Bothina Osama
Middle East & North Africa regional news editor, SciDev.Net

“What a waste of time to have a blog and write unpaid work on it,” is a thought that might cross a lot of science journalists’ minds when they consider whether or not to start a blog – I was one of them.

The stars of science blogging. Credit: Bothina Osama

But at a session this afternoon, the stars of science blogging raised the point that having a blog can help develop the quality of journalists’ writing.

And, they assured the audience, some journalists actually earn a living by blogging. “It is really generative,” one of the panelists said. For example, Jennifer Ouellette, a panelist and author of the Cocktail Party Physics blog, compiled her blog posts into a book.

“Having a blog is equal to going to a journalism school.” This is how Moheb Costandi, moderator of the session and author of the Neurophilosophy blog, described the benefits of having a blog. Ouellette said she thinks of her blog as her “writing lab”. And all of the panelists agreed that having a blog is a wonderful way for journalists to develop their writing style.

Their advice for journalists who want to start their own blog?

Blog about something that you know about and are passionate about; make the topic of your blog narrow enough so that people don’t get bored; and interact with readers who leave comments, as they build the blogging community.

While these are the best of scientific times, they are also the worst, with tensions rising between science and society, Alan Leshner, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said in his keynote address today.

Concerns about the treatment of human and animal subjects add to science's bad PR. Credit: Flickr/alstreet

Some of these tensions come from problems within science, he said. A tiny number of  incidents of scientific misconduct, accidental scientific errors, and the failure of medical researchers to declare they were funded by drug companies, can have a “terrible” effect on the public’s view of science. Concerns about treatment of human and animal subjects, as well as publishing by press release, add to the bad PR.

Other troubles arise when science collides with core values held by society.

Embryonic stem cell research (whose moral legitimacy depends on when you think life begins - not a scientific question), research into personal topics such as sex (which came near to being banned by the US Congress as a suitable topic for study by the National Institutes of Health), are two examples.

Another which, Leshner predicted, will at some point take the world by storm, is synthetic biology. He predicts a public crisis “when they figure out that we will be able to scientifically produce life”.

A further example is neuroscience and its potential to challenge ideas about the soul.

All inflammatory issues. But are they so very different from the time when scientists were challenging the core belief of Christians that God had put his favourite planet at the centre of the universe?

Joel D. Adriano, SciDev.Net contributor in the Philippines, and Aisling Irwin, News and features editor, SciDev.Net

Bagla says there are many 'basic truths' in journalism, like accuracy. Credit: Katherine Nightingale

“It’s certainly open to debate whether people feel these codes are helpful, but I think it helps to have some kind of yardstick, a set of norms, especially for people working on their own,” Cristine Russell, from the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, United States, told a session on the subject.

It would also be useful for people who are new to the profession. But drawing up an ethical framework for journalists has its challenges.

It is difficult to decide what is right and wrong, good and bad, particularly as such a framework would have to transcend cultural boundaries, David Dickson, director of SciDev.Net, told the meeting.

A code would have to take into consideration different versions of best practices adopted by different organisations and the fact that journalists from different regions of the world are subject to different kinds of pressures and commitments when reporting. Journalists themselves also come from very different backgrounds.

But Pallava Bagla from New Delhi Television, India, argued that there are several basic given truths that one could start with when drafting an ethical code.

“There are many basic truths in journalism,” he told me after the meeting. “When it comes to issues like credibility, accuracy and plagiarism, it is obvious where we should stand. Guidelines should be developed, and the organisations or journalists should tweak them,” he said. “The code of ethics should be allowed to evolve.”

Rouwen Lin, SciDev.Net contributor

Positive media coverage requires transparency, the conference heard. Credit: Flickr/ComSec

“Science organisations have to be transparent, accessible and rapid in response,” William Kearney, director of media relations at the  US National Academy of Sciences told a session on ‘How information professionals communicate big stories’.

“Meetings should be conducted in such a way that gives access to information, and that information should be open to public comment – and answers to public and media queries should be posted online,” he told me.

