The way audiences are getting information is changing. The way the internet is playing a role in getting this information is influencing journalists to create unique and interesting ways to portray information and facts.

Professor Alfred Hermida in his talk at the Wedgewood Hotel in Vancouver last night addressed how to make science relevant in a digital age.

We know the web allows new tools, innovative ways to tell a story and now science is tapping into this relatively new medium to tell difficult stories that would otherwise be weighed down with facts and figures.

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The first session this morning dealt with the hype and spin of science journalism, so it was no surprise that definitions of “journalist” and “advocate” were brought up.

Traditionally, these terms have been pitted against each other in the field of journalism.

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Alan Cassels, co-author of Selling Sickness: How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies are Turning Us All into Patients entertained and informed the audience at the Science Journalism Conference by reciting the following example of poetic journalism.

Who says you can’t write poetry about science?

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Here are some of the websites I mentioned in my keynote address, Reimagining Science Journalism, on Friday at the opening of Future Directions in Science Journalism.

Vancouver Sun: Project sheds light on rare turtles

The Great Turtle Race

BBC News website: Energy calculator

New York Times: Journeys to distant fields of prime

NOAA in Second Life

A PDF of the talk is available for download here.

It’s because we have one Earth and it’s going down the drain, according to Richard Black, an environmental correspondent with the BBC news website who gave a talk called “News on the net: a green future?” at the UBC School of Journalism on Friday afternoon.

His presentation started with an animated graphic showing the Earth going into the drain of a kitchen sink. This brought chuckles from the audience and kept them interested in his talk because he asked the audience to make choices on what information would be displayed next. For example, he showed an endangered species website and asked someone to shout the name of an animal or plant species they would like to know if it was endangered. At another part of his talk he used an animated map and asked the audience to choose a city in Britain and we found out the exact number of votes cast for each political party during an election.

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