Alok Jha

cience Correspondent, The Guardian

Categories: Science and Engineering

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I am a science correspondent at the Guardian newspaper in London, writing news, comment and features every day on everything from space to dinosaurs, climate change to research funding policy. I also look after the Guardian’s science website and produce and present our Science Weekly podcast. In addition I’m the author of “How to Live Forever And 34 Other Really Interesting Uses of Science”. For several years until 2007, I was a member of ABSW committee, where my initial duties included representing the organisation to the then-nascent WFSJ. In recent years I have taken active roles in producing and chairing panel debates and seminars at the WCSJ and UKCSJ in 2009 and 2010 respectively. I am also planning to produce a session and sit on panels (as required) at the WCSJ in Cairo in 2011.

I believe that science journalists must put the journalism first in their work. In my early reporting years, science specialists were already getting away from decades of simply promoting and highlighting the latest research and moving into a more critical, analytical role. Ten years later, science reporters are increasingly questioning, adding context, investigating and exposing.

But many people bemoan the fate of science journalism, arguing that challenges from the web and the removal of specialists from major newsrooms around the world marks a death-knell for our industry. I disagree.

My vision for the WFSJ is to help our associations turn what is perceived to be a threat into an opportunity for their members.

Already, expert bloggers rapidly fact-check shoddy reporting. And the tools of the social web are also being used to host public scientific debates, where scientists criticise, explain and debate fast-moving research. In this world, reporters can show readers how science actually works, warts and all.

Harnessing this ever-growing content and bringing this expert analysis to large audiences are two new challenges for journalists of the next decade. Experiments at the Guardian are already looking at new ways to bring in informed voices into the coverage of controversial topics. Fed up with the straitjacket of having a single news story to report a paper, for example, I’ve developed the “Story Tracker” a regularly-updated web page that follows major scientific stories for several weeks after papers have been published. It brings together reactions and collates useful resources and context for readers. the Guardian has also launched a network of science blogs its website, an attempt to bring ongoing conversations and debate about scienctific topics onto a platform that has millions of readers every day.

I want these innovations do two things: give readers far richer reporting on a story and also bring much-needed audience to expert voices that would otherwise struggle to be heard in the deluge of information on the web. In future, I hope that strong partnerships between mainstream news organisations and the emerging ecosystem of blogs from around the world will lead to deeper coverage and better scrutiny of science and the people who do it.

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Science Weekly podcast: the origin of life
The Guardian
Alok Jha is joined by Adam Rutherford to discuss how life began some 4bn years ago – and the manipulation of its blueprint, DNA, through genetic engineering. Adam's latest book, Creation: The Origin of Life/The Future of Life, is two books in one. The ...

Science Weekly podcast: life in a random universe
The Guardian
On this edition of the show Alok Jha meets Brian Clegg to discuss his latest book Dice World: Science and Life in a Random Universe. Brian is a celebrated science author and communicator and in his latest book he tackles the conflict between the very ...

The Guardian (blog)

DNA's twist to the right is not to be meddled with, so let's lose the lefties
The Guardian (blog)
Here's a Guardian Science podcast with Alok Jha and I talking about my latest book, Creation; and here's a review of it in the Observer, both illustrated with lefties. Here's an article from the Telegraph on why genetic ancestry tests are bunkum. Here ...

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