This year's ABSW annual lecture, on 15the October, will be a debate about science journalism and the libel laws. The event is being produced in association with City University, to celebrate the launch of City's MA course in Science Journalism.
ABSW members have up to 100 guaranteed places at this event on October 15th, but they must book their places by the end of the month (September 30th). After this, unused places will be released to the public.
To ensure that you reserve one of the guaranteed places, when you are filling in the booking form please provide the information "I am an ABSW member" in the drop down box which asks "Where did you hear about this event".
Science Fact – science journalism and libel law
Simon Singh, freelance science journalist and author of Trick or Treatment?
Ben Goldacre, columnist, doctor and author of Bad Science
John Kampfner, Chief Executive, Index on Censorship
Duncan Lamont, libel lawyer and Head of Media & Entertainment at Charles Russell
Tracey Brown, Managing Director, Sense About Science
Science journalists Simon Singh and Ben Goldacre have both been sued in the past year for libel. They challenged the scientific method and evidence behind the use of chiropractic treatment for children (Singh) and the role of multivitamins to combat HIV/AIDS in South Africa (Goldacre).
After long court battles, Goldacre won his case, with the financial support of the Guardian, but Singh lost and faces the prospect of mounting an expensive appeal.
Should scientific debate be silenced by the use of English libel laws, thereby keeping the public in the dark? What are the wider implications for journalism and is there a pressing need for reform of the English libel laws?
Date: Thursday October 15 2009 Time:7:00 PM
Location: Oliver Thompson Lecture Theatre, City University London, Northampton Square, London, EC1V 0HB
So the World Conference of Science Journalists is over, and what a conference it was. Around 950 science writers, journalists and communicators gathered over three days at London's Westminster Central Hall for debate, discussions, diatribes and, of course, plenty of drink.
With a delightfully packed schedule and the repressing heat of an unusually sunny London week, you'd be forgiven if bits of it passed you by in a bit of a haze.
Thankfully, on the Internet nothing goes unrecorded. So here's a compilation of blogs, tweets and resources by ABSW members to help you to catch up on, or just relive, those heady three days. (This is by no means a comprehensive list, so please feel free to point out further reports and resources in the comments).
A big thanks to Julie Clayton, Sally Robbins and Fiona Fox for organising the fantastic programme.
Twitter One of the most engaging aspects of the conference was the way delegates embraced Twitter and the #wcsj hashtag as a means of communicating.
There were 2,526 tweets from 252 contributors over the course of the conference, with an average of 360 tweets per day. This allowed people to hold conversations simultaneously in the real-life sessions and on the web. And with many sessions on at the same time, it proved a great way for delegates to keep in touch with interesting points from the debates they couldn't attend -- not to mention the useful service provided for those journalists who were not able to attend the conference at all.
Ed Yong, the most prolific tweeter at WCSJ, has a good description of the value of Twitter at WCSJ on Not Exactly Rocket Science.
And as David Bradley has written, the conference was great for putting faces to the names of people one has met purely through email and Twitter. The digital age indeed.
Ed was of course also the winner of the ABSW Best Newcomer 2009 award, presented at the Gala reception in front of hundreds of science journalists, one Diplodocus and a statue of Charles Darwin.
Just a Theory ABSW Executive Committee helper and Imperial SciCom student Jacob Aron was not only a volunteer at the conference, he was blogging the event too! Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday
SciDev.Net It was hard to miss SciDev.Net at WCSJ, with development a major strand and many of the delegates (myself included) current or ex-staff or freelancers. SciDev.Net's blog provided great coverage of the conference from the developing country point of view.
BBC Radio 4 Leading Edge Geoff Watts, who took part in the Embargoes debate, had a brief audio package on the conference in his Leading Edge programme. You can listen again for the next few days.
Scientific American podcast John Rennie, former editor of Scientific American, expands on his comments at WCSJ that what we need is less science journalism.
WCSJ News and the Naked Scientists The official WCSJ news website, while not updated very often, does carry some reviews and short reports of sessions as well as the daily 10 minute podcastspresented by Meera Senthilingam of the Naked Scientists (I've heard longer podcasts of some of the sessions may soon available as well).
You may also have noticed the photographers floating around the place -- which explains this photo gallery of the event.
And for those who disappeared to the booze before the final speeches were over, here's the summary video shown at the end.
Update 5/7/09 22.50 Added Lindau Nobel, Mike the Mad Biologist and Kim Hannula links. Thanks to @BoraZ Update 6/7/09 22.18 Added links to Columbia Journalism Review (thanks @Simon_Frantz), Scientific American podcast and session summaries on WCSJ news website (thanks @absw). Update 7/7/09 09.47 Added extra post from Not Exactly Rocket Science.
Best of the World Conference of Science Journalists 2009http://absw.blogspot.com/2009/07/best-of-world-conference-of-science.html
The Comedy Research Project Timandra Harkness and Helen Pilcher
Helen Pilcher has a PhD in Molecular Neurobiology, but you wouldn’t guess that from this show. She and Timandra both performed solo stand up comedy before a chance meeting at the Royal Society resulted in the Comedy Research Project, which aims to prove the hypothesis that science can be funny.
Helen also writes for Nature and other serious publications. Timandra also performs improvised comedy, writes films and is currently developing a science gameshow.
Cost ABSW full/associate £5 Students £2 £10 non members. (Join on the night for £5 discount.)
Venue The Geological Society of London, Piccadilly (entrance opposite Fortnum & Mason) Time: 1800 for 1830 Please note time! Latecomers sometimes cannot be admitted owing to lack of after-hours staff!
Ends c. 20.00 for adjournment in direction of a public house.
Booking To reserve a place, e-mail ted.nield"at"geolsoc.org.uk now Places will be held pending receipt of the requisite fee either by cheque or paypal.
Cheques payable to "ABSW" to: Ted Nield at The Geological Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, LONDON W1J 0BG or paypal to absw"at"absw.org.uk (Please write in the message what it is you're paying for, and email Ted when the deed is done.)
ABSW December briefing The Comedy Research Projecthttp://absw.blogspot.com/2008/11/absw-december-briefing-comedy-research.html
An event in April "will explore ways to be creative in science communication without misrepresenting the science".
Creative Science Communication "Closely linked to the Edinburgh International Science Festival, the seminar combines workshops, practical exercises, interactive sessions and talks with highlights from the Festival programme to cover the whole spectrum of ways in which science can be made more engaging and involving, and scientists and journalists can improve how they understand and utilise each other."
