The current focus is to engage “scientifically attentive” people in the area with posts about upcoming events in and around the Research Triangle Park, like the recent ScienceOnline2010 conference.
In June of 2009, the Research Triangle Park joined SIT as an unofficial partner “for the promotion and understanding science and technology in our Research Triangle region,” Perrien said. Much of the current funding for SIT comes from the Research Triangle Park, through direct support for the blog, and from the Web development work that Blue Pane Studio does for the Research Triangle Park. The studio recently launched an iPhone app designed to support SIT and the Research Triangle Park’s community building efforts, for example.
Perrien said the blog has successfully moved out of what he calls the “volunteer fireman stage” and currently supports three part-time freelancers: Sabine Volmer, DeLene Beeland, and Bora Zivkovic, plus one video journalist, Ross Maloney. As of now, there is no formal relationship between SIT and local newspapers like the Observer and the News & Observer. They do share some of their freelancers, however. Both Volmer and Beeland often contribute to the SciTech pages.
In late February, the Knight Science Journalism Tracker’s Charlie Petit picked up an article that Vollmer wrote for SciTech about a Japanese inventor visiting North Carolina. Petit prefaced his post by pointing out that:
The Tracker, before the Raleigh News & Observer got rid of its science staff of one or maybe two (other than health and medical writers), used to see a steady flow of distinctively original reporting in it on high tech and science generally. Thus it is notable to find a piece today, even though from a writer labeled as a correspondent, which usually means freelancer.
Vollmer wrote to Petit the next day explaining that she was, in fact, one of seventy newsroom employees that he News & Observer laid off or bought out.
In that sense, new initiatives like the SciTech section and Science in the Triangle are somewhat bittersweet—replacing only some of what’s been lost. Still, they are very welcome and important steps in the right direction.
Hi. I was not able to open the "rapid decline (pdf)" link in the article "Reviving Science Coverage in the Carolinas". The link leads to a blank page. Thank you in advance.
#1 Posted by Laura Vargas-Parada, CJR on Sat 13 Mar 2010 at 08:20 AM
This is, of course, a positive development. My only quibble is the editor's assumption that readers are interested in science only if research emanates from North Carolina. Almost all research these days is conducted multilaterally, featuring collaboration among scientists at various universities and in several states--and countries.
#2 Posted by Harvey Leifert, CJR on Sat 13 Mar 2010 at 12:23 PM
The newspaper that gave us Jim and Tammy Baker now combine for a science column. Excellent!
Read your hometown newspaper. See how many have daily horoscopes. Now, how many have science columns? Let me recommend to any reader, Science News, a biweekly newsletter that covers science.
#3 Posted by J. David Reno, CJR on Mon 15 Mar 2010 at 03:30 PM
I posted a rather critical comment on this item at the Knight Science Journalism Tracker. I'd welcome further debate on this subject here and there.
#4 Posted by Paul Raeburn, CJR on Tue 16 Mar 2010 at 12:07 PM
Harvey, you have a good point about collaborative research. But I think the N&O and The Charlotte Observer are going for local science stories because those stories are right in their backyard. Because of that, they're able to provide unique content that more nationally focused news sources aren't covering.
These papers are after science stories no one else is covering, and as local papers, the best way to do that is to focus locally.
#5 Posted by Tyler Dukes, CJR on Thu 18 Mar 2010 at 10:10 AM
In putting this whole thing together, highlighting Carolinas content (though certainly not exclusively) was central because the most important single point was to draw the attention of pre-college students to the sci-tech activity right in their own back yards. This was an action response to the inaugural address of UNC President Erskine Bowles (of the Bowles-Simpson Plan), who saw that Asia was amassing so large and highly trained an engineering concentration that some day our State's workforce might not be positioned to compete.
The ignored tech news issue that sparked all the Sci-tech effort was hydrail, the world's transition of railways from diesel and catenary electric to hydrogen fuel cell hybrid traction.
Sadly, after all that work, the Sci-Tech section has still never printed one word about hydrail, which Taiwan, Japan, China and the USA (BNSF R.R.) have introduced and which Spain puts into revenue service in 2012.
#6 Posted by Stan Thompson, CJR on Thu 22 Dec 2011 at 09:46 AM