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News Resources

SJAA partners with Australian literary powerhouse, Griffith Review

The SJAA logo and the Griffith Review logo shaking hands

The Science Journalists Association of Australia is delighted to announce its partnering with esteemed Australian literary quarterly, Griffith Review, to provide discounted access to digital and print editions of the magazine. 

Griffith Review has a long and storied history of publishing award-winning science essays, non-fiction writing and reportage by some of the nation’s most accomplished writers including Ceridwen Dovey, James Bradley and Alice Gorman. In 2022, it published Jo Chandler’s ‘Buried treasure’, which was awarded the 2023 Eureka Prize for Science Journalism. 

Jackson Ryan, President of the SJAA, said “Griffith Review is an icon of the Australian literary scene and the type of science reporting found within its pages is published nowhere else. I’m so thrilled to partner with the team at GR and make it easier for our members to devour those stories.”

This is the first partnership of its kind for the SJAA and will see all the Associations members provided access to the digital and print editions of Griffith Review‘s quarterly magazine at significantly reduced prices.

“I look forward to seeing the ideas, initiatives and stories this partnership will help foster and fully expect the talented membership of the SJAA will grace the pages of GR in the future.” 

Carody Culver, the editor of Griffith Review, said, ‘We’re delighted to be partnering with the SJAA, which plays such an integral role in supporting and championing outstanding science journalism. This collaboration is an invaluable way for GR to strengthen connections with science writers at all stages of their careers; I have no doubt that the partnership will generate exciting new ventures for both our organisations.’

Founded in 2003, Griffith Review publishes four times a year in print and digital formats. Each edition explores a different theme, bringing together long-form critical and analytical non-fiction and creative writing from the finest emerging and established writers from Australia and overseas.

The Science Journalists Association of Australia was founded in 2019 to support and foster the professional interests of practising and aspiring science journalists in Australia, and to champion and advocate for independence and excellence in science journalism. It has provided more than $20,000 in grants to the Australian science journalism community, with support from the likes of The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science and STEM Matters. 

Looking to join SJAA’s vibrant, supportive community? You can find all the details to sign up here. Questions and media requests can be directed to contact@SJAA.org.au.

Jackson Ryan
— President, SJAA

Categories
Events Resources

2019 World Conference of Science Journalists videos now online

Videos of sessions from the recent World Conference of Science Journalists in Lausanne, Switzerland – held in July – are now available online for anyone to watch. Sessions include investigative methods for science journalists, escaping the ‘balance trap’, and reporting on scientific fraud.

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Articles Resources

What is journalism? And why should we care?

In light of the recent AFP raids on Australian journalists, this article by journalism academic Glynn Greensmith in WA Today is a timely read to remind us about what journalism, why we need it, and why we should care about these raids. “Journalism is the gatekeeper of democracy. We’ve been directly or indirectly told this for thousands of years, yet in our world the only people who seem to understand its worth are the ones seeking to diminish it,” he writes. Read more here.

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Articles Resources

Fairfax releases guidelines on reporting medical research

Fairfax newspapers The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have published their guidelines for reporting on medical research, which includes a focus on human trials published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals. Other principles include examining conflicts of interest disclosures, seeking independent comment, and avoiding terms such as ‘safe’, ‘guaranteed’ or ‘miraculous’. The full guidelines can be viewed here.

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Resources

2019 AP Stylebook now includes chapters on health and science journalism

The latest edition of the iconic Associated Press Stylebook has been updated to include a new chapter on health and science journalism. The AP Stylebook offers “fundamental guidelines for spelling, language, punctuation, usage and journalistic style”, and can be purchased in print or digital form here.

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Call for pitches Resources

How to pitch to editors

Pitching is one of the hardest parts of being a freelance writer, because it takes a lot of effort to craft a good pitch but you have no idea if it will succeed (and more often than not, it doesn’t). Here’s a really good article from the Neiman Lab about the secrets to a good freelance pitch, with advice from a number of editors in publications like The New York Times, Quartz, and the Washington Post. It might be US-focused, but the advice is 100% relevant to Australian journalists.

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Articles Resources

New book on investigative science writing

Science writers aren’t stenographers; an important part of their job in reporting science is also to scrutinise it. To advance that, US science journalist Liza Gross has published The Science Writing Investigative Reporting Handbook: A Beginner’s Guide To Investigations, aided by a grant from the National Association of Science Writers.

I haven’t got to reading this yet, but as the third in a series of handbooks put out by the awesome bunch of science writers known collectively as SciLance, I have very high hopes for it. Their previous book The Science Writers’ Handbook is absolutely the best book on science writing and freelancing I have read, so I have no doubt this new publication will be of the same high quality.

Here’s what Gross has to say in her blog post on the book’s release: “I wanted to demystify investigative reporting for my fellow science writers and give them both the tools and confidence to launch their own investigations. I wanted to share the knowledge I’d picked up on the fly as a greenhorn, and later gleaned from workshops, tutorials, my own accumulated experience and sage advice from veteran investigators.”

You can buy the book via Amazon or Amazon Australia.

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Articles Resources

Do scientists have the right to review stories about their work?

It’s an ongoing source of tension between scientists and the science journalists reporting on them: many scientists believe they have the right to review any reporting of their work, while many science journalists and science outlets argue they don’t.

In this piece in Undark magazine, reporter Dana Smith looks into the issue, interviewing both scientists and science journalists to see what they think. “At first glance, this fundamental journalism question appears to be black and white, but it turns out to have a lot of gray,” she writes.

It’s a timely article that picks up on some recent discussions on social media, such as this Twitter post by scientist Kyle Jasmin and another by neuroscientist Chris Chambers.

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Resources

Going digital: inside science journalism’s newest online outlets

The Open Notebook (which is a brilliant resource for science journalists, in case you haven’t already discovered it) has just featured a Q&A with the editors of some of the newer digital science journalism outlets, and online publications that include science coverage, namely Undark, Hakai, Buzzfeed, Axios and STAT.

It offers a fascinating glimpse into the funding models of this new world of online journalism, and there’s also some useful information there for freelances looking for new outlets to pitch to. Check out the article here.

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Resources

World Conference of Science Journalists 2017 session videos available online

The recent World Conference of Science Journalists featured some stand-out presentations, and some of those are now available as online videos on the WCSJ2017 website.

These include Dr Jennifer Doudna’s illuminating talk about CRISPR, Dr Alberto Cairo’s brilliant presentation on data visualisation, and panels on pseudoscience in authoritarian regimes, fact checking, reporting on sexual harassment in science, and the human ethics of global crisis reporting.