Creating a climate for change

Rajendra Pachauri underlined the scientific rationale for action on climate change.

The poorest countries will be the hardest hit by climate change and we, as science journalists, must do more to highlight their plight and support their position — this was one of the key messages to emerge from the much-anticipated climate change session at the 6th World Conference of Science Journalists this morning.

Echoing the sentiments in his SciDev.Net Opinion article published last week, IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri said the media has a crucial role in underlining the scientific rationale for action on climate change, which includes reporting on the worst impacts of climate change, many of which are expected in the developing world.

David King, former UK chief scientific advisor, similarly suggested that the media can help put pressure on governments to take action against climate change.

This means emphasising the need to “defossilise” economies over the next 40 years. Science will have a huge part to play. “There are amazing opportunities for innovators in the private sector,” said King. And the time for action is now. Change is coming, and “any country that doesn’t start defossilising now will find the transition very expensive”.

Developing countries are, in some ways, at an advantage as they can jump straight to low-carbon economies — if they are given help to do so. The willingness to help is certainly there — only last week UK prime minister Gordon Brown highlighted the need to work with African countries in the battle against climate change. He said billions of pounds need to move from North to South to help African countries manage climate change impacts.

But — and this is key — such support must not be just another hand-out. It must come with the skills, people and technology needed to support long-term sustainable development. I won’t argue with that.

Sian Lewis, SciDev.Net

Survival of the fittest science journalists

Hammersley: a bleak future for science journalism?

The word on everybody’s lips at the 6th World Conference of Science Journalists opening plenary this afternoon was ‘crisis’.

With newspapers around the world migrating online or ceasing publication altogether, science journalists are right to be worried. Nick Higham, BBC correspondent and chair of the plenary, attributed the crisis in part to the rise of new media. He hit the nail on the head when he said “but how can we make it [new media] pay? And where do traditional, professional, properly-paid journalists fit in?”

Three speakers offered their perspectives on “New media for new journalism?”

Krishna Bharat, GoogleNews founder, simply suggested that we must become “smarter about getting the right material to the right people”. This means working in “cooperation, not competition”; using experts to create “living stories” a bit like wikipedia articles; and “packaging up” individual articles with branding and advertising for people to post on their own websites.

Jeff Nesbit, from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States, which traditionally supports science itself rather than science journalism, highlighted a variety of strategies that blend old and new media and, according to Nesbit, are proving crucial in the fight to keep science journalism alive. These range from underwriting the costs of science desks in traditional newspapers, to aggregating news online, to creating new content for radio, television and new media.

Poor Nesbit was given a hard time by the audience who questioned both the quality and objectivity of government-funded science communication — several delegates argued that the NSF’s efforts fall into public relations rather than science journalism.

Ben Hammersley, associate editor of Wired Magazine, painted a bleak future for science journalism, suggesting that the next WCSJ might see just half today’s number of working science journalists. The key to survival, he said, is to specialise in a single medium and create “extraordinarily good products”. Audiences go to “where the good stuff is, not where the shiny stuff is”. It’s survival of the fittest.

But we should remember that new media has been on the table for at least ten years. Arguing that it is causing a crisis in science journalism is, said Hammersley, like “being chased down the street by a snail”. If you haven’t got your head around new media by now, he added, you’re in serious trouble.

Sian Lewis, SciDev.Net

Training press officers in the developing world ‘key’

Well-trained press officers are key to raising the awareness of regional science across the developing world

Despite their cultural differences, the shared challenges for developing world science journalists were clear in the panel “Getting global coverage for science” held at the World Conference of Science Journalists in London.

“In our countries, it is easier to know what is going on in science in the rest of the world, for example the United States, than in institutions just across the street”, said Egyptian freelance science journalist Nadia El-Awady.

Part of the reason for this lack of regional science awareness is the limitations of press officers in the developing world. Few research institutions and universities have press officers and even when they do, the officers are not adequately prepared for their tasks. Furthermore, many of the press officers are unaware of the importance of their work.

In Nigeria the situation is even more worrying, according to Diran Onifade, a journalist the Nigerian Television Authority, who denounced the regular practice of press officers paying journalists to cover science stories.

“I need to be careful here and I don’t want to offend nobody, but in my country the press officers have became something else; the relationship between press officer and journalist may involve a negotiation”, Onifade said.

The need for carrying out specific training for press officers was considered key both by the panelists and the participants of the session, which was organised by science communication network Stempra.

Luisa Massarani, SciDev.Net.