“Transparency builds credibility, reputation and trust, which then gives the science organisations a guaranteed place in the news and makes job of the information officers easy to a great extent.”

But Roseanne Diab from the Academy of Science of South Africa said that just being transparent is not enough.

She described a recent study by her organisation which called for a five-fold increase in PhD students in South Africa.

Hostile media remarks included: “Bill Gates dropped out of university but is now the richest man in the world. This proves that a university degree is of little value in improving one’s lot”; “Why all this interest in PhDs – it is far more important that SA addresses the quality of its school education.”; “A PhD is a waste of time unless you want a job at a university”.

Diab said the academy turned this round with a good media approach. Presentations were kept short and snappy, panelists interviewed on radio and TV were briefed beforehand, and journalists were targeted individually.

The result? People were convinced. Funding for PhD candidates has been increased, 53 new research chairs were announced in 2011 and a National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI) was tasked with developing implementation plan. 

A. A. Khan, SciDev.Net contributor in Pakistan

Useful places to look for clues include letter pages of research journals. Credit: Flickr/cudmore

Ten tips to ease the sleuth:

-Be brave about following your instincts

-Empirically verify your hunch by generating hypotheses and testing them, but always be prepared to be wrong

-Use your magnifying glass: useful places to look for clues include whistleblowers, letters pages of research journals, newspaper business pages, stock prices, company financial and annual reports, retractions in the scientific literature (pubmed.gov allows you to refine your search to retracted publications, a useful source for Retraction Watch)

-Take advantage of public databases, including the global clinical trials registry and the Wayback Machine, which archives websites from way-back-when

-Independently examine the science. Were standards upheld? Do the conclusions drawn logically follow from the data gathered?

-Specialise in crunching numbers; investigative journalism can be a rather quantitative affair. Various tools can help you assemble and analyse data, like Document Cloud

-Be persistent - more people want to talk to you than you think. If they don’t pick up the first time, call again, and again…

-Familiarise yourself with freedom of information legislation, enacted in more than 80 countries worldwide in different forms. To ensure a fruitful effort, make information requests as specific and pointed as possible, and take advantage of global links

-Rely on the group, and be generous in acknowledging information from others

-Don’t lose the storyline – the data doesn’t speak for itself

Smriti Mallapaty, SciDev.Net contributor, Nepal/London

Aisling Irwin
News and features editor, SciDev.Net

People in the West generally love science - all the surveys show it. The trouble is, they don’t really know exactly what it is.

While worthy surveys demonstrate that scientific achievements in general attract an adoring public … another batch of surveys shows that history, astrology and extra-sensory perception (ESP) are included, by many, in what they regard as science.

The National Science Foundation’s annual survey, which has been going for more than a decade now, always finds that 70-90 per cent of the public believe that the benefits of science outweigh the harms. And in Europe, the Eurobarometer shows that more than 80 per cent of people think that science and technology have improved the quality of life for their generation.

Many people have no idea what science is and what it isn't, says Leshner. Credit: Flickr/Thomas Hawk

“That should make us feel great,” Alan Leshner, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said in his in keynote address. “However, people have no idea what science is and isn’t.”

In the United States, some 60 per cent think ESP is scientific, and more than a third, history; in Europe 41 per cent categorise astrology as science, and a third, homeopathy.

Is this a problem, though, or just something about which those of us in the know about science can share a smug chuckle?

Leshner thinks it’s a problem because it leaves people ill-equipped to understand, and make judgements about, an increasingly threatening fleet of scientific discoveries that are sailing their way soon. More on that later …

Aisling Irwin
News and features editor, SciDev.Net

What do you collect?

Some acquire works of art. Others have more abstract interests that won’t gather dust - for example, I collect intriguing reasons from journalists for not filing copy on time. Alan Leshner, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science collects something equally non-material but arguably more valuable: heads of state (or senior government ministers) who have asserted, in his presence, that they are putting science at the heart of their policymaking.

Unlike these paintings, Leshner's collection won't gather dust. Credit: Flickr/clumsy_jim

His tally so far is 27, and it’s going up increasingly fast.

