Jim Cornell PHOTO courtesy of the smithsonian institution

News from Afar

by Jim Cornell

The decision by NASW to, let’s say, distance itself somewhat from the AAAS Annual Meeting, raises the question of what do comparable groups elsewhere in the world do?

A very informal and most definitely unscientific survey of some other national and regional groups reveals two things. One, NASW is unique, in both the size and diversity of its membership, and therefore comparisons with any other groups are probably irrelevant. And, two, the semi-symbiotic relationship between NASW and AAAS is, if you can pardon linguistic and logical infractions, even more uniquer, thereby suggesting that the two organizations might not want too much separation between themselves.

The national group closest to home, the Canadian Science Writers Association (CSWA), is probably typical of global practices. President Veronique Morin reports that the group has “always held its annual meetings independent of any other event.” Whether that is a reason or not is unclear, but, as she notes, “attendance is about a quarter to a third of our membership, which is 365 individuals.”

The CSWA annual meeting usually includes one “professional development” day and one day of scientific sessions that can produce stories. “The day before, and sometimes on the last day of the meeting, we offer tours of labs,” she adds. “And we always start with a gala night where we announce the winners of our 16 awards, and we end with our annual [business] meeting and election of officers.” The 33rd annual conference of the CSWA will be June 5-7, 2004, in downtown Toronto. The theme is “The Science of Water and How It Affects Our Lives.” Program and registration information at www.sciencewriters.ca.

Elsewhere in our hemisphere, the Brazilian Association of Science Journalism (ABJC) holds national congresses bi-annually and independently of any other organization. “But every so often,” writes Fabiola de Oliveira, a past-president of ABJC, “we have smaller, regional workshops and seminars, that may be held jointly with the SBPC (our AAAS), or with universities and media organizations.”

Although the ABJC congresses are not coincidental with any major science meetings, they do combine professional development sessions with scientific and/or academic sessions, and the membership has been very faithful in attendance, according to de Oliveira. The 8th bi-annual Brazilian Congress of Science Journalism is scheduled for November at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, in Salvador.

Jiang Yan, a television commentator in Beijing and the Deputy Secretary General of the China Society for Science and Technology Journalism (CSSTJ), reports that his association also meets independently of any other organizations, such as the China Association of Science and Technology (CAST), the Chinese equivalent of the AAAS. Instead, the national association meets each summer in a different city, usually hosted by a local chapter and, as he puts it “sponsored by some universities, press companies and some enterprises which want to build close relations with science media.”

As an interesting sidebar to the size issue, Jiang Yan notes that “membership in our association has increased recently. If we count all members of local [groups], the total number is now several thousands. So far, however, we have no accurate figure of the all members of local ones.”

The Japanese Association of Science and Technology Journalists holds its annual meeting in May independent of any other organizations. In part, this is because there is really nothing quite like the AAAS in Japan. “Of course, there are many other smaller conferences, congresses and meetings related to science, technology and medicine,” writes Kenji Makino, President of the JASTJ and a long-time foreign member of NASW. “ However, they are not all-around, or general, science meetings, like the AAAS.”

“If we do meet coincidentally with some major scientific conference, we usually will get a better attendance of the membership,” notes Makino “But we don’t really make such an attempt, because our membership is not large and concentrated in Tokyo, where we usually hold our meetings.” Besides Makino feels it is better for the organization to remain unaffiliated with any other group or organization.

Makino says that, in response to member requests, the annual meeting usually features a topical scientific lecture to give working writers a reason to attend the business session that follows. A major difference between the Japanese model and the annual meetings of many other national groups is that it does not include professional development seminars or science briefings. Such programs are held separately and almost monthly, as has been reported here earlier.

The European Union of Science Journalists’ Associations, (EUSJA) does not have individual members, rather it is a regional association of associations, representing most of the national organizations of Europe www.esf.org/eusja. Despite this dissimilarity with NASW, the relationship between EUSJA and the European Science Foundation (ESF) may be the most similar to that between NASW and AAAS. “This relationship has always been very positive,” says Jens Degett, press officer for the ESF. “We have a contract with EUSJA under which we provide resources for running their Secretariat, and we host their annual Assembly meetings at the ESF headquarters in Strasbourg.”

The Strasbourg meetings of EUSJA are usually stand-alone events, primarily to discuss business or policy issues, and with no tradition of-need for-professional development programs.
According to Degett, the organization usually “invites me to say something about ESF-and sometimes I invite someone from one of our programs who has an interesting story to tell. I am not trying to promote ESF as much as to give the EUSJA attendees some interesting stories. Everyone seems to be happy about this procedure. “

There is also a new and potentially interesting collaboration between EUSJA and Euroscience, the AAAS-like pan-European organization that reflects the growing spirit of continental unity. Some EUSJA board members have been invited to participate in the organization of ESOF 2004, a big, eclectic, general science conference modeled after the AAAS, to be held in Stockholm this August. Many European scientists-and journalists-hold great hope that ESOF 2004 will become a premier event attracting the same type of press attendance as does the AAAS.

[In Seattle, Harro Albrecht, a reporter for Germany’s Die Zeit, remarked that he saw more of his German colleagues at the AAAS than at any conference in his home county. One reason is because German science journalists still tend to organize themselves regionally rather than nationally. But another is that, as Albrecht notes, there is still nothing quite like the AAAS for its broad coverage of current science. For all its faults and failings, the AAAS annual meeting remains the type of event many other national groups wish they could complain about.]

In my last column I noted the second anniversary of SciDev.Net, the science news service for, by, and about the Developing World. That service now has a new and most welcome component: The “e-guide to science communication” which provides “one-stop shopping” for those engaged in the difficult task of reporting on science in parts of the world where media resources are limited and the atmosphere is hostile.

The “e-guide” brings together theory and practice through case studies and “best practices” examples presented in original articles and via links to other material online. For science reporters anywhere with Web access, the guide offers, as described by SciDev.Net director David Dickson: “Practical guidance on reporting science, dealing with the media, interacting with policymakers, and organizing events, as well as opinion and analysis on the use of science communication in development and on communicating science to the media and public.”

Most important, the guide provides a “broad range of contacts, with details on international, regional, and national science journalism, science communication organizations, and related e-mail listservers.”
The news service was launched at luncheon in a Seattle hosted by the AAAS, the American Chemical Society, and other supporters. If you didn’t catch the introduction to this remarkable global resource then, check it out on the Web at www.scidev.net/scicomm.

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Jim Cornell is president of the International Science Writers Association. Send items of interest-international programs, conferences, events, etc.-to cornelljc@earthlink.net.