Environmental and science reporters and climate scientists meeting next month at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography will tackle a list of ideas put forward by other colleagues as a way of improving communications between scientists and journalists on issues related to climate and marine science.
The roughly two-dozen journalists and scientists participating in the one-and-a-half-day National Science Foundation-sponsored workshop will be considering ideas put forward at an earlier NSF-sponsored workshop at the University of Rhode Island (see Note). The Scripps workshop participants are being encouraged both to use the proceedings from the earlier workshop and also to go beyond it in identifying additional issues they think cloud science communications and more effective science reporting.
As he did at the Rhode Island workshop, New York Times science reporter Andrew C. Revkin will speak at the Scripps workshop on the fundamental roles and responsibilities of independent journalism. His opening remarks are expected to help scientists better understand the culture of the modern-day newsroom and better understand how and why news decisions are made. Exchanges at the Rhode Island workshop illustrated a wide gap in scientists' understanding of how the news media work in actual practice, and Revkin's opening remarks are aimed at focusing scientists' understanding and appreciation of the news process.
From the scientists' perspective, Stephen H. Schneider, of Stanford University, will make a companion presentation, offering a litany of ideas on how he believes the scientist/journalist relationship needs to be improved if the public is to be better served in understanding complex science issues.
Schneider has himself had years of experience, some rewarding and some painful, in his dealings with the media, and he has spelled out many of his strongly-held views on a personal web page.
The Scripps workshop is one of a continuing series expected to lead to publication of a new major report on science communications and the mass media. Two additional journalist/scientist workshops are to be held later this year, and an additional two workshops are being planned for 2005. With lead funding support from NSF's Paleoclimate Program, in the Division of Atmospheric Sciences, the workshops are supported also by grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Air Programs and from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), part of the National Ocean Service.
The full 11-page workshop report from the Rhode Island workshop is available online at http://www.gso.uri.edu/metcalf/programs/MetcalfNSFNov_03.pdf (pdf). A pdf copy of the workshop report is available also by contacting Environment Writer Editor Bud Ward at budward2414@msn.com.