“It’s phenomenal,” he told me later when I asked him about the rate of increase. “It’s an incredible thing. It’s countries like Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, China….”

“People have realised that, particularly if they don’t have natural resources, their resource is people.”

But why are they realising this now? He is more vague on this, citing enlightened individuals scattered across governments and also, more tangibly, a rise in the number of scientists and engineers being elected to govern.

“More and more countries have realised that for them to prosper they have to invest in science and in building science capacity,” he told the audience.

Nice collection. Still, I doubt it’s as good an ice-breaker as some of the lovingly crafted statements in my own anthology.

Does a journalist have to practice science to be a science journalist? Credit: Flickr/IITA Image Library

These days scientists are communicating their own thoughts, findings and observations on matters of interest to them through blogs, and in some cases even writing commissioned pieces for the media.

Science communication has evolved over time, Ed Yong, who blogs on Not Exactly Rocket Science, and Moheb Costandi, scientist turned communicator who runs the Neurophilosophy blog, told a session. The event aimed to identify who, exactly, is a science journalist, but some of the hybrids on the panel found it frustrating to seek an academic definition.

Views vary widely. Homayoun Kheyri, a freelancer with the BBC World Service, even felt that a proper definition of a science journalist would be a journalist who practices science, whether in field or in a lab, before breaking it down to the public. Kheyri insisted that a journalist fitting the description would spend some time in a week doing actual science.

But Cristine Russell, of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, Harvard Belfer Center in the United States, came to the rescue of science journalists’ self esteem, saying that a science journalist will always be distinguished from a science blogger or communicator/writer because of the ethical, independent, accurate and well broken-down information he or she gives to the public.

While the modern Internet age had almost blurred the distinction between the blogger, communicator and writer, a science journalist, through an independent approach to news, plays his or her watchdog role, giving out balanced and fair information to the public.

“A science  journalist will stick to professional ethics, verify his information for accuracy, go out to the field to interrogate policy in pursuit of transparency and without bearing any hidden interests but solely for the public good,” Russell said.

So that’s what makes me special …

Maina Waruru, SciDev.Net contributor in Kenya

Big numbers get more attention - but are they enough? Credit: Flickr/duncan

Pay more attention to numbers, was the advice of David Ropeik, a risk communication expert from Harvard University in the United States.

“A big number makes risk, and gets more attention for your story,” he said.

Big numbers are also the way to get the reader interested in a story about diseases such as cancer.

But Fabio Turone, a science writer from Italy said that numbers were not enough. 

There is also the need to make the story relevant, in a personal way, to the reader: put the reader into the story, he urged, by thinking of the impact of what you are writing about on his or her daily life.

Hazem Badr, SciDev.Net contributor in Egypt

David Dickson
Director, SciDev.Net

What makes a good science journalist? WCSJ2011 has been full of speakers putting forward their theories. Charles Wendo, a veterinarian turned science journalist who is now editor of Saturday Vision in Uganda, came up with a nice practical example.

Speaking to a workshop held for African press officers, Wendo described an occasion on which he had been invited on a visit to a research institution to meet a group of researchers working with chimpanzees.

One television journalist wrote up what the researchers told him about their work, submitted the idea to his editor – and found that his idea was promptly shelved.

Chimpanzees had been put on contraceptives in order to keep their numbers down. Credit: Flickr/tim ellis

Wendo heard a researcher make a passing remark about the fact that the chimpanzees that were being studied had been put on contraceptives, in order to keep their numbers down. He decided to follow up and make this the main theme of his story.

The result? ”My story made the front page of my newspaper the next day,” said Wendo. In contrast, when the editor at the TV station saw the article, he almost fired his own journalist on the spot.

Point made. Getting the story behind the news doesn’t always mean treading on toes, just using a bit of imagination.

Bothina Osama and Aisling Irwin

Credit: WCSJ

27 June 2011 | EN

If assistant professor of physics at the American University of Cairo, Alaa Ibrahim, is to be believed, 95 per cent of science absorbed by the average person is gained through informal means, so journalists bear a huge responsibility to use whatever means they can to communicate sound science to the public.

