The Open Notebook is excited to introduce the latest recipients of our fellowship for early-career science journalists, made possible by a generous grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Welcome to the TON community, Knvul Sheikh and Jennifer Lu, and to Knvul and Jen's mentors, Roxanne Khamsi and Maya L. Kapoor.
When you're reporting on science, interviews are often friendly—closer to collaborative than combative. Interviews that are more adversarial can be intimidating, and, in the worst case, they can be a deterrent to taking on investigative science stories. While the best way to get over this fear is probably to amass many years of practice, science writers with less investigative experience can fast-track their progress by learning from the pros.
The issue of methylmercury pollution rises and falls in news media. In “Life After Mercury Poisoning” for Mosaic, Joshua Sokol introduces readers to the aging victims of the most enduring case of mercury poisoning in the world. Sokol takes a complex scientific subject—the toxicity of methylmercury—and weaves it into the story of the survivors who have spent decades telling their stories. Here's a look at what makes his piece excellent.
You don’t have to be a scientist—or even consider yourself a science writer—to write about science. There’s at least a little bit of science in everything people do, and becoming attuned to it could open countless avenues for writers to turn ideas into stories. If your goal is to break into science writing, the starting point is simple: Consider an interesting question or examine an intriguing character. Then, you’re well on your way to crafting a piece that tells a great story, with science to back it up.
Megha Satyanarayana worked at several newspapers and an online news startup before landing at Chemical & Engineering News. She has covered suburban crime, public health, science and technology, and much more. She also knows a bit about audience engagement and multimedia reporting, and is happy to have landed back in Texas, where sentences start, end, and contain in all grammatical spaces the word y’all, and it works. Really.
It’s one of the first, and likely most intimidating, assignments for a fledgling science reporter. “Here,” your editor says. “Write up this paper that’s coming out in Science this week.” And suddenly you’re staring at an impenetrable PDF—pages of scientific jargon that you’re supposed to understand, interview the author and outside commenters about, and describe in ordinary English to ordinary readers.
Asking for More: Negotiating Rates for Freelance Assignments
Good Beginnings: How to Write a Lede Your Editor—and Your Readers—Will Love
David Tuller Untangles the Research History of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Tools: Planner Pad, the Funnel of Focus
Office Hours with Douglas Starr
Data Journalism: A Primer for Science Journalists
Trading the Pipette for the Pen: Transitioning from Science to Science Writing
Kathryn Schulz Paints a Chilling Picture of “The Really Big One”
Finding the Science in Any Story
Office Hours with Stephen Ornes
Storygram: Joshua Sokol’s “Life After Mercury Poisoning”
Pitching Errors: How Not to Pitch
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