New Scientist seeks science graduates for new blog

Recent graduates looking to expand their science writing skills might be interested in this.

New Scientist is looking for recent science, technology or engineering graduates interested in blogging throughout the year about their experiences of life after University.

They are launching a new area of their website specifically for students in September 2009, and, according to their ad copy. "One of the things we'd like to do is help students understand what life is like after graduation."

We're looking for recent graduates to blog for us throughout the year about their experiences of life after university. You may be entering the world of work, going into further study or taking time out for some other exciting adventure.

If you are a keen blogger, happy to share your experiences about life after graduation to inform and inspire our student audience in exchange for the experience of writing for New Scientist, we'd like to hear from you.

Full details and how to apply can be found on their website.

Job advert: New Scientist Features Editor

Features Editor - 6 Month Contract

Reference: 000235
Job Function Editorial & Publishing
Location Lacon House, London
Organization Reed Business Information
Job Type Contract
Job Posting 21/07/2009
Recruiter Justine Padfield

Job Description

New Scientist, the world's leading popular science and technology magazine and web site, needs a talented feature editor to join its award winning team. We offer a stimulating environment working with world-class journalists in our central London Offices, and a competitive salary.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES / RESPONSIBILITIES:

• To find, commission, write and edit compelling feature-length stories about all aspects of science and technology.

KEY SKILLS REQUIRED:

• This is a job for a creative journalist who can commission, edit and write compelling stories to tight deadlines with the motivation and charisma to inspire others.
• The successful candidate will have a good science degree.

EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

• A good track record in journalism.
• Experience in managing writers, and a track record in editing feature length journalism.

RBI General Benefits Package

• Pension Scheme
• 29 Days Holiday
• Paid Charity Days - 2 days per year
• Life Insurance (4x salary)
• Save As You Earn Share Scheme (SAYE)
• Competitive Salaries

The Company:
With a head office in Sutton (a short 20 minute train journey direct from Victoria or Clapham Junction) and offices in Central London, Birmingham, Manchester and East Grinstead, Reed Business Information has a portfolio of award winning web sites and online services along with more than 100 market leading magazines, directories, direct marketing services, industry conferences and awards covering over 18 markets in the UK, Europe, USA and Asia. Reed Business Information has annual sales of £250 million.

Our online strategy focuses on markets with a need for deep, data driven information services, search and online recruitment. Backed by the resources of parent company Reed Elsevier, RBI's UK wide web based services are blazing a trail for specialist information online. Some of the market leading brands at RBI include www.totaljobs.com, www.cwjobs.co.uk and www.kellysearch.com, New Scientist, Estates Gazette, Computer Weekly and Personnel Today.

Please apply via the RBI website http://careers.rbi.jobs/vacancy/235-Features+Editor+-+6+Month+Contract with your CV, covering letter and 3 clips (all in ONE document) by Friday 14th August 2009

Alternatively send you application by email to henry.gomm@newscientist.com

Turkish science editor fired over evolution feature

A tweet from New Scientist takes us to a blog item from Debbie MacKenzie in Brussels which took us on to the Turkish site Hurriyet. Debbie's item, Turkey's battles with Islamic creationists continue, is about the sacking of the editor of Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology), "the excellent popular science magazine".

Evolution is the cause of the ruckus. The Turkish national science council, TÜBİTAK, which publishes the magazine, also pulled a cover feature on Darwin's anniversary and put in its place a feature on global warming.

Lest anyone think that all Turks are backward looking fundamentalists of the George Bush variety, Hurriyet reports disquiet at ministerial level. "State Minister Mehmet Aydın expressed discontent at the removal of the Darwin story." The news service also quotes the minister as saying "This is not TÜBİTAK’s mission."

There are then some juicy bits of mud slinging. They quote an unnamed academic as saying that Professor Ömer Cebeci, the axe wielder and vice president of TÜBİTAK, it seems, "is an ignorant manager and is unaware of the scientific research going on abroad and at home. The political decision makers that brought Cebeci to his post are just as ignorant as Cebeci himself."

It isn't actually clear if the editor in question, Çiğdem Atakuman, really has lost her job. According to Hurriyet "Aydın said the chief editor was not removed from her post, basing his comment on a conversation with a TÜBİTAK official". But as New Scientist said in its tweet, "Let's support her".

Science Journalism Growing Overseas

Way back in the mists of time, probably some time in the late 1970s, New Scientist sent two people from to the AAAS in Denver, the magazine's forst foray into alien territory. When they got there, they were surprised to find another two or three locals, folks from the BBC's always excellent radio science unit. That was the sum total of the Brit contingent.