Take your time to investigate. Credit: Flickr/jakebouma

Here are ten tips on mythbusting:

1. Speak up – say it is nonsense when it is.
2. Inform yourself of scientific terminology. What are the placebo effect and the double-blind test? What are the stages of clinical trials? The charitable trust Sense about Science has a number of published resources available.
3. Peer review your journalism.
4. Use the scientific method to gather evidence. Voice of Young Science conducted extensive interviews to successfully debunk bogus claims around ‘detox’.
5. Think critically. Even scientists can have vested interests.
6. Take advantage of published research and science news alerts. Elsevier offers access to online journals for accredited journalists.
7. Take your time to investigate.
8. Make use of respected figures in the community who can echo informed choices.
9. Empower your audience by educating them on methods of critical thinking.
10. Accept uncertainty, all science does not need to be portrayed as pure fact.

Smriti Mallapaty, SciDev.Net contributor, Nepal/London

Sanday Chongco Kabange, an independent journalist from Zambia, told a session on entrepreneurial science journalism that science journalists need to reinvent themselves. Don’t put your head in the sand: develop a keen interest in science in new media, he said, so you have a clear understanding of the competition.

Looking for stories at the World Conference of Science Journalists. Credit: Pratchaya W.

The field is very specialised and the market is limited, especially in developing countries. New media has also flooded the market with bloggers, citizen journalists – and specialists themselves – putting out their contents.

To stand out one must be aggressive in marketing oneself, whether it is blogging or stringing. A useful boost to credentials is to try to win awards.

Identify clients who can buy contents and develop their confidence in you and their trust that you can deliver.

Adam Tinworth, an editorial development manager, suggested keeping the cost low.

“There is no need for offices and fancy stuff. Just cheap, open-source software – and work anywhere you can.”

Joel D. Adriano, SciDev.Net contributor in the Philippines

Ochieng’ Ogodo
Sub-Saharan Africa regional news editor, SciDev.Net

Africa should stop continually looking to the West for funding to deal with the malaria menace. The solution could be discovered from within if a few rich Africans would turn to philanthropy and team up with governments that currently do little, to build strong partnerships at home, a South African researcher said today.

“The question today is what are African governments and the rich individuals in the continent doing to build partnerships that could have far-reaching positive implications in the fight against malaria,” said Kelly Chibale of the Department of Chemistry and Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

He said African research institutions should not always hold out begging bowls for money from organisations in the West, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Africa must investigate smart technologies to fight malaria. Credit: Flickr/US Army Africa

But it is not just research funding that is needed. There’s also the need to create capacity and use smart science to defeat the age-old disesase.

“There are technology gaps that need to be fixed to enable Africa focus on different strategies in the fight against malaria,” he said.

Chibale who is currently working together with a team of researchers on a single dose  drug candidate for malaria, said the road to drug discovery was long and expensive and Africa needed to investigate smart technologies such as those that use computer models to explore the response of the human body to a drug, to get a hit.

David Dickson
Director, SciDev.Net

Has science journalism become a global force for change? A few years ago, any science journalist who made such a claim would be rapidly dismissed as immodest at best, messianic at worst. But any participant in the opening session of the WCSJ this morning might be forgiven for thinking: “perhaps”.

Three factors come to mind.  The first is the size of the conference itself. With more than 700 registrants from over 90 countries – according to conference co-director Nadia El-Awady from Egypt – the meeting must surely be the biggest such event to have been held by any branch of the journalist profession.

The conference has attracted more than 700 registrants from over 90 countries. Credit: Flickr/Pratchaya W.

The second is that fact that what brought these individuals together is not so much self interest as a common commitment to make science accessible to non-specialists, whether members of the community or top policymakers. And a belief that better access is essential if science is to fulfil its potential to improve human life, particularly in the developing world.

Finally the unanticipated background to the conference – namely the political reform movements sweeping  through the Middle East, which have led to the meeting being relocated from Cairo to Doha – has its own message, that transparent government is equally essential.

Here science journalism also has a key role to play, not only in providing information about what can now be achieved, but also in shining light on the pressures that can either prevent this happening or lead to the misuse of the products of science for political purposes.

