On Friday 9 November, I had the privilege of delivering the keynote address at the opening of the Future Directions in Science Journalism conference at the University of British Columbia. Entitled, Reimagining Science Journalism, the talk examined how the way audiences are getting news and information about science is changing, with the Internet emerging as a key resource. The challenge is how to revitalize science journalism for a digital age.

The UBC School of Journalism is hosting a conference over the weekend on Future Directions in Science Journalism. It brings together journalists and scientists to discuss how to improve the understanding of science through research, teaching, and public discussion. I have the great privilege of delivering the keynote on Friday evening, Reimagining Science Journalism. I will post the full text over the weekend but this abstract will provide a flavour

Congratulations to Dan Gillmor on his appointment as the director of the new Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. From the Arizona State University news release: As a longtime Silicon Valley-based journalist, Gillmor wrote a popular business and technology column for the San Jose Mercury News and launched a weblog in 1999, a site believed to have been the first

International readers have been seeing more ads on the BBC News website. (Click on the image for a larger version). The comments on the BBC Editors blog offer a snapshot of reaction from readers to the advertising. Some have commented on the clumsy way the ads have been integrated into the site: “I don’t mind ads on websites but hopefully your web designers can learn to place them in a

If you live outside the UK and visit BBCNews.com, you may notice something different. The site now carries advertising. At the time of writing, I came across just one skyscraper ad (as shown on the right), linking to a FAQ explaining the decision for carrying advertising. The ad appears on the front, business, technology, Americas and Middle East indices. The FAQ seeks to reassure readers concerned that the commercialisation of

It’s been a busy week at the UBC School of Journalism, which has been taking time away from writing here. So I wanted to highlight a couple of the things we have been doing in a shameless bit of self-promotion. Firstly, my first year students put together their first online publication, TheThunderbird.ca. The stories focus on different aspects of life in Vancouver. As a sidenote, we used WordPress as the