For confused GAs mired in science – a Canadian program
The Tracker wonders if non-Canadian non-science reporters who suddenly have an assignment on, oh, the relative merits of biofuels made from krill or algae, or a giant comet aimed straight at our Moon, or a finding that tuna are fully sentient, can call up something called the Science Media Centre of Canada for a tip on what to do and what’s this about anyway. It just had its announcement luncheon. As inspiration it has somewhat similar operations in the UK, New Zealand, and Australia. Most phone plans in the US include Canada in their affordable rate structures, so will there be a passport check if some journo on deadline calls from Omaha and yelps “Help!”?
Just wondering. Either way, it can’t hurt. The outfit, to start formal operation next summer, is aimed mainly at people not on the regular science beat.
A write-up may be found at the Canadian higher education trade pub University Affairs in a report by Peggy Berkowitz , and the new service’s own site: Welcome to the SMCC. The key sentence in its welcome is “structural changes in the mass media mean there are fewer and fewer specialized medical and science journalists. The burden is falling instead on general assignment reporters….” In that sense it differs somewhat from the old and once quite useful US-based Scientists’ Institute for Public Information and its successor Media Resource Service, now either defunct or hibernating, the Tracker being unsure which. It clientele was in large part the regulars on the beat.
The list of members – meaning financiers – of the new service appears to include plenty of foundations, other non-profits, universities, and such who are presumably not terribly determined to skew the service’s advice and info too far or too often. Nobody can be regarded as pure even if the FBI does a full background check but this bunch looks quite respectable.
- Charlie Petit
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October 28th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
At least one Canadian science writer, namely me, thinks that this initiative misses what is truly transforming science journalism everywhere. The 21st century’s central issue is not how general interest reporters for existing (and usually declining) publications will get the best information but rather how all the rising bloggers and tweeters and facebookers and the like will. The SMCC assumes that the science media remains a sort of information Catholic Church. What Google tells us is that the science information Protestants are arising.