Student science writers from around the world have created a set of 52 stories from the World Conference of Science Journalists 2017, spanning most of the meeting’s sessions and creating a valuable reference archive for journalists in the U.S. and abroad. The reports, along with bios of the authors, are online at the WCSJ2017 Student... Read More
By Amelia Jaycen SAN FRANCISCO—Saul Perlmutter, a Nobel Prize–winning astrophysicist and cosmologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has spent a lot of his time ascertaining how quickly the universe is expanding. But he is also concerned with some down-to-earth issues, like the state of human interactions. As he watched public discussions unfold in the last... Read More
By Carolyn M. Wilke SAN FRANCISCO—Is fact-checking the future of journalism? That question, at once disturbing for our society and promising for the increased role science journalists might play in combating fake news, drove a panel discussion among four experts on 30 October at the World Conference of Science Journalists 2017. The panelists, all experienced... Read More
SAN FRANCISCO—Science podcasts are more popular than ever. Producing them takes time, technical savvy, and a deep passion to engage listeners with material that is both informative and fun. How does one start a science podcast and build a dedicated audience? Those topics drew an enthusiastic crowd on 27 October at the World Conference of... Read More
By Liz Kimbrough SAN FRANCISCO—When South African student journalist Sibusiso Biyela sat down to write about the launch of the MeerKAT telescope in both English and Zulu, he thought it would be simple. The English version rolled out smoothly. But when he began to translate into Zulu, his native language, he found he would have... Read More
By Margarida Marques SAN FRANCISCO—The use of animals in research prompts as wide a range of opinions and emotions among researchers as it does for the public. This makes the topic tricky for journalists to cover if researchers are reluctant to discuss how they use laboratory animals—or if reporters elect to leave animals out of... Read More
By Jia Naqvi SAN FRANCISCO—An apple a day keeps the doctor away—that is, if you can afford apples or if you have access to a place that provides or sells them. Myriad social, economic and demographic factors, all beyond the control of the individual, can affect how vulnerable we are to ill health or injury.... Read More
By Annie Roth SAN FRANCISCO—We all know climate change increases the severity of tropical storms, but what about Twitter storms? According to Solomon Hsiang, director of the Global Policy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, climate change is destabilizing both economies and emotions across the globe. During an eye-opening lecture titled “Economic Inequality, Violence,... Read More
By Félix Reskala SAN FRANCISCO—There is a problem in science: Scientists often can’t reproduce the results of their colleagues. More than 50% of researchers feel this poses a major problem for the field, according to a survey last year in Nature. To address what this issue means for science journalists, prominent editors and scientists convened... Read More
By Sibusiso Biyela SAN FRANCISCO—Misinformation, myths and “fake news” continue to fuel controversies around vaccines. Activists can easily find stories in credible publications that seem to support their “anti-vax” stance. To help reporters navigate the challenges of responsible reporting on vaccines, several experts gathered on 28 October at the World Conference of Science Journalists 2017... Read More
By Jesús Antonio Pascual Álvarez SAN FRANCISCO—There is a simple truth in the news business: Audiences want to consume verified information from credible media, and journalists strive to gain that trust. But things are often not that simple, because there always seems to exist a third party intent on bending the message in favor of... Read More
Thank you for attending WCSJ2017! We’re excited to have welcomed 1,364 registered attendees—from more than 70 countries—to San Francisco for WCSJ2017.
