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
Sibusiso Biyela, one of this year’s student travel fellows, brought a South African perspective to a panel on the decolonization of science 27 October at the World Conference of Science Journalists. ‘We were taught that science has a western origin’ @AstroSibs at #WCSJ2017 #DecolonizeScience pic.twitter.com/NnVPCuO8kL — Oscar Miyamoto (@MiyamOtOscar) October 27, 2017 The panel also... Read More
By Alex Fox BERKELEY, California—Too often, the most pressing environmental issues faced by humankind fade away when the news cycle ends. Without breaking news to inject them back into coverage, these stories can dwindle even as their impacts intensify. But there are reliable ways for journalists to forge compelling stories at any time from ongoing... 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 Omnia Gohar SAN FRANCISCO—Science provides a universal stamp of approval. So it’s no wonder that some people use it to package non-scientific ideas to gain credibility. But when these ideas, which are mistakenly regarded as based on scientific method, are hailed by governments as great scientific breakthroughs, it’s no longer your average pseudoscience. This... Read More
By Nicoletta Lanese SAN FRANCISCO—Twenty years ago, Susan Desmond-Hellmann was giddy to share Herceptin, the breakthrough breast cancer treatment, with the world. Not once did she worry if the world would believe her. Were Desmond-Hellmann to introduce Herceptin today, she would confront the challenges of conducting and reporting science in a post-truth world. “The scientific... 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
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.
