All posts by erin

Storytelling At the Washington Post

Good Writing, Guest Lecture

In two of my classes this week Manuel Roig-Franzia came in to talk about his experiences writing for the Washington Post’s Style section. After listening to him speak, I came away with almost a sense of awe at how ingrained it seems to be in him to tell stories.

For almost an hour today he just talked about the stories he’s covered and what talking to the people he interviewed was like. He started off telling us about traveling to Haiti in the wake of the Earthquake earlier this year, and went on to discuss interviewing Bill Bond a man who fully admits to having killed his father (but who never served any time in jail for it), and getting the scoop on the White House puppy. Yesterday I heard him talk about his work covering lobbyists in Washington D.C. based on articles about Heather Podesta and the restaurant Tosca.

Typically listening to someone talk for an hour straight could get really boring, but I found Roig-Franzia’s anecdotes about his work reporting to be highly entertaining. Not anything that I think I can really use in my own career mind you, but the guy can really tell an interesting story.

For those who don’t know, Roig-Franzia caused quite a stir last year for his role in a fist fight that broke out in the Washington Post newsroom. I don’t advocate punching people in the face, and I won’t weigh in on whether Roig-Franzia deserved it, but I will say that it is a rare person who is enough of a bad ass to call their boss a cock-sucker and keep their job.

What Would Kurt Cobain Do?

Grad School

Today in J620 we finally moved from discussing the history of humanitarianism and how the media works for and against humanitarian groups to the part of the class that incorporates celebrity. I did enjoy learning about humanitarianism in the sense of just building my knowledge base because I have no background in it, but I am looking forward to discussing how celebrities interact with the media.

In starting our discussion of celebrity, my professor brought up the fact that her favorite band is Nirvana.  I don’t often have professors who profess their love for grunge or who have a Kurt Cobain poster in their office so I found that amusing. My professor said that when she’s having a bad day she’ll look up at her poster and think “what would Kurt Cobain do?” and she usually comes to the conclusion that her situation really isn’t that bad.

But anyway, Nirvana was a segue into discussing what makes someone a celebrity and how celebrities can cause social movements. Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, and Bono were the other celebrities that the conversation seemed to center around.

I find it kind of funny that for the most part everyone seemed to have a pretty extensive knowledge of celebrities, its like we all have this fascination that we try to keep hidden because we’re supposed to be intellectuals. I guess that is why I appreciated my professor’s Nirvana comment so much, it is always fun to see people divulge little parts of themselves. I find that especially true with music, and what certain people are drawn to. I love when people can surprise me.

In other news I got an A on my first paper for this class, which was a big relief for me since I was really scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of my knowledge of humanitarianism.

Since I’ve now been inspired to re-visit Nevermind, I’ll leave you with Nirvana’s Lithium, which I argue is one of their best.

You’ve Got Mail

Interviewing

Even though I long abandoned AOL for Gmail, I still find it fun to see my email inbox full, even if a creepy computer voice no longer announces the presence of my new email. As I’m working on my new article topic for my J800 feature (which triggered my seething frustration and puppy-picture needing earlier this week) I’m running into the problems presented by email interviews.

I prefer to do my interviews over the phone, but I like to have an appointment set up, I find it easier for everyone than cold calling because no one gets caught unaware. Which reminds me of the time I interviewed National Medal of Science winner Elaine Fuchs on post-its when I was dressed as Wonder Woman last Halloween because I wasn’t expecting her call, (the article didn’t really turn out that bad)  but that is an unnecessary tangent.

Anyway, there are pro’s and con’s to the email interview, but for my latest topic I really just needed someone to talk to me to give me background, and that can’t be done on email –it takes too much space and time. So after getting three requests for email interviews (which is largely due to the fact that I email before hand to set up an appointment, my own downfall) I was very happy to finally have one source come through over the phone.

I’m feeling much better about the whole thing just having the one interview under my belt because I have a better grasp on the topic and my source recommended other people for me to talk to (fingers crossed they’ll be available by phone too.) I know there are some publications that make a point of not allowing email interviews, but I don’t think they are all together bad. Email has its place in the proverbial “writer’s toolbox” you just can’t rely on it all the time.

You really can’t build an entire article based off of emails, you need to get at least one source on the phone. But, email can be useful for getting direct comments from very busy people. Case in point, I would never have gotten comments from Francis Collins for an article I did for BioTechniques on the Rock Stars of Science campaign if I hadn’t caught him by email. I would never have gotten him on the phone in time for the article because I would have had to go through his secretary and it would have gotten messy from there.

