Lisa Song

Journalists lost a lot of public trust when politicians turned the term “fake news” (a term journalists came up with!) into a weapon. Similar things have been happening in the language of science. I got to chew on that a bit it in C&EN: https://lnkd.in/eDyFfP-t In reading up for this one, this stat came up: Between 2016 and 2020, the president said/wrote “fake news” 1,906 times. “While the president has used the phrase to undermine reporters holding him and power to account, actual fake news has proliferated.”https://lnkd.in/e8b7AZYJ

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CAN A PRESS RELEASE CHANGE THE WORLD? This interesting analysis demonstrates the effectiveness of using press releases as a media strategy. It's well worth noting for any PR people out there. I can tell you as a journalist (and one time press officer) that the mechanism is simple. I read upcoming articles in Eurekalert & other sources every week. Having a press release simply gets it in front of me. That's all. The analysis focuses on a relatively narrow field, just seven journals, and only pickup in major media outlets. I wonder if one could do a similar analysis more generally, with all medical journals say, and also more broadly -- focusing on social buzz, blogs, podcasts, etc. And what other non-process indicators or outcomes could be looked at? Effects on stocks? Drug or vaccine uptake?

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In a market where the demand for venture capital outweighs the supply, investors can afford to ruffle feathers. It may even be a net positive. Venture capital is largely "a fame game," says one investor at a multistage firm. "We all sell the same money. So brand awareness matters a lot, both in seeing and in winning deals." My latest for Business Insider: https://lnkd.in/gdDvQD2V

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"I found them anxious about AI exacerbating economic inequality, jeopardizing their employment prospects, and amplifying political polarization while eroding the quality of education and degrading Americans’ capacity to perform critical cognitive tasks. I heard immediate, tangible complaints about the impact of AI on their communities: electricity bills climbing skyward and the incessant hum of data centers disrupting once-quiet neighborhoods," Rebecca Lissner of Council on Foreign Relations in TIME https://lnkd.in/gZ-NsWrD

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This week's post: On a fascinating idea to try to ground LLMs in — if not truth, at least in sourcing — and what that could mean for journalism and public interesting information. Plus, structured journalism. https://lnkd.in/epjz3bAv

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"I've never seen anything like this,” longtime denier Marc Morano said recently of Democrats, billionaires, activists, and reporters going ‘silent’ on climate change. The climate denial movement was prepared for greater resistance to Trump's assault on science and clean energy. DeSmog has the scoop plus hears from climate leaders on what they think of such a 'silence'👇

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Today's #SciWri25 session, "Building Coalitions to Increase and Improve Science and Climate Journalism Funding," brought together a stellar group of newsroom leaders and funders to discuss a question looming over our field: How can we build more sustainable financial support for science news coverage, including specialized beats like #climate and #health? Panelists shared hard-won lessons and hopeful visions for what comes next. A few takeaways: 1) Strength comes from collaboration Especially for small newsrooms without dedicated fundraising staff, there's a lot to be gained from pooling knowledge and expertise. We don't need to be working in isolation; by sharing information and supporting each other, we can strengthen the whole field. As Meaghan Parker put it, "There's a feeling of everyone chasing after the same scraps, and we need to get out of that mindset." The Climate News Task Force, which Meaghan co-founded (supported by the MacArthur Foundation) is an inspiring model of how this kind of collaboration can work: https://lnkd.in/gCWwzhDZ 2) Journalists and funders need to talk more Funders and newsrooms need more alignment and mutual understanding to build lasting and impactful partnerships. As Tracy Baim, executive director of Press Forward Chicago, said, many funders don't care whether good information reaches the public through TikTok or traditional outlets — they just want to support a better informed public. Yet many, if not all, of those efforts rely on trustworthy reporting as their original source — and now is the time to reinvest in that essential foundation. 3) Current funding efforts to bolster local journalism don't apply to many science and climate newsrooms (yet) — but there's hope Recently created funding pools like Press Forward aren't yet designed to help newsrooms like bioGraphic and Knowable Magazine, which cover science topics with both global AND local relevance. We need to think about how to create similar resources for outlets covering stories about climate change, pandemics, and other science-y topics that have no city, state or national boundaries. Thanks so much to panelists Tracy Baim (Press Forward Chicago), Sara Shipley Hiles (Mississipi River Basin Ag & Water Desk), Steven Bedard (bioGraphic), Eva Emerson (Knowable) and to our moderator Siri Carpenter (The Open Notebook) for making the lunch happen. Also extra special thanks to the Climate News Task Force, for funding the lunch itself! P.S. If you're interested in this topic and want to contribute to the conversation, please take our survey, which we're using to shape next steps: https://lnkd.in/gEXRsCBX

