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On Writing

12 Lessons from Science Writers 2016 in San Antonio

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[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 you need to know:  It’s an eclectic event. On Friday and Saturday, science writers meet to discuss their craft and the state of their field. On Sunday and Monday, scientists present to the journalists, bloggers, and university writers, to give them all a chance to learn a bit about trending topics in science.

Here are a few of the key takehome messages I picked up at Science Writers 2016. 

1. The PIO vs. Journalist division has been wildly over-dramaticized.

 

Writers who work for universities–aka Public Information Officers or PIOs–are a huge chunk of NASW’s member population. They attend the same conference panels, follow the same Twitter accounts, and stand in the same lines for coffee as the journalists and bloggers amongst NASW’s ranks.

However, in some respects, PIOs’ work is very different from journalists: Specifcially, a PIO’s job is to make their university look freakin’ awesome; a journalist’s job is to provide needed information–and often critiques of institutions–to the public.  Both camps of science writers want to provide their readers with accurate and interesting information, but the reasons behind that objective strongly contrast.

At last year’s NASW meeting, a proposed amendment that would allow PIOs to serve as officers on NASW’s board  brought the tensions between the two professional groups to the fore. Some PIOs felt undervalued; many journalists and some PIOs  argued that allowing PIOs to serve as officers would create Conflicts-of-Interest for NASW. (Clarification: PIOs are already allowed to serve as board members, just not officers.) The debate has been extensively covered by Undark magazine. 

Based on some heated (and impolitic) listserv discussions, many expected the tensions to erupt once again at the meeting. However, the San Antonio conference was suprisingly calm,  with the vast majority of amendment commentators saying that “we should all (continue) to be friends”.

Many senior writers also acknowledged the existence of freelancers who do a combination of journalistic and PIO work, as well as bloggers (like yours truly) that don’t fit either category. The results of the vote on the amendment won’t be announced for several days, but overall, the debate seems to have simmered down.

2. If you want to be a science writer, don’t be afraid to pitch.

The most important tweet of the conference:

Back in high school, I once saw an utterly mediocre Will Smith movie, where he plays a guy who advises other men on how to get women’s attention.  One scene stuck in my head where Will Smith turns to camera and says, “Trust me. No woman wakes up and thinks, ‘Gee, I hope I don’t get swept off my feet today.'”

The casual sexism of off-feet-sweeping, aside, the principle holds true. Most people aren’t actively avoiding making new friends. And most editors are not avoiding awesome new writers. In fact, most of them are actually want to discover new talent.

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On Writing

We Need Investigative Science Journalism But Learning to Investigate Science is Hard–Part 2

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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, economics and politics shape our work. It’s basically impossible to disentangle why an article was written the way it was from simply reading the article.

Discussing the economics and politics that shape editorial decisions is a crucial part of addressing the relative absence of investigative science journalism, because for many reporters, quick hits– daily news stories, magazine blurbs, and blog posts– are our bread-and-butter (…when we get any bread at all…). Most casual readers encounter science via casual quick takes more often than they encounter it through investigative and/or longform articles.

There are definitely books and workshops out there to teach journalists how to chase down leads and verify what sources say, but at the end of the day, every investigative reporter I’ve met says that a lot of investigation is just spending a lot of time going through interviews and documents, looking for patterns. It’s very, very hard to justify putting in Spotlight-esque hours without a steady salary.

Unfortunately, the economic realities do not prevent verification issues from rearing their heads in short news stories…

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