ScienceWriters2024: Some Highlights of the Virtual Sessions

Retaining the structure that had served its recent predecessors, the conference ScienceWriters2024—organized by the National Association of Science Writers and the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing—consisted of virtual-only sessions on October 17–18, 2024, and in-person components in North Carolina’s Research Triangle on November 8–11. The current report presents highlights of the virtual-only sessions, which were largely panel discussions featuring science writers, science editors, and related professionals. Free Your Data and Your Mind Will Follow: Exploring Journalists’ Role in the Open Data Movement By Rachel Sells Large datasets can be crucial in reporting, but accessing and interpreting them can pose challenges. This issue was explored by a panel moderated by Maggie Koerth (editorial lead, CarbonPlan), with Tyler Dukes (lead editor, AI innovation in journalism, McClatchy), Lisa Sorg (adjunct professor, Wake Forest University, and North Carolina reporter, Inside Climate News), and Max Jones (cloud engineer, Development Seed). The panelists started by discussing journalists’ access to data. As a commodity that businesses rely on, they said, data can be tricky to access. They discussed the need to promote equity in data access through outreach, open data policies, and implementation of accessibility tools. Privatization of data was noted as a concern, and, speaking on a lighter note, Sorg later brought up her frustration with the loss of phone books. The conversation shifted to issues with open data, especially data obscuration. Sorg cited the Duke Energy groundwater contamination incident as an example of intentional obscuration by using an inaccessible format. The panel also […]