Summer 2009

From the Chair

New members

Sci Comm news

Eurochat

Feature: The day CERN was more popular than NASA

Feature: Biding time

Feature: The importance
of good design

Feature: From around the world

Event Report: The
numbers game

Event Report: When lives are on the line

Event Report: The new media officers

Event Report: Achieving global coverage

Interview: Ian Sample,
The Guardian

Stempra newsletter

FEATURE: From around the world

Over 900 journalists – from Europe, North and South America, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Australasia – gathered to share ideas and discuss common issues faced by the profession.

Pallab Ghosh, Science Correspondent, BBC News and President, World Federation of Science Journalists, said: “One of the key messages we wanted to get across was that good science journalism can change the world for the better. Science can be a force for good but can only realise that potential if we do our jobs well.”

The Arab world is providing inspiration and hope for the profession, at a time when science journalists in the USA and parts of Europe are seeing their traditional work places diminishing. Having already fuelled some exciting and heated discussions in London, this topic triggered a lively discussion at the conference.

Other popular topics included the challenges and opportunities of new media tools, embargoes (link to feature) and the role of the science media in reporting major scientific issues including climate change, evolution, stem cells, cancer research and other areas of biomedical science.

The next conference, 2011 in Cairo, will set a whole raft of precedents. It will be the first in the African continent and the first in an Arab country. Demonstrating that science journalism transcends cultural and political divides, it will be the first to be organised jointly by journalists from two world regions – the Arab Science Journalists Association and the US-based National Association of Science Writers.

News, session reports, podcasts, pictures and video from the London conference can all be accessed at www.wcsjnews.org and will soon be updated with audio recordings of the conference sessions.

Julie Clayton
Co-Director, WCSJ2009
julie.clayton@wcsj2009.org

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