Association of British Science Writers

Editorial decisions of medical journals are "directly influenced" by revenue considerations based on pharmaceutical companies' reprints of their articles, according to the editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal, Fiona Godlee. Earlier this month she called on the UK’s Commons Science and Technology Committee's peer-review inquiry to investigate the issue further.

Her comments come in the wake of other instances of the uneasy relationship between advertising sections and editorials in science writing across the board, from magazine journalism and the blogosphere to PR at scientific conferences.

An Australian-based medical journal has recently stopped carrying any paid advertisements from pharmaceutical companies, challenging other publications to join them. An editorial, published in the February edition of Emergency Medicine Australasia, raised issues surrounding the possible distortion of research findings and the influence this could have on doctors.

On 11 May, Jesus College, Cambridge played host to an intimate conference, The Next Generation of Science Media, welcoming participants from a wide range of organisations and disciplines. The conference encouraged discussion among all participants and made for an intensive day of discussion between some of the country’s leading science journalists and many others.

The conference was organised by the University of Cambridge’s Jesus College Science & Human Dimension Project in collaboration with BlueSci magazine and City University’s Department of Journalism. ABSW had a strong presence with several of our up-and-coming science writers and journalists attending. Here are the individual reviews of the five conference sessions, on new media, hot stories and scientific fraud, religion and science journalism, ethics of science media, and the future of popular science books: 

With scores of young journalists clawing for a limited number of jobs each year, landing that media internship has become a critical career step. While some internships come with a stipend, many are being offered with no pay. Increasingly, both interns and media professionals are asking: are young people being exploited by these unpaid internships and are they keeping those from lower-income families out of science media?

The public relations (PR) industry has been especially affected by the rise of the unpaid internships. The news outlet PRWeek recently reported that a former chair of the industry’s Professional Practices Committee has called on industry bodies "to stamp out the 'odious' practice of unpaid internships."

The Association of British Science Writers and Psci-Com mailing lists regularly advertise science writing and journalism internship opportunities, which are just as regularly scoffed at and criticised for their poor pay or alleged illegality.

It has been a year since Ivan Oransky, executive editor of Reuters Health, started Embargo Watch, "a long-term blog examining trends in embargoes and how they were affecting news coverage".

In his opening post on 23 February 2010 he said: "I’m going to try to keep track of anecdotes about embargoes. Are they helping journalists? Helping journals? Who’s breaking them? And, most important, are they helping the general public? My hope is that by chronicling these stories and trends, I can help make embargoes work better. For some [...] that may mean doing away with them. For others, it may mean refining them."

So, what have we found out about embargoes since then? Should we be sticking to them, do we need them and if so, why?

Welcome to this late running issue of The Science Reporter. The reasons for the delay are more complex than I can go into here but involve workloads, broken promises and surgery.

With accusations that some news articles are lifted almost word for word from press releases, it’s more important than ever that writers get their hands on scientific papers. Djuke Veldhuis goes on a journey through the land of journal access and tries to find out how science journalists can get their hands on primary source materials.

For those outside the towers of academic institutions, accessing original research articles is easier said then done. During my life as a researcher I spent many hours reading articles on JSTOR, an online archive with more than 1000 academic journals in one location. Now, taking my first steps as a science journalist, without the plethora of passwords that granted full access to the darkest and most obscure technical journals, I feel adrift. I went back to JSTOR and asked how I would gain access once again. Charles Sipperley of ‘user services’ responded: “At this time use of JSTOR is limited to individuals affiliated with participating institutions. However, expanding access to the JSTOR Archive beyond academic institutions is an important goal … we are pursuing ways to make JSTOR available to independent scholars in the near future”. So now that I’m an ‘independent scholar’ where do I start?

As Co-Director of the ABSW’s first ever UK Conference of Science Journalists in July, Julie Clayton wanted to make sure it wasn’t just her rose tinted wine glass that made her think it was a success...

Before embarking on another UKCSJ, slated for two years from now, I thought I should ask some delegates and speakers what they found most useful at UKCSJ and compare notes with counterparts in the USA and Finland. With their responses, and seeing the preparations for the next World Conference of Science Journalists in Cairo 2011, I can see we have a lot to look forward to.

Science writer and blogger Frank Swain offers his take on the pressures science journalists are under from bloggers.

Science writers, your days are numbered. The blogger hordes are at the gates, armed with torches, ready to burn down your citadel and cast your texts into the Tigris until the water runs black with ink. They will build pyres out of your newspapers, that archaic media so symbolic of your deadwood industry. Your dinosaur bones will burn to glowing embers, a final clumsy attempt to transform into the tiny phosphor pixels that mark the dawn of the bloggers’ shining new digital age.

Plenary Session

Climategate: Were scientists asleep at the wheel?

Carolyn Kelday, Student Representative, ABSW Committee

Described by the session chair, Gabrielle Walker, as "the most significant scandal of our generation, 'climategate' deserved the prime position of the opening plenary. The session addressed the role of scientists and the media in how the story unfolded.