To claim that science journalism can itself change the world would indeed be delusionary. But no-one can go home from Doha without believing that it is an essential tool for achieving that goal. And that itself will be a significant achievement.

From Vietnam to more developed countries in Asia, such as India, science coverage is still thought to be less important than other issues.

Science coverage is still thought to be less important than other issues. Credit: Flickr/Espen Faugstad

“The picture is uneven and patchy. Some dailies and television channels in India, for example, have dedicated science pages and correspondents, ” said  T. V. Padma, SciDev.Net’s South Asia regional coordinator. 

But coverage in countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka is irregualr, and “scattered” in Bhutan and Maldives. 

In some South Asian countries, some topics, such as genetically modified (GM) crops or climate change, do get mentioned. “But they may not be covered in a way that would be recognised in the West,” she said.

The challenges are many. But it is journalists’ poor contact with scientists that poses a critical barrier across the region.

“The threats to science journalism have changed,” said Fiona Fox, who heads the United Kingdom’s Science Media Centre. “The old threat was that scientists would not speak out.

“The new threat is that governments will not let scientists speak out.”

Richard Stone, Asia editor of Science, said that scientists often say they are not authorised to speak to reporters.

“One rule for science journalists across Asia is: avoid press officers at all costs,” he said, adding that their mission is to protect scientists rather than to help them communicate with journalists.

Building trust is one solution he proposed to improve the access problem.

Another obstacle is that there is a lack of professionalism among science journalists, the conference heard, mainly because of their lack of scientific knowledge or background. Their organisations and editors do not see the significance of science reporting.

Last, but not least, journalists need to be able to trust that they have freedom of speech. As T. V. Padma put it, science journalists in South Asia, in particular, have to face reality.

“It’s [about] how strong democracy is in the countries as this is linked to freedom of the media,” she said.

Pratchaya W., SciDev.Net contributor

One reason for this is that many pseudoscience ideas have their roots in actual science, says Kendrick Frazier, editor of the Skeptical Inquirer.

“Pseudoscience takes on the guise of science, pretends to be real science, it uses the same words and language, and emerges to the public at every opportunity it gets,” Frazier told a conference session. 

People love to believe in pseudoscience. Credit: Flickr/bbaltimore

Another reason why pseudoscience reaches more people than science does is an obsession with anecdotes and testimonials.

It is accessible, supports the conclusions that the public wants to hear and provides easy answers to difficult questions, said Hungarian television host István Vágó.

It is for these reasons that countering pseudoscience can be a rather trying process, and journalists have a role to play in correcting misconceptions.

In the fight against pseudoscience, Alexander Sergeev - science division editor of the Russian journal Vokrug Sveta - said, journalists should leave the fact-searching to the scientists and concentrate on being “experts about experts”.

“It is a scientist’s job to search for facts. A journalist has to learn how to differentiate between pseudoscientists and scientists.”

Rouwen Lin, SciDev.Net contributor

Diabetes kills millions of people each year, but receives little attention. Credit: Flickr/Aki Hanninen

Also at the Underground Epidemics session, delegates heard that some of the least talked about epidemics are major killers -while some of the most talked about epidemics cause just a fraction of the number of deaths.

Antibiotic resistance and diabetes have joined the list of world’s least talked about epidemics, despite killing millions of people across the world each year.

Meanwhile recent epidemics such as SARS, and outbreaks of Escherichia coli (E. coli) in Europe, received lots of government and attention, but the disruption they caused, and the number of fatalities, were nowhere near those caused by the two latest entrants.

Maina Waruru, freelance science journalist and SciDev.Net contributor

Donors and countries are committing only 60 per cent of the money needed to fight the polio. Credit: Flickr/Gates Foundation

Thomas Abraham, director of the Public Health Media Project at the University of Hong Kong , told a session on ‘Underground Epidemics’ that the paralysing disease is continuing to evade deadlines set by the WHO to consign the disease to history, partly because of the failure to see polio as an epidemic requiring more serious and urgent action.

