: By telling stories at a local level and listening to community members, climate journalists can reach a wider audience and capture the urgency of the global changes that are unfolding in communities around the world.

Anna Blaustein is a research associate with the Knight Science Journalism Program and a student in the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing. You can read more of her work at annablaustein.com and find her on Twitter @annablaustein.

by R.M. Davis / April 26th 2021 / KSJ News & Events

They Don’t Just Fall Out of Trees: Three Science Writers on the Art of Finding Expert Sources

Freelance journalist Wudan Yan knows a thing or two about finding diverse sources for her stories, but even she ran into some trouble last fall when she was asked to profile famed biochemist Kary Mullis.

Mullis, who died in 2019, is credited with the invention of the polymerase chain reaction — a method of copying DNA that now plays a vital role in most genetic testing, and which is widely used to test for Covid-19 as well. He was also notorious for his long history of promoting false scientific ideas and sexually harassing women. Yan knew that she would need women’s voices to fully capture Mullis’ complicated legacy. Unfortunately for her, the majority of Mullis’ most noteworthy career moments occurred in the 80s and 90s, when diversity in the sciences was even worse than it is now.

“I was like, ‘Oh, a white man who came of age doing biochemistry in a time where a lot of white men were doing biochemistry,’” Yan said. “How can I find women or possible people of color to weigh in on the story?”

Yan, who delivered this anecdote as part of a presentation on how to prioritize diversity when seeking out sources, was one of three panelists who spoke about finding and vetting science sources during the first installment of Knight Science Journalism’s six-part Science Editing Webinar Series. (You can watch a recording of the webinar here.) Her underlying message was clear, and spoke to a central theme of the webinar event. Put simply: Good sources don’t just fall out of trees.

From left. to right, Wudan Yan, Melinda Wenner Moyer, and Roxanne Khamsi.

For Yan and her fellow presenters — Scientific American’s Melinda Wenner Moyer and freelance journalist Roxanne Khamsi — good sourcing is about a lot more than simply finding people who can comment on the story you’re investigating. It’s about finding the right people, with the right expertise and the right balance of diverse perspectives, to tell a compelling story. It’s a conscious effort that requires strategy, self-reflection, lots of hard work, and no small amount of patience.

However, as each of the featured speakers indicated at some point during their presentations, good sources are more than worth the trouble it takes to find them. The right sources can bring a science story to life — transforming dry, technical prose into vibrant storytelling filled with unique characters, fascinating perspectives, and the kind of social and cultural context that helps readers really connect with science storytelling.

The value of good sources was a core component of the message presented by Moyer, who opened the event by giving viewers a laundry list of practical advice for digging up sources with exactly the right expertise. (A useful tip: To find researchers working in ultra-specific scientific disciplines, try googling the sub-specialty you’re looking for along with the word “professor.”) She also delivered a thought-provoking discussion of false equivalence, warning webinar viewers to be especially wary of anecdotes and patient stories, which can easily be misrepresented as scientific evidence.

Moyer was followed by Khamsi, who spoke at length about strategies for finding sources on social media. While plenty of science writers have extolled the value of Twitter for digging up sources, Khamsi went further, showing audience members how to track down scientific experts and patients suffering from rare illnesses using platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn, and even Instagram. At the same time, she was also quick to point out the risks of using such platforms for sourcing, and suggested that the vetting process might be even more important when finding sources through social media. “Just because somebody says they’re an expert, and gives a long lecture on YouTube, of course, does not make them a great source,” she said.

Wudan Yan gave the final presentation of the day, on diversity in sourcing. She stressed that diverse sourcing serves not only to ensure that science reporting reflects the world we live in, but also to help boost innovation and invigorate problem solving by bringing fresh perspectives to the sciences. Yan also encouraged viewers to think about diversity from an intersectional perspective, by paying attention not just to race and gender but to issues like class, sexual orientation, and disability, recognizing that one person may represent multiple identities.

As for the Mullis story, Yan was ultimately unable to find any women who worked directly with Mullis during his heyday, so she took a different route. With a little creativity and determination, she was able to track down Nancy Cosgrove, Mullis’ fourth wife, who agreed to do her first ever press interview for Yan’s piece. For a high-level perspective on the subject of abusive men in the sciences, Yan turned to virologist Angela Rasmussen — a longtime contact of hers who never worked with Mullis directly, but who was able to offer plenty of insight on the broader issue. To connect Rasmussen’s contributions to Mullis’ story specifically, Yan found reporter Emily Yoffe, whom Mullis sexually harassed in 1994.

Although Yan had success finding women to comment on Mullis’ work and legacy, she had a much more difficult time finding people of color. But even this provided an important lesson. “Sometimes it’s not possible to find people who identify as BIPOC or a woman in a male dominated space, and I think that’s okay,” she said. “That is a reflection of reality. I just think it’s important that we make an effort to try.”

R.M. Davis is a research associate with the Knight Science Journalism Program and a student at the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing.