A Soundings from Island Press event at the California Academy of Sciences
With recent events such as oil spills, failing fisheries, bitter debates over climate change, and a controversial new ocean policy, science is increasingly in the public spotlight, yet technical subject matter can be tricky for scientists to convey to journalists, policymakers, or even the general public. Island Press has assembled a panel of communicators (including a scientist) to discuss strategies for talking about science and why it's important to try.
Nancy Baron, lead communications trainer for the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea (COMPASS) and author of Escape from the Ivory Tower: A Guide to Making Your Science Matter, will be joined by The Washington Post journalist Juliet Eilperin, author of Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks, and Dr. John McCosker, senior scientist and chair of aquatic biology for the California Academy of Sciences.
Bio
Nancy Baron
A zoologist and science writer, Nancy Baron is the Ocean Science Outreach Director for COMPASS. She is also the lead communications trainer for the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program. In these capacities, she works with environmental scientists helping them translate their work effectively to journalists, the public and policy makers.
Baron holds communications training workshops around the world for academic scientists, graduate students and post docs as well as government and NGO scientists. She has an interdisciplinary Masters degree in Global Marine Studies from the University of British Columbia, a B.Sc. in Zoology and has won numerous science writing awards.
In August 2010 Baron completed a communications guide book for scientists titled Escape from the Ivory Tower: A Guide to Making Your Science Matter (published by Island Press). This book summarizes her ten years of experience working as a personal coach and trainer to many well-known environmental scientists. It includes contributions from her COMPASS colleagues, as well as the voices and experiences of leading journalists and scientists.
Juliet Eilperin
A born-and-bred Washingtonian, Juliet Eilperin graduated in 1992 magna cum laude from Princeton University, where she received a bachelor's in Politics with a certificate in Latin American Studies. In the fall of 1992 she went to Seoul, South Korea on a Luce Scholarship, which allowed her to cover politics and economics for an English-language magazine. Returning to Washington, Ms. Eilperin wrote for Louisiana and Florida papers at States News Service and then joined Roll Call newspaper after the Republicans seized Congress in 1994. In March 1998 she joined The Washington Post as its House of Representatives reporter, where she covered the impeachment of Bill Clinton, lobbying, legislation, and four national congressional campaigns.
Since April of 2004 she has covered the environment for the national desk, reporting on science, policy and politics in areas including climate change, oceans, and air quality. In pursuit of these stories she has gone scuba diving with sharks in the Bahamas, trekking on the Arctic tundra, and searching on her hands and knees for rare insects in the caves of Tennessee.
During her first year at the Post Ms. Eilperin was the most prolific writer on the news staff, writing more than 200 stories. In the spring of 2005 she served as the McGraw Professor of Journalism at Princeton University, teaching political reporting to a group of undergraduate and graduate students. This spring Rowman & Littlefield has published her first book, Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship is Poisoning the House of Representatives.
Virginia Kromm
Virginia Kromm is Vice President of Communications and Development at Island Press.
John McCosker
John McCosker is Senior Scientist and Chair of the Department of Aquatic Biology at the California Academy of Sciences.
When he is not deep-sea diving or researching white shark behavior, Dr. John McCosker's interests include aquatic animal evolution and behavior, plus discovering and cataloguing the fishes of the Galapagos Islands.
Michael Webster
An expert in the fields of coral reef science and conservation management, Michael Webster earned a Ph.D. in coral reef fish ecology from Oregon State University. After graduate school, Webster joined the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) at Oregon State University, where he coordinated the scientific activities of a long-term ecosystem research and monitoring project focused on the ecology and oceanography of the California Current Ecosystem.
Webster then joined the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, where he developed and managed a portfolio of more than $40 million in grants focused on the conservation, management, and scientific understanding of Pacific salmon ecosystems. He has worked with leaders at a wide array of conservation organizations, management agencies, and universities to identify and meet funding needs while developing strategic plans to increase the long-term effectiveness of conservation initiatives. Webster is a certified divemaster and has conducted coral reef field research in the Bahamas and Australia.
Process of graphically displaying real or simulated scientific data. It is a vital procedure in the creative realization of scientific ideas, particularly in computer science. Basic visualization techniques include surface rendering, volume rendering, and animation. High-performance workstations or supercomputers are used to show simulations, and high-level programming languages are being developed to support visualization programming. Scientific visualization has applications in biology, business, chemistry, computer science, education, engineering, and medicine.
At 00:58, disgraceful how the panel dismissed the question being asked, and, instead, blamed the public for not buying newspapers. "Let's move on" - yes, let's! That's, after all, how science works - by ignoring inconvenient facts and NOT doing any research (as to why people aren't buying newspapers), just assuming (that they're cheapskates!).
One prominent CEO had the honesty to admit that concentration of media ownership IS a serious problem.
So, corporations produce a cheap, shoddy product, packed with corporate and government propaganda - weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, anyone? - only 30,000 deaths, anyone? - Iraq is better off now, anyone? - US foreign policy is about promoting democracy, anyone? - then so-called journalists tell the public that they're to blame and should buy this biased trash.
Newspapers are in the business of selling advertising space to advertisers NOT news. Their business is to make money, not educate and inform the public.
A panel clearly accepting corporate money and refusing to "bite" the hand that feeds it. Shameful, but a perfect example of what the questioner was talking about.
(I will continue to NOT buy newspapers. I'm happy to pay, but NOT for propaganda. Instead, I support alternative news sites, such as democracynow).
member. 