Abraham said that while the WHO is concentrating its efforts on vaccination in the endemic countries of Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan, the disease is busy spreading to West and Central Africa from Nigeria, seriously eroding gains.  

And a serious funding problem has arisen, he said, with donors and countries committing only 60 per cent of the money needed to fight the problem. Currently a gap of US$665 million exists, jeapordising the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s final push to eradicate the disease by 2012.

“This gap in finances is a big source [of] worry,” Abraham told the session. “If the money is not found quickly, efforts to tackle polio will continue to be delayed, and fatigue may set in - with governments and donors going for other diseases that may become a priority tomorrow.”

Maina Waruru, freelance science journalist and SciDev.Net contributor

Luisa Massarani
Latin America regional coordinator, SciDev.Net

Tomorrow I am going to share the results of a survey of the global state of science journalism. 

Some time ago I joined an initiative to map this subject, led by Martin Bauer of the London School of Economics, United Kingdom, and based on a questionnaire developed by the university.

We (the Ibero-American Network for Monitoring and Training in Science Journalism, a collaboration between ten countries in the region) put particular effort into collecting data in Latin America, and the results were very interesting. 

Science journalists in Latin America are largely female, young and have full-time jobs. A high number of respondents (62 per cent) have been working in the field for less then ten years. The press and Internet are the media most likely to cover science.

The role of science journalism is to inform (40 per cent) and to translate complex information (23 per cent). Only three per cent of respondents saw the need for science journalists to provide a more critical perspective.

Science journalism in Latin America is young and female. Credit: Flickr/sskennel

The survey raises many questions. Do most science journalists not survive more than ten years - or has science journalism been attracting more people recently? How much has the recognition of science as key for social development in several countries in the region, at least in the speech of policymakers, contributed to the increase? How much have the training workshops that we, SciDev.Net, have been carrying out in Latin America in the last ten years contributed to the increase?

It is a pity that radio and TV, more frequently accessed by people in developing countries, cover little science. It is also a pity that Latin American journalist give more room for science from the developed world to the detriment of local and regional science.

Do you want to help us to think about these issues? Please participate in this worldwide survey! It takes only 10 minutes: 

Questionnaire in English: http://www.psych.lse.ac.uk/surveys/WCSJ_2011_Questionnaire/

Questionnaire in Spanish: http://www.psych.lse.ac.uk/surveys/WCSJ_2011_Cuestionario/ 

Please don’t participate if you have already completed the questionnaire. Let’s talk more about this issue at the next conference?

Luisa Massarani is also head of Museum of Life, a hands-on science museum in Brazil.

Aisling Irwin
News and features editor, SciDev.Net

Ahmed Zewail was the star speaker here today. He is not just a Nobel prizewinner in chemistry but an intellectual at ease in both the Middle East and the West. So he took the opportunity to berate those journalists who represent the latter for the West’s negative perception of the Islamic world.

“Arabs are demonised,” he said, saying they are generally depicted as violent and anti-American. The Egyptians demonstrating “civility in their uprising” in Tahrir Square show this image is wrong, he said.

More relevant to science journalists, the common believe that Islam is in conflict with progress, is wrong, he said.

“There is nothing fundamental in Islam that is against science.”

And as for the “conflict of civilisations” theory that has gained currency, thanks to academics at Harvard University, United States, he said: “I don’t see any physics in such theories.

“The bottom line is that people want liberty and a good life to live.”

Aisling Irwin
News and features editor, SciDev.Net

If James Clerk Maxwell had dwelt in the 21^st century’s cacophony of mental noise — would he have had the space in which to dream up his theory of electromagnetism?

Possibly not, Nobel prizewinner Ahmed Zewail said in the opening keynote lecture: our preoccupation today with ‘dispatch’ comes at the expense of ‘depth’.

Zewail, a chemist and, to many, a hero of the Egyptian revolution, rehearsed the ways in which social media helped to midwife what emerged on Tahrir Square, transforming weapons that would have been stones and guns in his day, he said, into equally powerful tweets and facebook postings.

