Reimagining Science Journalism was the keynote given by Alfred Hermida on 9 November 2007 at the opening of the Future Directions in Science Journalism conference at the University of British Columbia.
The talk started from a change in behaviour rather than a change in newsrooms: audiences were getting their science news and information differently, with the internet emerging as a key resource. The question that followed was how to revitalise science journalism for a digital age, and the answer offered was that the web’s interactive and participatory qualities were the means to do it — that engagement was the way to convey the wonder of science, not an add-on to the copy.
The examples cited were all working ones rather than prototypes: the Vancouver Sun’s project on rare turtles, The Great Turtle Race, the energy calculator on the BBC News website, a New York Times interactive on journeys to distant fields of primes, and the presence the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had built inside Second Life.