 |
| Giraffe at the Henry Vilas Zoo Madison, WI August 2010. Credit: Erin Podolak |
Now I know special interest stories are important, getting the personal angle that appeals to the audience’s emotional side is a great way to sell as story, but now the BBC is writing about giraffe love? I think everyone will sleep easier tonight knowing the Gerald the Giraffe has a new girlfriend. To think people are worried about the future of journalism. Bachelor giraffe in bristol finally gets a girlfriend.
I have to give Deb Blum credit for passing around this article from the Guardian that spoofs science writing. Anyone who has ever written or read science news should read it. It crushes my soul but gives me tremendous hope all in one fell swoop. Essentially, 99.9% of science news is less than stellar. At least now keeping myself out of this category is something I can strive for.
The comments that follow the article are equally hilarious and actually really add to the article, completing the satire of web media and public interaction.
My favorites:
“This is where I forgot to say that 99% of other scientists researching in this field disagree and think this scientist is a nutter” (I love that this person used the word nutter)
“This comment is simply an inexplicable and unrelated reference to Hitler”
“THIS COMMENT IN CAPITALS WILL DEMAND THAT SOMETHING BE BANNED”
This whole thing had me laughing out loud. A win for Martin Robbins.
Yesterday in J901 Deborah Blum gave a talk about how to make money as a writer (which certainly isn’t easy these days). One of the things she recommended was that all writers should have a blog where they promote themselves as a brand. I’m not sure how I feel about this blog representing me, but since apparently more people are reading it than I even realized I guess it really does.
Deb passed along this article from Seed, Blogging Out of Balance by Dave Munger that talks about how there are many more male science bloggers on the big blogging hubs than there are female. Some of this probably correlates with the fact that science and research used to be a boys game, but I also think it has to do with the fact that many female bloggers want to be anonymous.
I suppose I qualify as a science blogger but there is a big difference between my science writing blog and a blog that is written by a researcher. There are a lot of science writers that do have degrees in biology, chemistry, physics, geology, etc. and so can consider themselves an expert in whatever science field they choose to blog about. Since I do not have a degree in any science, I don’t think I’d want to have my blog be about a certain research field, I don’t want to make false claims about being an expert. What I know is writing, which is why this blog is all about being a science journalist, instead of about the science itself.
Today I did a lot of interviewing for an article that I have due for J800 next week. I was pretty unsure about the topic, funding for addiction research, but now that I’ve spoken to several people I am much more confident that I can make it really interesting. I have all of the materials that I need to write it now too, which always makes me happy because then I have time to write the article and re-work it over the course of several days without waiting for sources down to the wire.
In the course of my interviewing, I had to track down someone from NIDA the National Institute on Drug Abuse. I considered just cold calling numbers I found on the NIDA website, but I decided that even if it took me a couple of days I stood a much better chance if I actually went through the media office. So thats what I did, and I think it worked out really well because I got the material I needed from an official source and didn’t really waste a lot of time calling around and getting re-directed. So lesson definitely learned, when dealing with the government go right for the PR people, they pull the strings.
This morning I finished Jon Franklin’s Writing for Story, what I hope is the last “how to” book I’m going to have to read this semester. Textbooks aside, in the first three weeks of classes I’ve read three books focused on how to avoid complete and total blinding failure as a writer. I have found it incredibly depressing that there is even a need for such manuals. Combined with those that I accumulated during my time as an undergrad at Lehigh, I am now the not-so-proud owner of quite the collection of books on how to write.
It isn’t that I don’t find value in these books, I think that there are definitely nuggets of good advice and even a little humor about style, format, the industry, and numerous other aspects of journalism as a profession. However, I find that I get pretty frustrated listening to someone who is considered a “success” brag about how they got there. Congratulations, by capturing the ever elusive combination of financial success, public success, and the praise of your peers you have been deemed worthy enough to hold the distinguished title of being a “good writer.” Good for you.