Left to Right: Christoper Joyce NPR, Ed Jahn OPB, Nicola Jones Freelance, Ashley Ahearn Earthworks/NPR
On March 9, at 5 pm, over 100 students, faculty, and reporters gathered at Oregon State University (OSU) to listen to a panel of science journalists. The event was held to teach scientists how to get their work and studies into mainstream media. "Bringing science into the conversation," is how the emcee of the event, Nancy Baron stated it.
The event was brought to OSU by a company called Compass. Compasses mission is to bring scientists into contact with the media, policymakers, natural resource managers, and the public. Through a series of three day workshops held worldwide, Compass is able to make their mission possible.
Baron said that the first commandment of science is to know the audience. With that short introduction, Baron got to know a little bit more about who was in attendance. The majority of the room was filled with undergrad or graduate students attending OSU. A smaller minority were faculty members, and a few of the attendees were neither. Some people were from the media, while others were citizens who were concerned about science and journalism.
Baron then introduced the audience to the panelists.
Ashley Ahearn works in Seattle Washington with Earthworks and NPR radio podcasting. Ahearn enjoys riding her vintage motorcycle while not writing about science. Ahearn has a masters in science journalism and enjoys teaching the public about false scientific stories that are possibly harmful to communities.
Nicola Jones is an outdoorsy person and is a freelance journalist. She lives in rural Westler Canada, in an area as close to nature as she can possibly get. Jones has her under-grad degree in Oceanography.
Ed Jahn is the host for Oregon Field Guide. Jahn got is start on television as a young man performing on Nickelodeon.
Christopher Joyce is a NPR radio host, and used to be the political reporter for NPR in Washington D.C.
After the quick introductions Baron set the mic lose on the panelists to talk about the importance of scientists getting their work known through journalism.
Joyce stated that, "Journalists are people who don't know how to do anything, who gravitate to people who know what they are doing." Joyce was talking about how journalist attempt to remain objective in their stories and attempt to let the experts talking.
Baron asked the panelists what their opinion was about journalism going from print to electronic.
Jones said that, "there are so many more opportunities for stories to get out to the public than in the past."
Ahearn commented by saying, "The only growing demographic for NPR right now are people the age of 65+. NPR is currently trying to figure out how to get the podcasts into the forefront." With the growth of social media, Ahearn feels that millennials are doing their own research and only searching for stories that they care about. With this mentality, millennials are not listening to the radio to listen about things they don't care about.
Joyce said that NPR is hiring a lot of people right now, but not one of them is working for the radio.
Jahn feels that social media is getting people you would have missed otherwise with your stories if there was only one media platform. He continued by saying, print media is always quicker than television, but if the stories are intermingled, the effectiveness is amazing.
Many of the panelist shared stories about how something that doesn't seem interesting at all will get the most hits online and go viral.
Joyce shared an experience of when he was interviewing a lady scientists who studied how plastic garbage waste gets into the ocean. While doing her research, she frequently visited garbage dumps. While at a particular garbage dump she met another scientists. They fell into love and got married. Joyce said that the story of the scientist who met her husband at the garbage dump immediately went viral and got more hits than other more pressing serious stories.
Jahn relayed a story of a time on Oregon Field Guide when he was riding a miniature train in a man's backyard. Over night there were over a million hits on the story and people asking how they too could ride the train. This story overshadowed the story of "unprepared," Oregon's lack of preparedness documentary on the cascadia fault line massive earthquake.
Jones once was on a ship doing methane research on a boat full of german men scientists. During the research, Jones would operate a crane to the bottom of the ocean and pull up frozen methane ice cubes. The ice cubes you could hold in your hand and catch them on fire. The seriousness of the story was not important, but people were fascinated by being able to light ice cubes on fire.
At the close of the event, a question and answer time was given to the audience. A lady asked the panelists why science stories are so hard to get into the media. For example, with the sit in at the Malhuer Forestry Center, why were the only stories being reported were what the protesters where wearing or eating, but nothing about the damage to the Carp fish or the Sage brush habitat?
Jahn said that OPB was broadcasting what was happening to nature in that area. Ahearn voiced her opinion by saying that, "the hot stories always get the headlines."
The panelists agreed that the stories of science are being covered, you just have to look deeper than the headlines to find them.
Joyce made an interesting comment by saying, "Journalists do not teach, they just hold up a mirror to the world, we just decide where to hold the mirror."
Baron asked the panelists to give the audience their best advice.
Jahn said, "remember why you do the science. Why do you do it in the first place, why is it interesting, and always say, tell me more."
Jones ended by commenting, "be proactive and make connections with the colleges public relations department and other local journalists."
Ahearn, "the best stories come from the Thanksgiving dinner table. What are the common folks angle of science and the world, then report about it."
Joyce ended on the comical side of reporting. He once did a story about a humming noise that was coming from the Pacific Ocean during night time hours. One scientists reported that her studies showed that it was prey fish coming up to the surface to feed at night while the predator fish were lower in the waters, and what you were hearing were billions of fish farts. Joyce reported this story on the radio and the scientist got stigmatized by her peers. He told scientists to settle down and don't take it too seriously, it's just science.
At a glance:
When: March 9 5 pm
Where: OSU
What: Science Journalist panel
Cost: Free
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