On a brisk August morning in southern Australia, 16 recent PhD graduates and postdocs from around the country are sitting in a windowless room, fretting about the way science is portrayed in the media. They're attending a weeklong media-training boot camp, and the fraying of their nerves is palpable as they talk about what worries them most: the superficial way their research might be handled, overhyping, and how to handle difficult questions. "What's the point of science communication anyway?" asks Kate Jeffrey, an immunologist from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research. "Shouldn't it be about educating the public?"
She and the others are the winners of "Fresh Science," a national competition that has been running since the late 1990s. Founded by the late Ian Anderson, former Australasian editor for New Scientist, it aims to create a cadre of media-savvy researchers and to promote their work to the daily media.
The ...