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This is in theory a very nerdy question, but one that has pretty big implications for assessing whether AI is going to do what we want it to or not. https://lnkd.in/ewH35Cbk

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It's all about #artificialintelligence in today's Devex Newswire -- as my colleague Catherine Cheney talks to the #UN's tech envoy about the fractured conversations we're having about #AI, and whether we can somehow get on the same page. Plus, Sara Jerving talks to the head of the World Health Organization's #Africa office on how the continent can overcome #foreignaid cuts. https://lnkd.in/eKRJcBMR

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Public service announcement for anyone worried about the horrible climate and water use implications of AI: you can stop your search engine automatically giving you results from AI by adding "-ai" to the search term.

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📣 New Book Announcement | Springer Probing the Universe: A Geometrical View for Observers of Spacetime Physics by Robin W. Tucker & Timothy J. Walton has been published in the Fundamental Theories of Physics book series. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/dav6ScEx This new volume offers a rigorous and unified geometrical perspective on gravitation, electrodynamics, and quantum physics. Aimed at graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in mathematical physics, it presents core ideas through historically informed paradigms, formulated in the language of modern differential geometry. Key features include: 💡 A precise treatment of spacetime geometry using manifolds, connections, and metric structures of arbitrary signature; 💡 Variational methods based on exterior calculus, with applications to Einstein–Maxwell theory; 💡 Detailed analyses of classical spacetimes, black holes, and stellar interiors; 💡 A clear formulation of the “ideal spacetime observer” and the role of quantum measurement; 💡 Extended discussions of electrodynamics, spinor fields, and pulse models, supported by substantial appendices.

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Richard Feynman on the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something. Reminded me of what Yan LeCunn said about LLM's intelligence #AI and real intelligence. 

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In an op-ed for MIT Tech Review, David Keith & Daniele Visioni voice deep concerns about Stardust and other for-profits racing into solar geoengineering — and asserting claims that, they argue, the science doesn't support. https://lnkd.in/gdnDcByu

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In a recent Axios interview, Robert Cardillo—chief strategist at Planet Federal and former director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency—was asked to name a national security trend that's not receiving enough attention. His answer? "Water." Businesses are clearly thinking along the same lines—which is why programs like PwC's Geospatial Climate Intelligence are receiving so much attention. Great climate resiliency story about a very cool capability that's helping organizations understand the future of water availability and risk. https://lnkd.in/dNw9KTfe

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Journalists who cover #ClimateChange #Environment #Science #Government #Poilcy — you’ve already seen the new U.S. Department of Energy report that “fundamentally misrepresents” #climate research and leaves out key context, as multiple scientists cited in the report have told WIRED https://lnkd.in/eDs8AER8 What you may not have seen is that today, SciLine is hosting a media session with Dr. Noah Diffenbaugh from Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment and Doerr School of #Sustainability — he is NOT one of those scientists *directly* cited by the DOE report nor in the aforementioned WIRED article — BUT “his research is focused on understanding what aspects of the climate system most directly and acutely impact people and ecosystems. Dr. Diffenbaugh has served as a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and as Editor-in-Chief of the peer-review journals Geophysical Research Letters and Environmental Research: Climate. He has provided testimony and scientific expertise to Federal, State and local officials.” https://lnkd.in/eR9_hRBk Just wanted to share.

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I reported on a new study in Total Science of the Environment mapping risks to aquifers from orphan wells, by scientists at U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). "They found that factors including large concentrations of orphaned wells and the advanced age of wells make aquifers in Appalachia, the Gulf Coast and California susceptible to contamination. Using a USGS dataset of 117,672 documented orphan wells nationwide, the researchers found that 54 percent of the wells are within aquifers that supply 94 percent of groundwater used nationally. " Inside Climate News https://lnkd.in/gcje2C4s

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