At Science Online 2010, due to begin in a few weeks, I will be chairing a panel of veteran bloggers/journalists in a discussion on rebooting science journalism in the age of the web. Joining me will be Carl Zimmer, John Timmer and David Dobbs. We'll be chatting about how science journalism and science journalists will survive in the new media ecosystem, which traits are adaptive in this environment, and which are not. Dave's already got the ball rolling with some thought-provokingposts on the topic and over the next couple of weeks, I'll be doing the same. This first post will go back to basics and try to understand who exactly these pesky science journalists are in the first place...
Science journalists: depending on who you ask, they are either the unsung heroes of science outreach, or the villains of the piece with blood on their hands. Much of this debate hinges on qualifying exactly who counts as a science journalist in the first place. This is a semantic argument but an important one - where you draw the line affects how you perceive the successes and the failures of those on either side of it.
