Science journalist Bianca Nogrady (founder of this website) is running a one-day workshop on science writing, at Writing NSW in Sydney on Saturday 24 November. The course will equip you with the tools to find good science stories and the scientists who inhabit them; to understand the basic principles of science writing including background research and how to read a scientific paper; the key elements of news and feature writing; and how to breathe colour and life into your subject matter. We’ll also touch on interviewing and pitching to editors. For more information and bookings, visit the Writing NSW website.
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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.
The 2019 World Conference of Science Journalists – a biennial event held next year in Lausanne – is inviting applications for travel fellowships to enable journalists to attend who might not otherwise be able to.
The conference is the flagship event of the World Federation of Science Journalists, and attracts thousands of journalists, editors and associated professions from around the world. For a run-down of the 2017 San Francisco conference, check out this blog post.
The fellowships are open to “Anyone who actively writes, edits or produces science news, information or commentary for an independent media, working as staff employee or freelance journalist, or is a member of one national Member Association belonging to WFSJ, and who normally would be unable to attend the Conference without financial assistance.” In Australia, the Member Association is the Australian Science Communicators. For more information and applications, visit the fellowship website.
Australia’s only festival entirely focused on science writing is celebrating its second happening on Saturday 3 November in Sydney. This event is a remarkable gathering of who’s who in science writing, journalism, non-fiction, fiction and poetry. Sessions include ‘Writing about science in a post-truth world‘, Frankenstein’s Monster: scientific hubris‘, ‘Loving the apocalypse‘, and ‘Writing Nature‘ … and many others.
There are also opportunities to pitch science stories to a panel of Australian science editors, have lunch with experts in the science writing arena, and participate in a workshop on writing for scientists. The festival is run by Writing NSW and directed by science journalist (and Writing NSW CEO) Jane McCredie.
This year’s program will bring together researchers and artists at the forefront of their disciplines, including speakers such as Fred Watson, James Bradley, Emma Johnston, Delia Falconer, Π O, Danielle Clode, and Evelyn Araluen.
For more information and tickets ($90 for non-members, $60 for members), visit the festival website.
The Open Notebook has waded into a debate that has been going on since the early days of modern science journalism: do you need a science degree to be a science journalist? This great piece by journalist Aneri Pattani tackles the question nicely, by outlining the advantages – and disadvantages – that a science degree confers in various aspects of science reporting.
In my experience and world, I know excellent science journalists both with and without science degrees, and with and without journalism degrees (for the record: I have a science degree, but never studied journalism). The bottom line, according to Pattani, is choose your own path; there is no one right way to become or be a science journalist, which will hopefully comfort everyone. Read about it here.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists‘ annual Media Award of Excellence is open for entries. The award “acknowledges the important role the media play in informing decision makers and the public about women’s health “. This year’s award is open to print, radio, television or online reports published/broadcast between 1 October 2017 and 31 July 2018, and entries are due by 31 August 2018. More detail and entry forms are here.
The AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards honour “professional journalists for distinguished reporting on the sciences, engineering, and mathematics”. They’re open to journalists around the world, and categories include newspapers, magazines, television, audio, video, online and children’s science news. Entries for the 2018 awards are due by 1 August; details are here.
Katia Moskvitch, editor at Wired UK, has tweeted a call for freelance science writers:
“Hello, science writers! @WiredUK is looking for awesome freelance science writers. If you know how to spot cool stories no one else has – on Arxiv etc – & can write quirky physics, space, comp sci, biology stories – get in touch! katie(at)wired(dot)co(dot)uk Pls RT, thnx! :-)”
(and thanks to Sonia Weiser and her awesome Opportunities of the Week email newsletter for bringing this to my attention)
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.
Written anything about global food security in the past year? The Crawford Fund’s Food Security Journalism Award recognises work that explores the theme of global food security, including food supply, production, R&D, trade, food loss and waste, biosecurity, training, and policy issues. The entry window closes on June 15, the winner receives a ‘seeing is believing’ visit to a country where they can experience and report on Australia’s work in international agricultural development.” Entries must have been published or broadcast between June 4, 2017-2018. More details available here.