How things have changed. Other reports suggest that the UK contingent all but ounumbered the locals.

Now we have Cristine (Cris) Russell, who is probably too young to have been in Denver, writing for the Columbia Journalism Review about the increasing foreign presence at the AAAS, Science Journalism Growing Overseas.

"The number of science reporters and journalists-in-training from far-flung parts of the world—the Middle East, Africa, Asia and South America, as well as Canada, the U.K., Germany, Sweden and other parts of Europe—has expanded at AAAS. At the same time, the presence of working American science reporters from major newspapers and magazines has declined over time, their ranks often replaced by a diverse group of freelancers and digital journalists who write, blog, and Twitter for a variety of startup and established news and information Web sites."

The comments on this piece suggest that the golden era is over. "I think that science journalism is a vanishing specialty in Germany as well as in the United States," says one observer.

Another group present in reasonable numvers in Denver was the team from CBC's Quirks and Quark. At the Chicago bash this fine rival to the BBC – I have memory of an embarrassingly late bar bill drinking with David Suzuki in Denver – was, it seems, "not represented by a staffer".

Paul Raeburn tries to bring things down to earth with the view that the AAAS was "rarely a showcase for breaking news". Sorry Paul, but that has always been the case, even when the US science writing corps turned up in large numbers.

The science pack inthe USA used to be able to sell rewarmed science to its editors. Are you telling us that these editors are now much more in tune with what is happening in science?

That really would be good news.

Look out for expert-generated information

This one could be a double edged sword. SciTopics describes itself as "Distilled, authoritative and up-to-date information for researchers on scientific, technical and medical topics." Folks like members of the ABSW might see it as a substitute for science writing .

The press release from Elsevier, a part of Reed Elsevier Group plc, owners of such fine publications as New Scientist, until it can find someone to take it off their hands, says that the new service is "Designed as a perfect starting point for scientific research, the website integrates a content publishing platform with search functionalities and community features."

Taking a positive view, this could be invaluable for science writers seeking a crash course in a subject that they suddenly have to write about. "The site creates a starting point for researchers to gain an introductory overview of a particular scientific topic and serves as a collaboration resource where users can share their views and engage in discussions with other SciTopics members."

SciTopics has a couple of dozen RSS feeds. The "grab the lot" feed that might be worth sampling to begin with.

The feeds cover many areas that will mean a lot to science writers plus a few for less familiar subjects, such as nursing, "decision sciences" and arts and humanities.

It seems that Elsevier decided to put this release out now because this is really a rebranding Scirus Topic Pages. Scirus, "the most comprehensive scientific research tool on the web," powers the search facility behind SciTopics. This explains why the newest story in the "Most popular SciTopics pages" appeared last November. The oldest dates back to February 2008.

The RSS feed has article that are much more recent. The newest item we saw, "Scientific support to the establishment and validation of agrometeorological services" is just a day or two old.

You can even leave comments on the articles. But only after you have signed up. The handful of items I looked at were comment free.

The editors, billed on the front page, are all working scientists. Many of the authors come with the "Prof" label. Each item comes with a set of "Web search results" related to the article in question.

Science Reporting by Press Release

Cristine Russell, one of the more capable science journalist on either side of the pond, she used to be on the staff of the Washington Post, has an interesting take on the use of press releases in the trade. She has written about this in Science Reporting by Press Release in the Columbia Journalism Review. Cris describes "the degree to which some reporters rely on press releases and public relations offices as sources for stories" as a " dirty little secret of journalism".

Cris's article has details of various examples of the phenomenon. For example, she describes a discussion panel at the National Association of Science Writers where a topic of conversation was a press release, “Living fossils have hot sex,” from the University of Utah. This was picked up by, among others, Reuters, New Scientist and ABC (Australia). The irony, perhaps, is that the author of the release, Lee J. Siegel, has, as Cris puts it, had a "a long science journalism career with The Associated Press and Salt Lake Tribune" before he went to work for the university.

Like any good hack, Cris actually interviewed Lee about the phenomenon. He too expressed concern, complaining that “some news services just rewrite the press releases without interviewing anyone and don’t make clear the story is from a news release”.

The item provoked a thoughtful debate with comments from a number of equally eminent science journalists. One comment that struck home was the puzzlement in one comment about the failure of big media outlets to "link their own stories to the various press releases that their reporters had at hand". After all, it doesn't take much more than a few seconds with Google News to track down such references. Cris does not make this mistake. Her article provides a link to the original Utah press release.

Unfortunately, the excellent discussion does not seem to include any comments from perpetrators of this crime against humanity. Lee does step in to provide some balance, but it would have been nice to see more defence of use of press releases. Surely someone must have a good word to say for them.

