Dear all,

With apologies for cross posting. Just a reminder about tomorrow's  
seminar. Details below:

The next London PUS Seminar will be on Wed 23rd March. We are pleased to
welcome Andy Williams (Cardiff University) who will be discussing his
recent research on science journalism in the UK.

Speaker: Andy Williams, Cardiff University

Title: A crisis of science journalism?

Date, Time and Location:
Wednesday 23rd March 2011
16:15-18:00
Venue: S314
Room S314 is located on the third floor of St. Clements building on the
LSE campus, which can be accessed through the entrance on Houghton  
Street:
http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/mapsAndDirections/findingYourWayAroundLSE.htm

Abstract:
Science news is not formed in a social, economic, or cultural vacuum. It
is written by people at news organisations which are cutting staff and
investing fewer resources into news production than previously.  I  
believe
that any discussion of science news in the UK must be situated in the
context of the economic and political conditions under which news is  
made.
Drawing on the findings of an internet survey of UK science news
journalists (response rate 43%), and 52 semi-structured interviews with
specialist journalists and editors, this paper will investigate elements
of the political economy of UK specialist science, health and  
environment
news journalism by assessing changes in the strength of this news beat
over time, and evaluating changes in working practices and working
conditions.

The research shows there was a significant long-term expansion in the
staffing of the UK national science news beat in the 1990s, but also  
that
this growth has recently tailed off as key news outlets have started to
cut science journalists. Furthermore, workloads have risen significantly
in recent years and this has fuelled a number of problems resulting in
increased story counts, pressures to produce more online content, and  
less
time to find, check, and research stories. Consequently, important
elements of journalism practice are increasingly outsourced to a fairly
narrow range of efficient science news sources. This leads to an
increasing reliance on PR information subsidies and a homogenisation of
science news content. As long as science reporters’ everyday routines
leave ever-diminished time and space for finding their own news stories
and writing them rigorously, the prospects for high quality,  
independent,
science news in national mainstream media are diminished.


Martin Bauer, Jane Gregory, Simon Lock
funded by the Public Understanding of Science journal

Dr Simon J Lock
Teaching Fellow in STS
Global Citizenship Study Abroad Programme Co-ordinator

Department of Science and Technology Studies
UCL
Gower Street
London
WC1E 6BT

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020 7679 3763  (internal: x33763)

STS Goes Global! New Study Abroad Year in Global Citizenship at UCL:
www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/global-citizen