If you regularly do a Twitter search for the words “science journalism,” like I do, you’ll be amazed, amused and sometimes shocked by the amount of bashing science journalism takes in the Twittersphere. It shows that not all science journalism is created equal, and it’s a sign of the times, really: Not all journalists who [...]
I’m an “investigative journalism” skeptic. And I’m right until the promoters of investigative journalism prove me wrong. Let’s start with the latter. Associating “investigative” with “journalism” is almost equivalent to slapping “artistic” on “films.” It’s tautological. Good films are necessarily artistic as much as good journalistic pieces are naturally investigative. Therefore, those who insist on [...]
Through a popular nationally syndicated science talk program, Science Friday, host Ira Flatow spreads science news to a broad audience. The podcasts of Science Friday have been downloaded more than 1.4 million times making it the third most downloaded show in American public radio. Flatow was on hand at Duke University on Monday to keynote [...]
There has been so much written about ScienceOnline 2010 that for me to try to encapsulate in yet another blog post seems pointless. ScienceOnline 2010 was an “unconference” of folks dedicated to communicating science and science issues through the internet. It was held at Sigma Xi headquarters in the Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
People expect a lot from scientists. Preferably ready-made, unambiguous answers, valid for eternity. But because of science’s critical character and rigorous reality checks of hypotheses, various scientists can give different answers to the same questions. If these questions concern cutting edge research, this is more the rule than the exception. Only after years or even decades of extensive checks, some scientific hypotheses make it into handbook science, that is hardly doubted anymore. But even some handbook science might get overthrown after some time.
A big scandal is going on in Russia. An inventor with no scientific degree and no serious scientific publications may receive a huge part of taxpayers’ money allocated to the national program called “Clean Water”. The total cost of this program would be 15 trillion rubles (500 billion dollars), and the money can be spent to buy water filters created by the inventor, for them to be placed in Russian kindergartens, schools, polyclinics, and other public places.
This article was written by Chao-Ping Hong (Taiwan), a Master student in the science journalism course at Delft University of Technology. Her assignment was to write an opinion article about the influence of citizen journalism on science journalism. I hope her fresh take will inspire you. Twitter, hyperlinks, comments. Type, click, and send. Without doubt, [...]
“In this world of ours now, to be an informed participant in the great conversation of mankind is to have an alert awareness and understanding of what’s happening in the world.”
I remember the very first issue of Russian Newsweek back in 2004: it was about the Russian economy being an “oil junky”. For many years, experts have talked about the huge problems that Russia is going to face if it doesn’t build an economy based on something other than these raw materials. But only last year president Dmitry Medvedev started to talk more or less persistently about innovations.
With 5,000 journalists accredited by last week to cover the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, this will be one of the most journalists’ populated global meetings in many years.
