The Triangle region of North Carolina—Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill—is a hotbed of science, medicine and technology, with three major research universities, two medical schools and a veterinary science school, dozens of biotech companies and hundreds of IT developers.
This innovative research community is constantly churning new developments and making new discoveries that impact the field of science, medicine and technology on an international scale. Keeping up with the massive and constant flow of progress is a major challenge for the corporate media offices, public relations professionals and especially for the journalists who cover the beat for trade publications and for the general public. Navigating this research hub and the massive amount of information it produces and translating for a lay audience can be overwhelming – even for the most experienced journalist. In addition, there has been a steady decline of reporters who cover science and medicine on a daily basis for newspapers and other traditional media outlets.
And yet the Internet is thriving as a source for news about these fields. A recent survey by the National Science Foundation found in 2004 that the Internet was the second most popular source of science news, up from fourth place in 2001. (NSF 2006 science literacy survey) The blog in particular has emerged as one of the most effective vehicles for communicating science, medicine and technology news.
Since 2005, the BlogTogether initiative here in the Triangle has gathered together bloggers, journalists, educators, students, entrepreneurs, scientists and others for social, educational and instructional events related to new media tools. Our grassroots efforts help to improve the flow of information and learning, and do so in ways that bring online relationships into face-to-face conversations.
In January 2008, the second annual North Carolina Science Bloggers Conference will gather 200 people from across the country to explore how blogs can help promote the public understanding of science. Our experiences with the planning of these science blogging conferences has highlighted an excellent opportunity to use a blog-based Web site as a clearinghouse of the tremendous amount of science, medicine and technology activity of this region.
Triangle Science Times
We propose the creation of a Web site to collect and communicate news about the science, medicine and technology in the Triangle. The site will revolve around a comprehensively updated blog, written by a team of local journalists, that will provide a “river of news” linking to as much information and as many resources as it all flows by.
A single day in the life of this blog might provide entries about new journal articles by local researchers, announcements of medical advancements from a local university, listings of lectures and presentations, reports from conferences, interviews with scientists, video clips demonstrating a scientific technique or new product, links to science coverage in local media, and more. Each item or entry will link back to a local Web site, current media coverage and archived resources.
Additional features of this site will include:Audience
The potential audience for this Triangle Science Times clearinghouse includes residents of the region and local and state government leaders, as well as journalists, teachers, venture capitalists, scientists and others in the state, across the country or around the world. Indeed, with the ubiquity of the World Wide Web and the power of online search engines, this site will reach millions of people interested in science and technology. We will strive to build audiences at the state, national and international levels.
Readers of the blog will be encouraged to subscribe to the RSS newsfeed in order to best monitor the river of news emanating from the Triangle. Likewise, readers will be encouraged to contribute their comments and questions, and to participate as members of an online community. As with other BlogTogether efforts, we will organize offline events to further support the scientific community in the Triangle, and will collaborate with Sigma Xi to sponsor a regular science café (a social event with a presentation by a local scientist).
An important aim of the Triangle Science Times is to promote the public understanding of science. Because of this goal, we will incorporate numerous tools for learning about science, and we will spotlight teachers and teaching tools. One possible means of reaching out to teachers would be with the NC Science, Mathematics and Technology Education Center.
Team
BlogTogether organizer and medical journalist Anton Zuiker will recruit a team of contributors to this Triangle science blog, with one professional journalist to be the main full-time writer and reporter and a second professional journalist working half-time to manage the video content.
The graduate students in the Medical Journalism program at UNC-CH will also participate and contribute video reporting. Tom Linden M.D., director of that program, will serve as advisor to Triangle Science Times.
Additionally, we will collaborate with local science and medical journalists and their editors. We expect their cooperation and participation because the Triangle Science Times will serve to amplify their own coverage and will drive additional traffic to their respective Web sites.
As we gather the content for Triangle Science Times, we will also begin to create a community around the site so that others can contribute. We will strive to find scientists, educators and students who can round out the perspectives and subject areas.
Setup and costs
We seek a seed grant to support a start-up phase of this project. Alternately, we seek an institutional sponsor to host the project.
Startup costs and technical requirements for this project will be minor: existing content management systems and blogging software, as well as hosted online tools, are free or relatively inexpensive. We will partner with local designers and coders to create the site. Free site hosting will be provided by ibiblio.org. Total costs for launching the site will be under $5,000. The main, recurring costs for this project include monthly retainers for one or more reporters who will contribute to the blog, or, if the project is hosted by an institution, salary and benefits for a full-time reporter/blogger.
After the start-up phase has proven Triangle Science Times to be a viable endeavor, we will seek additional funding and in-kind support from local sources, including state and national grants, and explore options for display advertising.
Next steps
This proposal is being presented to Triangle institutions and other potential sponsors. We look forward to providing you additional information and rationale for the Triangle Science Times project.
For more information, please contact Anton Zuiker at 919.225.0969 or zuiker@gmail.com.
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