[Inside the Alamo. Photo by Jerald Jackson via Flickr & CC 2.0, My own Alamo photos did not come out this pretty.] This past weekend, I spent three and a half days at the National Association of Science Writers meeting in San Antonio, Texas. If you’ve never been to a Science Writers conference, here’s what …
[Illustration by Fredik Walloe via Flickr & CC 2.0] A few days ago, I posted Part 1 of an informal guide to rocking interviews with journalists about your science. That post covers what to do before an interview; this post focuses on the During and the After. Step 5: Invite Co-Authors Along. [Photo via UBC …
[A woman interviewing a Lego Sculpture. Photo by Matt Brown via Flickr & Creative Commons 2.0] Let’s say you’re a young lab leader or grad student and you’ve just gotten an email from a journalist asking if you can speak to them about your upcoming paper. You haven’t heard of this reporter before. You ‘re …
[Image by Ozzy Delaney via Flickr & Creative Commons] Movies. They’re the stuff of fiction, and scientists love to make fun of those darn Hollywood writers. (The Core, anyone?) How dare they abuse and twist the science to hit a plot point? Journalism is supposed to be an emphatic move away from fiction. But I’d argue that …
[“Stockpile” photo by Stephen Edmonds via Flickr/Creative Commons] This week, I’m taking a dollop of my own advice and building a “stockpile” of future posts for this blog. But like blogging itself, building a post stockpile requires a lot of guesswork. The Internet is fickle, and even though I have a pretty good idea of …
Yesterday, I wrote about why many pieces about the need for investigative science journalism don’t acknowledge the factors behind its scarcity. Conversations about investigations in science journalism often seem to assume that reporters don’t see critiquing science as important, but journalists’ individual interests don’t set the tone for journalistic coverage all by themselves. In journalism, …
[^^”How do you know?”: The question that science journalists must not forget to ask.] One night about a month ago, I was at a friend’s birthday party, knocking back tequila and rum with assorted MIT-affiliated twentysomethings. Somehow I ended up talking about tardigrades with a post-doc from an uber-spiffy genetics institute. [This is what a …
Today is a big day for me, and not just because my 1st byline for The Atlantic went live today. Although seriously, go check it out. It’s also special because I just went on record announcing my intention to compile a quarterly “Best Shortform Science Writing” roundup, so that us science writing whippersnappers can see …
“Should I go to science journalism grad school?” I’ve been asking myself that question since my junior year of undergrad, and I asked myself every day I spent MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing. In fact, I’m still asking myself that question. Hi. My name is Diana Crow, and I’m a science writing grad school …
June 2014 has been a whirlwind month for me. I went to my first hackathon, my first major science writing conference, and landed a role as co-editor-in-chief of the Scientista Foundation website. I’ve been taking some time off from blogging to focus on freelancing and the upcoming redesign of the Scientista website, but don’t worry. …