The Open Notebook is collaborating with SciLine to offer a free training and mentoring program for Texas-based reporters in the path of the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse. The program includes a full-day in-person training workshop on March 12, 2024 at the University of Texas, San Antonio. The workshop will center on helping local reporters incorporate science into local stories, with a focus on eclipse coverage. The event will include training on the essentials that journalists need to know about how science works; strategies for shaping coverage of the eclipse in particular; and opportunities to workshop story ideas, and to talk with scientists and science journalists with expertise relevant to eclipse coverage.
In conjunction with the in-person training, attendees will join The Open Notebook‘s Covering Science peer-mentoring program, a virtual community of practice that includes local and general-assignment reporters and editors, as well as a cohort of experienced science journalists who serve as peer mentors within the group. Members are invited to seek (and offer) advice on any topic related to covering science, such as finding suitable expert sources, refining story angles, evaluating scientific studies and claims, making sense of new findings and their implications, and more. Members can also participate in various types of learning opportunities and activities, including one-on-one peer mentoring, guided Slack discussions, webinars centered on core challenges of covering science, and informal virtual gatherings.
This program is available at no cost for up to 30 Texas reporters in communities within the path of totality, thanks to generous support from the Simons Foundation, which is covering all travel expenses as well as costs associated with this in-depth training and mentoring program.
(Note: This program has now been filled. However, any U.S.-based local journalist is welcome to become a member of the Covering Science peer-mentoring community for local journalists at The Open Notebook at anytime. Apply to join the Covering Science community here.)
