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10 June 2014
2014 AGU Mass Media Fellow to Report Science for the Los Angeles Times
You could say many geoscientists are in the business of storytelling. They use strata of stone, ice, and other terrestrial ingredients to tell tales of the Earth as it was long ago.
After unlocking stories trapped in ice core bubbles for the past 6 years to earn her Ph.D., geologist Julia Rosen now has the opportunity to polish another set of storytelling skills as AGU’s 2014 Mass Media Fellow.
10 April 2014
Mapping fantasy: The story behind the Game of Thrones geologic maps
Science fiction can be a really cool gateway for sharing science fact. Earth science is imaginative, and can draw on pop culture, like the HBO show Game of Thrones. My graduate school friend and Generation Anthropocene co-producer, Miles Traer, recently brought science fact and science fiction together over this show in a hilariously awesome and super fun project.
22 October 2013
On the air with a paleoclimatologist
The path of science news goes something like this: Nature is doing something interesting, scientist discovers the interesting thing, reporter talks to scientist, public hears reporter, public understands nature better, world is a better place. This is what I learned over the summer working as a science reporter at KQED public radio in San Francisco.
This summer, AGU sponsored me as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Mass Media Fellow. The fellowship gives about a dozen young scientists each year the opportunity to cultivate their communications skills while also providing media outlets with a temporary scientific expert.
29 July 2013
Breaking news by bicycle: AGU’s Mass Media Fellow recounts chasing the news on two wheels
The news broke around 4:00 p.m. on Fri., June 30. I was sitting at my desk at KQED (San Francisco’s local NPR affiliate) when the office began to buzz. Editors and producers were literally running around the office. Most of the reporters had already left for the weekend. I was about to head home myself when my producer and mentor, Molly Samuel, turned to me and said, “There’s breaking news – same sex couples are lining up at San Francisco’s City Hall. Would you be interested in recording interviews?”
28 June 2013
AGU’s 2013 Mass Media Fellow will share science on the airwaves
Mike Osborne, a Stanford University PhD student of paleoclimatology, was becoming fatigued with the “apocalyptic rhetoric” surrounding climate change. “With climate change, the politics have gotten so tangled up with the science, I kind of got to the point that I didn’t know what to believe,” Osborne said. “I wanted to be able to speak to it better.”
30 July 2012
The journalistic method: Making the jump from science to journalism
My geology training didn’t cover the use of sedation in dentistry. In my PhD work, I never had to investigate the details of proposed guidelines for hepatitis C screenings, or the difficulties of vitamin D testing. But as the 2012 AGU-sponsored AAAS Mass Media fellow, I’ve reported on these subjects and more for the Chicago Tribune. Working as a health reporter hasn’t been as difficult as I imagined, however. I just used the scientific method.
29 November 2011
From Wanna-Be Reporter to Voice of America Journalist
After four busy summers studiously measuring the minute details of clouds, I spent my last summer as a graduate student in a newsroom, far away from the cockpit of a cloud-probing airplane. It was not just any newsroom but Voice of America’s politically charged newsroom in Washington, D. C. Almost overnight, this California-for-lifer was living and working amid the hustle and bustle of the nation’s capital. As a half researcher–half …
7 March 2011
Media fellow journeys to the “other side”
On the heels of defending my Ph.D. in soil ecology, I headed off to northern Colorado last September for the next step in my scientific journey: working at a radio station. In graduate school I had pursued some science writing training, but I had never been employed as a journalist. I hoped the experience would help me understand why it can be hard for scientists and journalists to communicate with each other and what the barriers are to providing accurate and comprehensive coverage of science in the media.
20 October 2010
One-minute science
Guest post by soil ecologist Marissa Weiss, AGU’s 2010 Mass Media Fellow, on her stint as a radio reporter in Colorado. The first post of her series can be found here. I arrived to the KUNC newsroom on Monday, September 27th. By Friday, I had my first assignment, a news spot (about one minute long) on a study of the benefits of the recent healthcare legislation to Coloradans, due the …
16 September 2010
Earth scientist heads for stint as radio reporter
About to take on a new identity as a radio reporter in Colorado, soil ecologist Marissa Weiss will keep TPS readers posted on what it’s like to jump suddenly (albeit temporarily) from science to journalism. Marissa is AGU’s 2010 Mass Media Fellow. Here’s her introductory post: After spending six years in a soil ecology lab, I am about to trade a microcentrifuge for a microphone. About two weeks ago, I …
The Plainspoken Scientist is the science communication blog of AGU’s Sharing Science program. With this blog, we wish to showcase creative and effective science communication via multiple mediums and modes.