Interviewing technique

When I'm teaching about conducting interviews, I usually mean journalism interviews. One of my key points is about the need to establish rapport with the person you're interviewing.

In the last week, I've read two stories about different kinds of interviewing -- a detective trying to interview a criminal, and military investigators trying to interview a terrorist. Both stories, it turns out, highlight the importance of rapport.

From The Atlantic, May 2007: "The Ploy" by Mark Bowden (requires subscription)

From New York Times Magazine, 29 April 2007: "The Devil's Right-Hand Man" by Chip Brown (requires access to "select content" or a library subscription)

Too much aspirin? Or too little?

One of the standard complaints about science journalism is the "last week they said coffee is good for you, this week they say coffee is bad for you" complaint. But I always forget to document these back-and-forth claims. Blogger Craig Hildreth, MD, has a nice post about one of these episodes, involving aspirin:
The Cheerful Oncologist

Where does Web 2.0 fit in science communication?

At a talk yesterday, Richard Gallagher, editor and publisher of The Scientist, talked about the potential of Web 2.0 sites (social networking sites, participant-produced sites, whatever meaning of Web 2.0 you wish) for science communication. He pointed to two particularly interesting examples:

* In April 2007, the SECOND LIFE site had a major flood triggered by global climate change. Descriptions of the event are at:
Cataclysmic Climate Change in Second Life (TreeHugger)
ScienceDaily: Distance Learning Moves Into 'Second Life' Virtual Classroom
Interactive Marketing Trends: Second Life Flooded!
Eco-Chick � Blog Archive � Gamers Face Global Climate Change, Flooding
* The "Whyville" site for teens and tweens has included a number of activities that involve science learning.
Whyville

Blogs about Blogging about Blogs

North Carolina Science Blogging Conference in BlogTogether

OK, so I'm new to blogging, and not very good at it. But today I discovered that the first ever "science blogging conference" happened last January. I've just started going through the list of talks, attendees, etc. Looks like fun, and like something that we need to think about in the science communication world.

Frames in media coverage of science

Matt Nisbet, a former Cornell student (now teaching at American Univ.), published an essay in SCIENCE this week about the images of science.

Read it at http://encompass.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/checkIP.cgi?access=gateway_standard%26url=http://dx.doi.org/DOI:10.1126/science.1142030

(if this link doesn't work, go to Cornell Library, go to the magazine SCIENCE, go to 6 April 2007 issue, look for Nisbet's name)

Then, read his blog to see how people have been responding to the piece:
http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2007/04/dont_be_a_dodo_bloggers_weigh.php

Drug advertising

Celebrex Commercial Draws Criticism - New York Times

So, we've talked very briefly in class about "direct to consumer," or DTC, drug advertising. There's a new development in which a Celebrex ad is being criticized for being misleading. What I find interesting is the ad's format -- 2.5 minutes, rather than the usual 30 or 60 seconds. You can provide much more information in that kind of time. Take a look at the ad, at celebrex.com, and see what you think.

Science in the movies

A recent New York Times article talks about how science gets into the movies...or, rather, how it doesn't:

Dark Matter, a Tale of Power and Intrigue in the Lab, Based on Real Life

The story describes how a movie has been made of the tale of a science graduate student who became upset when he didn't win a prize and killed five people in a shooting rampage. The point of the story is that science has human drama, and so you can make a movie of it. But the movie is not "about" the science.

So, does that make it a science story or not?