Evolution (God optional)

The new survey suggests the evolution-religion debate may not be black and white

Egypt has just two per cent, the United States 13 per cent and India 20 per cent but China overshadows them all with an impressive 67 per cent. Can you guess what it is yet? It’s the percentage of people who believe in Darwinian evolution.

These varied findings are the preliminary conclusions of a survey of more than 11,000 people and their attitudes to evolution and religion in ten countries across the globe, presented today at the World Conference of Science Journalists in London.

So why the big differences? Why do 42 per cent of Mexicans toe the evolution line when just six per cent of South Africans do? The researchers wouldn’t be drawn in during the short time they had on the podium but Fern Elsdon-Baker, head of the Darwin Now Project which was behind the survey, told me there’s still a lot of data to go through before conclusions can be drawn.

The most important thing about the survey, she and her colleague, Peter C. Kjærgaard of Cambridge University’s Leverhulme Centre, told the assembled press is that unlike previous surveys, theirs gave the respondents a chance to agree with evolution as a process but with the involvement of God – on this basis, the proportion of Egyptians who accept evolution jumps to 50 per cent.

This showed them that the debate isn’t black and white, an encouraging point considering how evolution and religion are so often pitted against each other. Allowing for this level of complexity means new insights for the research – but also a lot of data processing.

Elsdon-Baker says the team might analyse the data to see if there are any trends, for example whether there are major differences between views in developed and developing nations. But whatever they find, she’s not convinced that attitudes to evolution reflect the level of public understanding of science in a country.

“In some countries where there is low understanding of evolution or Darwinism, science actually holds a high status,” she said. “There are so many different factors, it’s clearly an area where a lot more research needs to be done.”

I don’t think we disagree with that.

Katherine Nightingale, SciDev.Net

If it’s 2009, this must be London

Well, here we are at last.

It’s exactly 806 days (yes, I’ve counted them) since a high-powered but slightly nervous team put an ultimately successful bid to the board of the World Federation of Science Journalists to host their biennial conference in London in 2009.

The occasion was the fifth such conference, which opened on the following day (17 April 2007) in Melbourne, Australia. But the initial incentive for the bid was sparked by the success of the previous conference, which had taken place in Montreal, Canada, in October 2004.

Having initially been sceptical that a world federation of anything could be effective at much more than allocating radio frequencies and similarly bureaucratic tasks, a small delegation led by Pallab Ghosh, then president of the Association of British Science Writers (ABSW), came away impressed.

The Montreal meeting was an unanticipated success, attracting some 620 delegates — including about 300 science journalists from 58 countries. It had also made a profit, which was shared between the World Federation and two Canadian science journalist associations.

So when it came to bidding for this year’s World Conference of Science Journalists, the cash-strapped ABSW took little convincing to put its weight behind an application that eventually won out over a rival bid from Trieste, Italy.

The ABSW’s confidence looks as if it will be rewarded. Two months ago, the conference organisers were fretting about a failure to attract enough registrants, even contemplating moving to a smaller venue.

Yesterday they were able to announce that, as in Montreal, targets had been met, with more than 800 registered to attend. Indeed they are now having to turn down new applications for registration.

All of which augurs well for a lively conference, which opens tomorrow with a plenary session on “New media, new journalism?”

Given the strong support that SciDev.Net is delighted to have provided for the conference planning — including the suggestion of including a “development stream” in the schedule — our interests will be in there from the start.

Indeed, the description for the session opens by declaring: “There is no question that the Internet has dramatically changed the way news is gathered and disseminated.”

The apparent popularity of the London meeting also means that bidding for the next World Conference, due to take place in 2011, is fierce. Cairo, Helsinki, Kampala and Nairobi have all indicated an interest.

Cairo’s bid, backed by the newly formed Arab Science Journalists Association, is said to be the current favourite. The result will be known by the end of the week.

I’ve made some comments on some of the issues that will face participants attending WCSJ2009 in an editorial on the SciDev.Net website, “Beware scientific fundamentalism“.

You can also see on our website an article by IPCC chair R. K. Pachauri, written exclusively for us as a curtain-raiser to the plenary session in which he is participating on Thursday. He calls on journalists to maintain focus on the scientific rationale for action — rather than the politics — in their coverage of climate change. See “How the media is creating a climate for change“.

David Dickson, SciDev.Net

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Good news for developing world science journalists

While science journalism in developed countries is facing a crisis, there are a growing number of exciting opportunities for science journalists in the developing world, says senior Harvard fellow Cristine Russell.

The economic downturn has hit the Western science writing community hard, with staff and budget cuts, and lighter stories about consumer health and fitness often stealing the limelight from important scientific developments, argues Russell. Yet there is a growing demand for local stories about science and the environment in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

Read the full article on SciDev.Net