There are many ways to get statistics wrong, and we learned about some of them from the speakers at the 'Get the numbers right: A workshop on reporting statistics' session. They also offered advice on how journalists could avoid the common mistakes and treat statistics right. Clearly this is a topic that many people care about, judging by how packed the room was.
Event coverage
Coverage begins in 2006 for the ScienceWriters meeting and 2009 for the AAAS meeting. To see programs for past ScienceWriters meetings, go to the ScienceWriters meeting site.
Panelists tackling solutions to the collapse of science literacy and the collapse of science journalism differed radically on how to get the public interested in science and reading about it.
If you had $1 to spend on improving science literacy in America, how would you spend it? That was the question posed by Rick Borchelt, an organizer of today's Civics of science session, to panelists Carolyn L. Funk, Jon Miller, and Chris Mooney.
More on this morning's session, "How to be an effective science PIO in the changing media world." This time, we hear about PIOs on the panel.
As science journalism moves increasingly to the Web, the work often just begins with writing and posting an article. The commentary from readers that follows a post needs focused and immediate attention, especially early in a site’s development. That was the consensus that developed during the discussion at this morning’s ‘Social web and online commenting’ session.
“I don’t do ‘Happy Birthday, dear disease' stories.” That’s how Don McNeil, Jr. of the New York Times opened “How to be an effective science PIO in the changing media world.” It was standing room only as three PIOs and two journalists swapped advice at the session.
How can I find new assignments? How should I organize my time? Can I earn enough money to make freelancing a worthwhile career choice? These are some of the questions we had when we settled in with our cups of coffee to hear freelance writers Amber Dance, Christopher Mims, John Pavlus, and Jeffrey Perkel talk about their experiences establishing and sustaining freelance businesses with maximal efficiency and minimal fuss.
David Berreby here, another of the NASW traveling fellows, and a first-time attendee. I'm the author of Us and Them: The Science of Identity and I write the "Mind Matters" blog at Bigthink.com. Since the late 1980's, I've written about science (mostly as it relates to human behavior) for magazines and newspapers (including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Nature, The New Republic, Smithsonian, Discover, among many others).
I spent my first professional conference hoping no one would notice how nervous I was. I fidgeted in my new “professional” clothes and fiddled with my flimsy business cards. I was a college junior, new to the world of science writing, and I felt like an imposter. While I’ve since accepted that I may never learn to walk in high-heels, arriving at the 2010 NASW conference, I am comfortable. I know how to network.