Experience WCSJ2017 through videos and student stories

Although the 2017 World Conference of Science Journalists is history, the experience and content of the conference continues. CASW was pleased to join with our conference partners in ensuring that the conference is shared worldwide through video recordings, translations and student coverage

A sampling of plenary and breakout sessions and a sponsored luncheon program given were recorded over three days, October 26-28, 2017. The videos can be viewed at CASW’s YouTube channel or through the video page on the WCSJ2017 website

“As the conference approached, we thought about the many science writers who would not be able to join us in San Francisco. We hope these videos will give them a chance to experience much of the conference over the internet,” said CASW immediate past president Cristine Russell and Ron Winslow, co-chairs of the WCSJ2017 Organizing Committee. “And we hope conference attendees from around the world will share these videos and the student stories about the sessions with colleagues back home.”

The organizers also hope that colleagues around the world will contribute video subtitles so that the sessions can be experienced in languages other than the original English.

The videos are also embedded in session pages on the wcsj2017.org website, along with student coverage of the sessions.

Student journalists produced 52 reports from the conference through a special Student Travel Fellowship program organized by CASW and the National Association of Science Writers. Support to CASW from the William K. Bowes Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science provided travel grants for 22 students from 13 countries.

Videos online include:

• Biologist Jennifer Doudna’s conference-opening New Horizons in Science presentation, “Rewriting the Code of Life,” and the related session “Reporting on Genome Editing: An International Discussion.”
• Sessions on international issues in science journalism, including reporting on authoritarian regimes and pseudoscience<the human ethics of crisis reporting; covering sexual harassment in science; and covering research on lab animals.
• A data visualization tutorial by Alberto Cairo of the University of Miami and sessions on writing science profiles, fact checking and authoring science books.
• Science presentations by international leaders, including a plenary on “Africa: The Cradle of Mathematics,” given by Thierry Zomahoun of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences;” the 2017 CASW Patrusky Lecture, “In Defense of Science,” by Susan Desmond-Hellmann of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and a talk by UC Berkeley’s Solomon Hsiang exploring the interaction between economic inequality, violence and climate change.
• A sponsored luncheon program featuring women in science leadership from South Africa, Jordan and Japan speaking to the question “Who Will Do Science in the 21st Century?”

Additional videos are in production.

To contribute an English transcript or a translation, navigate to the video on YouTube and find the “Add translations” link. Volunteer-uploaded translations will be published after review by the WCSJ2017 organizers. CASW board member Debbie Ponchner and other members of the WCSJ2017 Regional Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean are coordinating translations by Spanish-speaking science writers.

WCSJ2017, the 10th World Conference of Science Journalists and the first to be held in the United States, was organized by NASW and CASW in partnership with the World Federation of Science Journalists and with the participation of the University of California San Francisco, UC Berkeley and the Association of Health Care Journalists. Nearly 1,400 attendees from more than 70 nations converged on San Francisco October 26-30 for program sessions, workshops, sponsored events and field trips organized around the theme of “Bridging Science and Societies.”