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US universities launch online news site to combat reduction in science reporting

Posted: 18/09/09 By: Judith Townend

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Thirty-five influential research universities in the US this week launched Futurity.org, an online news service through which they will publish their findings directly online.

The project, led by Duke University, Stanford University, and the University of Rochester, is an attempt to rectify a situation in which American 'coverage of science news has dramatically declined', it was announced in a release.

First released in beta in March 2009, but launched officially on Tuesday, the site is billed as an 'online research magazine' to highlight new discoveries from leading universities in the United States and Canada.

Born from the academics' concern that newspapers' economic plight has forced publishers to cut back on the size of their issues and staff, with a knock-on effect on the number of research stories, all the stories 'are edited to stir the imagination', its founders said.

"We want the stories to engage readers, to raise questions, and to make readers want to learn more - and to come back for more," said Bill Murphy, a Futurity co-founder and vice president for communications at the University of Rochester.

It is also communicating via social media: Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, with a policy of linking to external supplementary materials.

A mobile-friendly version and daily email update are also available.

A need for a similar model in the UK?
While nothing of this scale exists in the UK at present, a similar approach was described by Dr Ben Goldacre at a well-publicised debate with Lord Drayson, the UK government's science minister, on Wednesday.

Goldacre, who regularly criticises the British press for distorting scientific research - through both his weekly column in the Guardian, and on his Bad Science blog - argued that professional scientists should communicate directly with the public, via blogs and other publications.

"We should get scientists to talk about stuff in their own way. There should be fewer science writers and more editors shaping academic ideas," he said at the event.

In a comment on New Scientist's website, Goldacre said he had called for articles written by scientists 'with the help of professional science communicators acting as editors, shepherding their words onto the page, helping them to be clearer; and also articles written by professional science communicators acting as writers'.

Goldacre told Journalism.co.uk that the premise of Futurity looked interesting: "I'm all in favour of aggregating pre-existing resources like lay summaries and press releases, for all that they may be flawed."

BPS Research Digest was one example of this type of model, Goldacre said. The British Pyschological Society aggregates press releases about recently published pyschology research, along with short updates and comment.

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