Even after 2 days of debates revealing the widely held view that science and religion can co-exist, journalists and scientists were still finding themselves challenged by creationist views on the last day of the “Darwin’s Living Legacy” conference in Alexandria (14-16th November 2009). “If Adam and Eve were so beautiful, how can they be descended [...]
Alexandria, Sunday 15 November 2009: An ape gradually changing into modern man is the most common image associated with evolution. ‘The Missing Link’ is probably the most overused phrase when significant fossils are discovered. At best both are inaccurate; at worst they are feeding the public evolutionary myths. This is the view of Elsabe Brits, [...]
Tagged Darwin evolution journalism communicationAlexandria, Egypt 14 November 2009. Martin Davidson, Chief Executive of the British Council and Dr Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Library of Alexandria welcomed an international audience of over 500 scientists, science communicators and journalists to Darwin’s Living Legacy Conference at the Bibliotecha Alexandrina, today. The Conference, organised by the British Council and the Bibliothecha, [...]
Tagged Darwin, evolution, mediaCuban authorities prohibited the arrival to the Island of a group of journalists who have been selected to participate in a training workshop to cover the Global Forum for Health that will be held from 16-20 of November. The international Media 21 journalistic organization in Geneva chose 15 journalists to attend the workshop and the [...]
I wondered what I was going to do with the stack of business cards I gathered from the World Conference of Science Journalists in London. Then a friend of mine, Coturnix from A Blog Around the Clock gave me the idea of interviewing partcipants. So kicking starting off, what I hope will be a series [...]
Time to take a deep breath – this is going to be hard. As a journalist, I’m about to do the unthinkable and praise a rival newspaper. Earlier this month, The Times published Eureka, a monthly magazine boasting coverage of “Science. Life. The Planet”. The 60-page launch issue included: an article on “Fifteen ideas to blow [...]
In his essay ‘Science journalism: Too close for comfort’ (Nature, 25 June 2009) the American science reporter Boyce Rensberger analyzes the history of science journalism and distinguishes three ages: the ‘Gee-Whiz Age’, the ‘Watchdog Age’ and the ‘Digital Age’. About the first two there can be little disagreement. However, to call the third age – [...]
Scientists often blame science journalists for being superficial and being sensationalists. But how do science journalists themselves look at their jobs, and at science journalism in general? Is it true that the main thing they want is to score with their stories? Or do they prefer balanced, in-depth reporting, that can arguably be more boring [...]
