We are delighted to announce that The open notebook is in partnership with the Reynolds Journalism Institute To build a resource that will help journalists integrate more sciences directly into their daily work. This training module and the interactive toolbox will provide journalists with effective and practical information, so even journalists on time can get what they need to provide precise and nuanced stories that incorporate scientific, voices and perspectives.
Science believes itself with almost all the issues that journalists cover. Water and air pollution stories, extreme weather conditions, vaccines, armed violence, reproductive health, education, artificial intelligence, infrastructure and countless other subjects – whether openly or not, is based on scientific evidence.
What we build
The resource we develop is an extension of the work in progress in our non -profit organization, The open notebookTo support local journalists. Our goal is to help journalists understand how to quickly assess scientific demands and integrate scientific concepts into their relationship with confidence. By design, the resource will provide advice and models specific to your questions, such as the way of reading a scientific study, how to interview scientists and how to identify pseudoscience.
You can also choose how you interact with you according to your immediate need. On the deadline? Scan a practical list of modules to find exactly what you are looking for or look for a lexicon of common terms. Do you have a little time to explore or want a guided experience to help you manage a report dilemma? Choose a learning path to follow and deepen the profession of science coverage.
Adventure style modules choose you will allow you to forge your own path through examples of scenarios that you may meet during the coverage of new scientists. We will also help you identify how the subjects you often meet – heating waves, flu season, start -up hours or traffic safety, for example – all have scientific threads that you can draw to improve and deepen your coverage.
This resource will live The open notebookWebsite and will be freely accessible to everyone, in accordance with our practice of providing educational and free training resources to the journalism community for almost 15 years.
We will update you on our progress in the coming months, but for the moment, please Fill this short investigation To help us understand what you would like to learn from this toolbox.
How we got here
Local writing rooms and centered on the community, which constitute an important part of the American media, are on the front line of the critical coverage of health and science. They are also among the most reliable news sources, with almost half of Americans reporting that local media is very important to the well-being of their community.
It is crucial that community journalists and publishers are equipped to systematically provide precise information that includes science. However, according to our calculations, less than 3% of journalists in the United States are trained to cover science, health or the environment – and access to such training is both rare and inequitable.
HAS The open notebookWe have been working since 2010 since 2010 to promote a united, diversified and inclusive global community that allows journalists and publishers who cover science to learn and prosper. We have published a large library of more than 600 articles accessible to the public centered on the trade of scientific writing and developed a multitude of other training opportunities, including a series of free email courses and several mentorship programs.
But it has become more and more clear for us that there is a harmful and useless gulf that separates scientific journalism – where journalists are often trained in science and write for scientific points of sale – from the rest of journalism, where the overwhelming majority of journalists works.
We try to shrink this gulf by invest in the local journalism community through a series of resources specifically aimed at journalists who do not specialize in covering science. We direct a community of practice, for example, in which more than 100 journalists and local publishers meet with experienced scientific journalists to learn and support each other while they seek to weave more science in their report. Our new toolbox will complete these resources, providing advice just in time to journalists who wish to integrate scientific evidence and perspectives in their stories.