Just Back From the Metcalf Fellowship
How do you translate complicated scientific research into stories that are both accurate and interesting? How do you figure out how significant new research actually is? How do you get the information you need efficiently from an academic paper? These are some of the questions that have lingered in my mind as I have started to cover science and environmental topics more frequently. Luckily, I recently had the amazing opportunity to devote an entire week to getting answers—and learning how to more effectively report these stories.
I was one of ten mid-career journalists from around the world who were chosen as fellows for the Metcalf Institute’s annual science immersion workshop for journalists. We met with scientists and learned about their research, participated in field work on a fish trawler and in a salt marsh, and took classes on statistics, reading academic papers, and deciphering complicated graphs. There was also a concurrent public lecture series with remarkable speakers like Samantha Medlock, senior advisor on flood policy for the White House Office of Management and Budget, and Curt Guyette, the reporter who broke the Flint, Michigan water crisis scandal.
It was also incredibly inspiring to mingle with the other fellows, who hailed from as far as Nigeria and Pakistan and worked for outlets ranging from NBC’s investigative unit to NPR to the Dallas Morning News. I’m feeling very grateful for the opportunity, eager to digest all I’ve learned, and ready to start chasing new story ideas.