German and American Journalists discussed impact of Science Communications

The ‘Atlantic Transfer Conference on Science Journalism’ took place on October 6, 2006. ConRuhr, the Academic Exchange Office for Germany’s Ruhr Area Universities - Dortmund, Bochum und Duisburg-Essen, organized the event. Writers and editors from The New York Times, Nature, Science, Der Spiegel, Scientific American, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Nova TV and WDR-Television discussed the cultural background of Science Communication.

“Science writers are like sports writers - they ask for the key players and the latest results,” said John Rennie, Editor in Chief of the Scientific American. “The speed of science is incredible and forces the journalists to run to stay in the same place...” 

Interesting Perspectives

Katja Thimm, Der Spiegel, talked about “The other Experts”, representing a rare perspective in science writing. Reporting about strokes, she referred directly to the persons affected by the disease: the patients and their relatives. Thimm: “This approach gives a very intimate insight into the topic and poses the question: ’How far in personalization can we go?”

 “Scientific articles just show a part, never the whole.  Keep this in mind…”, warned Holger Wormer, Director of the Science Journalism program at the Univeristy of Dortmund.  Wormer noted that journalism is changing and the training of new journalists reflects this as well. The Science Journalism program offers students training in both journalistic praxis and a scientific field of choice.

Science Communication and Politics

The political dimension of scientific topics in the media was addressed by Thomas Hallet, WDR, and Andy Revkin, The New York Times. Hallet: “Politicians need science journalism…as forewarning system.” As an example he mentioned the coverage on bird flu in Germany. With regard to the news impact of scientific discoveries Revkin concluded: “When it becomes political, it becomes news.”

Networking of the Stakeholders

“The conference was a great success,” said Rolf Kinne, Director ConRuhr. “Besides excellent speakers we had an interesting audience. The exchange of ideas was very intense: We built a bridge across the Atlantic and between Scientists, Journalists and Politicians.” Among the 70 audience members were representatives from Columbia and New York University, Business Week, United Nations Chronicle and the Bertelsmann Foundation.

The conference was supplemented with an exhibition that gave participants the opportunity to get information about courses of study and research activities in Germany’s Ruhr Area.

The ConRuhr-event in New York was the second part of the conference series “Atlantic Transfer – Great Ideas are Mobile’, supported by the Volkswagen Foundation.

For more information about further Atlantic Transfer Conferences see:

www.atlantic-transfer.org