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Articles by Curtis Brainard | Email the Author

 

1. The Observatory

   Quest for science debate continues

   July 23, 2012 03:15 PM

   The quest for a scientific tête-à-tête between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney continues. On Thursday, 15 top science and engineering organizations, from the American Organization for the Advancement of Science to the Union of Concerned Scientists, released a... Continue reading

2. The Observatory

   ABC News: armchair psychologist

   July 20, 2012 05:30 PM

   Here we go again. A gunman fires on an unsuspecting crowd and the American media leap to conclusions about the shooter’s state of mind. The most reckless example of this, following the early Friday morning killing spree in an Aurora,... Continue reading

3. The Observatory

   The expectations game

   July 3, 2012 03:00 PM

   Excited speculation about the discovery of one of physics’ most sought-after particles is coming in waves now, with media outlets trying to substantiate online gossip about an announcement happening July 4 at the Large Hadron Collider. Officially, it’s just the... Continue reading

4. The Observatory

   Press war Down Under

   June 29, 2012 04:50 PM

   Fairfax Limited, one of Australia’s largest media conglomerates, is at war with its largest individual shareholder, the world’s richest woman. The soap-worthy drama began on June 18, when Fairfax—which publishes The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and other leading newspapers—<a... Continue reading

5. Behind the News

   A fatal year

   June 29, 2012 06:50 AM

   PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago — With 72 journalists killed so far this year, 2012 is on pace to be the deadliest on record, the International Press Institute (IPI) announced here on Sunday. The media freedom organization’s... Continue reading

6. The Observatory

   Our polar backyard

   June 26, 2012 08:00 AM

   The Arctic is not under-covered. Some might even say the opposite is true. The polar bear has been “the poster child of climate change” for years, for instance, but communications experts worry that journalists’ fascination with the charismatic... Continue reading

7. The Observatory

   “Prophet of Katrina” stays put

   June 22, 2012 06:50 AM

   The man The New York Times called “a prophet of Katrina’s wrath” for his prescient coverage of New Orleans’ vulnerability to hurricanes and flooding has decided to stick with the city’s beleaguered newspaper. On Tuesday, Mark... Continue reading

8. The Kicker

   Gladwell makes excuses for Lehrer

   June 21, 2012 03:00 PM

   The media drama surrounding Jonah Lehrer continued Thursday with author Malcolm Gladwell offering a weak defense of his embattled colleague, who’s been accused of “self-plagiarism” for reusing parts of old stories for other publications in blog posts for... Continue reading

9. The Observatory

   How creativity works? Not like that.

   June 20, 2012 10:45 AM

   The author of a recent book about how creativity works is finding out the hard way that the answer is more elusive than he imagined. Jonah Lehrer, one of science journalism’s brightest young stars, was accused of self-plagiarism... Continue reading

10. The Observatory

    Rio+20 roundup

    June 18, 2012 05:45 PM

    Big, international summits geared toward protecting the environment and promoting sustainability just don’t have the cachet that they used to. “Expectations are low for Rio+20,” Reuters reported on Monday morning, reflecting the dominant theme in coverage... Continue reading

11. The Observatory

    Adrift in a sea of (no) coverage

    June 15, 2012 03:00 PM

    Last October, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar called on the press to pay more attention to the Obama administration’s achievements in environmental conservation. In response, The Miami Herald’s Carl Hiaasen suggested that the government give journalists more... Continue reading

12. The Observatory

    Covering the animal within

    June 14, 2012 03:00 PM

    The promo machine for an upcoming book, Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing, by UCLA cardiologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and science writer Kathryn Bowers, has been in high gear all week. It... Continue reading

13. The Observatory

    NSF invests in literary science journalism

    June 8, 2012 03:00 PM

    The National Science Foundation (NSF) doubled down on literary science journalism this year. Actually, it quintupled down. In 2010, NSF gave $50,000 to faculty members at Arizona State University to lead a course on covering science and innovation... Continue reading

14. The Observatory

    An eye on environmental justice

    June 7, 2012 11:00 AM

    A number of media reports in last year have examined the impacts of toxic pollution on communities, but few have emphasized, let alone focused on, the fact that low-income, minority neighborhoods tend to bear the... Continue reading

15. The Observatory

    Salt Lake Tribune takes Grantham Prize

    June 6, 2012 03:10 PM

    For the second year in a row “the world’s richest journalism prize” went to a series of articles about threatened forests. Last year, the The Economist’s James Astill took home the $75,000 Grantham Prize for Excellence in Reporting... Continue reading

16. The Observatory

    How to improve environmental coverage?

    June 4, 2012 06:50 AM

    Fixing the news is a tall order, or so the Project for Improved Environmental Coverage is learning. The effort launched in late February with a “vision” statement that called on... Continue reading

17. The Observatory

    CBS News hires M. Sanjayan

    June 1, 2012 06:50 AM

    Network news got a little better this month. CBS News announced in early May that it had hired M. Sanjayan, lead scientist at The Nature Conservancy, as its science and environmental contributor, filling a slot that’s... Continue reading

18. The Observatory

    Evolved for exhibitionism?

    May 25, 2012 02:21 PM

    “Sound the evo-psych bullshit klaxon!” British science journalist Ed Yong tweeted on Thursday. He was right to be concerned. Yong’s warning pertained to an op-ed at Wired Science by Ogi Ogas. Jumping off from the string of celebrities... Continue reading

19. The Observatory

    Reparative journalism

    May 23, 2012 05:20 PM

    It’s not often that a journalist convinces a prominent scientist to recant a controversial study that he has tenaciously defended for 11 years, but that’s just what Gabriel Arana did last month. While working on an article for... Continue reading

20. The Observatory

    The western frontier

    May 21, 2012 11:00 AM

    American media may cluster in the east, but the west is still the land of pioneers, even in the domains of multimedia and long-form science journalism. Two young trailblazers—Quest, a multimedia science and environment series created in 2007... Continue reading

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