So email can be useful, but I still think that when you need a lot of information its best to actually talk to someone. You can’t switch gears, or go off on tangents on email which is I think my biggest problem with it. You also can’t gauge a source’s reaction to your question. I find it strange actually that so many people prefer emailing responses to questions because I think it takes way more of their time to do so than to just answer a few questions verbally.

I also think I like the phone more than in-person interviews because I think it makes people less nervous to just talk into the phone and not see my typing away frantically. I think when people see you taking notes they clam up and in my experience I’ve gotten plenty of people to really open up on the phone. Every journalist has their own way of doing things, and I’m sure there are those that would completely disagree with me, and maybe as I get more experience my opinion will change, but for now I think the phone works best — provided I can get someone to answer it.

Nobel Prize Science Winners

Uncategorized

Every Fall the Nobel Prize is awarded in six categories: Chemistry, Physics, Physiology and Medicine, Literature, Peace, and Economic Sciences. It takes a long time to win a Nobel Prize (unless of course you are Barack Obama) and most awardees in the sciences end up being honored for initial discoveries that they made years ago that have had a tremendous impact on society since their discovery.

This year the winners are:
Physiology and Medicine – Robert G. Edwards for developing in vitro fertilization, which most people know is a way around infertility to help people have children who otherwise wouldn’t be able to.

Physics – Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for discovering the “two-dimensional material graphene” which is basically a new carbon-based material that is very thin but very strong and is useful in experiments  in quantum physics.

Chemistry – Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi, and Akira Suzuki for “palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis” which is a method that helps organic chemists stabilize carbon atoms so that they can be manipulated and used in research.

The prizes in Literature, Peace, and Economic Science haven’t been announced yet, but they will be on October 7, 8, and 11 respectively so be sure to check the news for those winners it is always interesting to see who gets recognized, and sometimes the results can be shocking (like Obama’s win in the Peace category last year.)

Here is some more coverage of the science winners:
MSNBC: Test-tube baby pioneer wins Nobel Prize in Medicine
Scientific American: Robert Edwards Wins the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for Pioneering In Vitro Fertilization (by the way, way too long for a title)
Physics Today: Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov win 2010 physics Nobel for graphene
Associated Press: Nobel Prize honors super-strong, super-thin carbon
USA Today: 2 Japanese, American share Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Associated Press (via MSNBC): Trio wins Nobel for key chemical tool

Calculus, Zombies, World of Warcraft & Mean Girls

Good Writing, Guest Lecture

So after flipping out this morning about my article falling apart, I rallied myself and attended a lecture by UW’s Science Writer in Residence Jennifer Ouellette. She specializes in physics as a freelancer and has written three books. Her lecture was called “Dangerous Curves: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Calculus” which was about the research that she did for her most recent book about math and how it can be applied in everyday life: “The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse.”

I had hoped that her lecture would be about what it was like to write about a subject that she has no background in (the calculus) but it was actually more about why she thinks math is cool and people should appreciate it. It was still an interesting lecture, and I give her credit for drawing an audience that merged the interests of undergrad journalism majors and graduate math students. For the record, graduate math students seem to function on an entirely different plain, and I for one do not speak graduate level math.

The-Calculus-Diaries-9780143117377Ouellette did a great job of bringing in different clips and examples of how math is applicable in everyday life. She showed part of the television show Numbers (which isn’t on air anymore, but is an interesting example of how to use math for dramatic crime fighting) and the mathlete competition from the movie Mean Girls, where a less controversial Lindsay Lohan realizes that it is okay to like math.

The zombie part of the title of her book has to do with a researcher who created an equation to figure out how best to survive a zombie apocalypse. Of course it is a multivariable calculus equation, which ultimately concludes that getting a gun and blowing away as many zombies as fast as you can is your best bet (although I think I could have concluded that without the calculus.)

The most interesting part of her talk for me (and the sorority girl in me does cringe to admit this) was when she starting talking about the game World of Warcraft. Apparently there was some sort of blood disease (similar to a highly contagious pandemic) that started spreading to the avatars in the game that was created by a player and started spreading rapidly through the program and the game actually had to be reset by its administrators to avoid all the characters dying of this plague-like disease. She brought it up as an example of how there can be technical models for real life situations, which actually didn’t have much to do with math, but is interesting from a science-health angle.

Overall, I’m not sure how useful her talk was in terms of helping me as a science writer, but it was entertaining, it got me out of the apartment, and I got away from my frustration over my article for a little while. I think I have my article situation figured out, sometimes just scrapping an idea and starting over from scratch is the best solution. I’m now feeling optimistic, so if only my eye would stop twitching things would be back to normal.

Ouellette’s blog Cocktail Party Physics is also a good example of science writing on the web, so be sure to check it out if physics is your thing.