Ahmed Zewail, Nobel prizewinner in Chemistry. Credit: Wikicommons/metavid

But he then warned about the downside social media brings for both science and journalism.

Entertainment at the expense of education; business at the expense of professionalism.

And sensation at the expense of seriousness. Would the Nobel-prize winning scientist Lawrence Bragg find today a commissioning editor from a popular magazine brave enough to publish his article about his science, with its bald headline, ‘X-ray Crystallography’, as he did early last century?

Were I such an editor, I doubt I would accept it as it stood. But … with a little editing and a few personal anecdotes, making it accessible to exponentially more people than probably ever read Bragg’s original article, I would see the potential. A picture byline would be a must … and perhaps a headline like: “How X-rays helped me become the first human to peer into the atomic world”.   

Sensation? Yes, but not at the expense of seriousness – in its service.

Aisling Irwin
News and features editor, SciDev.Net

It’s not just people who were liberated during this year’s Egyptian revolution, according to Prof Abdelhamid El-Zoheiry, one of the country’s scientific luminaries and executive director of its Research, Development and Innovation programme.

Science was liberated too.

The scientific spirit is moving, he said in opening remarks to the conference. Scientists are newly inspired: “In the spirit of the revolution they are trying to work harder,” he said.

Sunny days lie ahead for science journalism in the region, delegates heard. Credit: Flickr/jalalspages

The government, too,  is more committed, with a string of new and old ideas getting the green light (see the latest on our home page later today).

And key to making these changes stick are science journalists, he said, surveying the over 700 delegates before him, half of whom are from developing countries — a first for a world conference of science journalists. 

They have both exciting opportunities and an obligation to help change the basic culture to one that embraces science and innovation, he said.

“The wind of change promises a gentle summer breeze and sunny days for science journalism in the region.”

David Dickson
Director, SciDev.Net

We’re all well aware of the struggles for democracy that have erupted across the Middle East over the past few months. In some countries, such as Tunisia and Egypt, the struggle has already born fruit; in others, such as Libya, Syria and the Yemen, it remains bitter, and the outcome uncertain.

In situations where human life and political freedom are so much at stake, it might be argued that science, if seen only as an intellectual pursuit, is a low priority. In fact, the reverse is the case. As Alan Leshner of the AAAS, and Mohamed Hassan, formerly of the Academy of the Sciences of the Developing World, describe in a highly recommended blog posting, political freedom is essential for science to flourish. And in its turn, science is essential if democracy is to protect and improve human life.

In some countries, the struggle for democracy has already born fruit. Credit: Flickr/Messay Shoakena

But processes will only happen if the role that science can play in enabling sustainable economic and social development is brought to the attention of political leaders on the one hand, and the wider community on the other. Hence the importance of science journalism in getting the message across: the fight for a democratic world is also the fight for one in which science – and its applications to human welfare – can make its proper contribution to society.

I am therefore delighted – like Bothina Osama – to see the World Conference of Science Journalists taking part in the context of such a historical set of events. We have always seen our central task as being to put science at the heart of development. There could be no better place for doing this than the Arab world, and no better time than now. We look forwarding to an exciting and stimulating conference.

Bothina Osama
Regional news editor, Middle East and North Africa, SciDev.Net

A thought came to my mind when I was attending the World Conference of Science Journalists (WCSJ) in Montréal 2004. Could such a significant event ever be held in an Arab country, giving science journalists, both in my region and many developing countries, the opportunity to benefit from the experienced crowd in this field? There were only five Arab attendees in Montréal — including me — and only about 40 from the whole of the developing world.

I am therefore delighted that, in only seven years, this thought has turned into reality, and that I will shortly be attending the WCSJ in an Arab country (Qatar), with about 80 attendees from the Arab world alone, and about 40% of the conference’s  650 attendees from developing countries.

The Arab spring has been an obstacle requiring a change in the conference venue from Cairo to Doha. But I’m confident that this wave of democratic revival will boost science journalism in the Arab world, with this conference as a helping hand.

I still have a slight fear that the language barrier could prevent Arab journalists from getting the most out of this precious opportunity. But I also have the hope that the language of science can unify us all.