Do you plan to cover national orgasm day?

Those of you who are aware that 31 July is National Orgasm Day may be looking for a scientific angle. After all, the Daily Mailification of much of the media in the UK means that news editors demand this sort of thing. So you may welcome this press release on The 2008 Orgasm Survey offering "early data for July issue editorial deadlines".

Three months' warning looks like foreplay extended beyond the cause of duty. Then again, you may need that long to test the widget on offer, the PelvicToner exerciser.

The press release refers to research by Emmanuele Jannini published in New Scientist in February "which seems to perpetuate the myth that 9 out of 10 women cannot achieve vaginal orgasm, in this case because of an anatomical defect".

Make that $2 billion for New Scientist

The news that Reed Elsevier is selling of a "job lot" of magazines, including New Scientist, has provoked extensive media coverage. Over on World Screen they suggest that "Possible buyers for the business, said to be worth about $2 billion, include Apax Partners."

One ABSW member has questioned the availability of venture capital funding. World Screen quotes the New York Times which quotes Reed Phillips, a managing partner of the media investment bank DeSilva & Phillips, as saying “The market is strong for business-to-business companies”.

As well as New Scientist, Reed's magazine business includes Variety along with many specialist titles including Multichannel News, Broadcasting & Cable, Video Business and Television Asia.

Apax specialises in management buyouts and is strong in media investments. The question is, who do they consider to be management? Will it be the bean counters of Reed Business Information? Or is there room for the editors and publishers who actually create the publications?

Among Apex's recent deals was the purchase last year of a 49.9% stake in Trader Media Group, which is in the business of "Print and online automotive classifieds". Apex's purchase, from Guardian Media Group, meant that Trader Media Group was worth £1.35 billion at the time of the deal.

New Scientist for sale

Reed Elsevier continues to flail around trying to work out how to adapt to the 21st century. From the point of view of science writers, the best news of this dithering, which has gone on for the best part of a decade, is that the company has decided to put New Scientist on the market.

New Scientist is a part of Reed Business Publishing, which also produces Farmers Weekly. The Daily Telegraph reports Sir Crispin Davis, Reed's chief executive, as saying that Reed Business Publishing's "advertising revenue model and the inherent cyclicality fit less well with the subscription-based information and workflow solutions focus of Reed Elsevier's strategy".

New Scientist and Farmers Weekly were among magazines that Reed hung on to when it sold off IPC Magazines. Reed even moved the science weekly out of its "magazines" division into its "business press" group. The magazine had previously shared management, and offices, with a raft of women's magazines, pop titles and other well know publications, including Horse & Hound and Yachting Monthly.

Now Reed seems to have realised that it does not have a clue about running magazines, with their sordid need to attract advertising, as opposed to expensive journals that just lift money out of university budgets. This should be good news for New Scientist and its fine team of writers and editors. With luck it will find a buyer who doesn't see the magazine as a money machine. It can still be that, but machines need careful oiling, or at least "benign neglect".

You can see where Reed's business is heading from the announcement that delivered news of the fate of New Scientist. The company has just paid $3.6B for a company called ChoicePoint. The story on this on Forbes.com says that ChoicePoint "collects, sells access to and analyzes the personal information of consumers". Reed plans to roll this acquisition into LexisNexis, its on-line information service.

Disclaimer: I spent the 1980s grappling with IPC Magazines, as editor of New Scientist. Since then, the magazine has gone from strength to strength.

The solution solution

It is always interesting to see what crops up in the Cision Media Bulletin. It is where I first discovered that Damian Carrington had defected from New Scientist, where he ran the web team, to take up a similar role at the Financial Times.

It isn't often, though, that the newsletter provokes a chuckle. The latest issue has an item that will appeal to anyone who reads Private Eye and appreciates its "Solutions" column.

Environmental Technology Publications Ltd are due to launch a new title in April 2008 which will be titled Pollution Solutions and covers water and waste water equipment, air clean up, consultancy services, soil remediation and waste handling. The contact for the title is Marcus Pattison the Publisher and he can be contacted on 01727 858840 and info@envirotechpubs.com

As well as raising a smile, it may also offer an outlet for science writers, which is our excuse for passing it on, with all the gory details.

Clear winner of security award

Proving that you don't have to be a computer hack to win an IT industry award, Paul Marks of New Scientist has been named "IT Security Journalist of the Year" in the IT Security journalism awards. BT's announcement of the results said that Paul, Senior Technology Writer on that illustrious magazine, "impressed the judges with the clarity of his writing, the breadth of his coverage, and the depth of his industry knowledge".