How to convey the wonder of new findings in science without compromising accuracy or losing your audience
Date and times: Sunday 23 June 2013, 9.30am-5pm
Overview
Science, health and environment stories are some of the most exciting and important for the media. But it is a challenge for journalists and other science communicators to convey the wonder of new findings in complex fields without compromising accuracy. In this day-long symposium, the Guardian's science team and other speakers will discuss how to bring difficult subjects alive on any format, including news, blogs, TV, radio or podcast, as well as looking ahead at how digital innovations such as live-blogging offer new ways of to tell stories.
Speakers including Guardian Environment and Science News Editor James Randerson, former Guardian science editor and award-wining science writer Tim Radford, Guardian science correspondent Alok Jha and Guardian science blogger Dr Rebekah Higgitt, will cover the major technical and professional aspects of science journalism, from the basics of news writing and blogging to how to pitch your work as a freelancer.
Tutor profiles
James Randerson is the Guardian's environment and science news editor. He has previously worked as the paper's science correspondent and as deputy news editor for New Scientist magazine. He also has a PhD in Evolutionary Genetics. He has lectured on science, health and environment journalism to students at universities including City, Cardiff and Bath. He also has experience of training academics in how the media works. He directed sessions at the 6th World Conference of Science Journalists in 2009 in London and at the UK Conference of Science Journalists last year.
Tim Radford is a freelance journalist. He was born in New Zealand in 1940 and educated at Sacred Heart College, Auckland. He joined the New Zealand Herald as a reporter at 16, and moved to the United Kingdom in 1961. Apart from a brief spell as a Whitehall information officer, he has spent all his life in weekly, evening or daily newspapers. He worked for The Guardian for 32 years, becoming – among other things – letters editor, arts editor, literary editor and science editor. He won the Association of British Science Writers award for science writer of the year four times, and a lifetime achievement award in 2005. He has written two books – The Crisis of Life on Earth (1990) and The Address Book: our place in the scheme of things (2011) – and edited two books of science writing for the Guardian.
Dr Rebekah Higgitt is Curator of the History of Science and Technology at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. She blogs regularly on the history of science at the H Word, part of the Guardian Science Blogs network. She is an honorary fellow at the Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College London. Her current research interest is the relationship of the Royal Observatory with other scientific institutions, including the Board of Longitude and Royal Society, and with the public. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-h-word
Alok Jha is a science correspondent at the Guardian. In addition to writing news and comment, he presents the Science Weekly podcast. A physics graduate from Imperial College London, he has been at the Guardian since the launch of the science supplement, Life, in 2003. He is also the author of The Doomsday Handbook: 50 Ways to the End of the World and How To Live Forever And 34 Other Really Interesting Uses for Science, both published by Quercus. He is also a presenter on the BBC 2 series Science Club.
To book
Details
Date: Sunday 23 June 2013
Time: 9.30am-5pm
Location: Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole Street, City of Westminster, W1G 0AE
Price:£99 (includes VAT, booking fees, lunch and refreshments)
Event capacity: 300
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