the-BA : Festival web diary

Maria Campbell is usually a marine scientist working at Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science.

For the past few weeks she has been working as a BA Media Fellow with BBC Countryfile, and is now working in the press centre of the annual BA Festival of Science.

Day One
After working for the past four weeks with the team at Countryfile, this new experience of attending press conferences, public lectures, debates and exhibitions and writing about them was a world away from the life of television and broadcasting. Instead of taking part in activities such as fell running and filming all kinds of agricultural practices, I would be in the hub of the press centre at the UEA, immersing myself in topical debates and scientific discoveries. There was a definite buzz of anticipation as Sunday evening came to a close after a general registration and a well deserved meal and Monday morning arrived.

The day began with a very relaxed start as I, with the days press conference schedule and a coffee in hand, sat down with a stack of press releases in order to familiarise myself with the content of each session and to see which session looked interesting enough to attend. There was such an array of items; climate change, carbon dioxide and the case for the Antarctic, the origins of magical beliefs and the synthaesthetic experience of ‘visual music.’ The third press conference of the day concerned the world of microbes and their role in agriculture. Having come from Countryfile and their emphasis on rural issues, this seemed like a newsworthy story to pass on to the team in Birmingham, so I had my first ‘one-to-one’ with the respective scientist and it proved very useful. This was my first experience of journalism and the heat filled room of a full press conference. It was not as frenetic as I thought it would be and was quite civilised. We only had approximately 30 minutes for the speakers and responses to questions, so every session was quite short but detailed. It was interesting as a scientist to listen to the type of questions asked by the journalists in response to a scientific speaker. However, it was even more interesting to see how scientists from various disciplines differed in their ability to communicate science effectively and either engaged the journalists, creating that headline or losing them, with the story in the bin and the journalist exiting the room!

I and three of the other Media Fellows were assigned to the BA, we would be writing for the website itself, as we weren’t allocated to representatives from our host organisations. After feeling a little lost during the first part of the morning, due to the fact we didn’t have anyone shadowing us, we were quite happy at the prospect of covering the stories that we found the most interesting and appealing. So I went and did a little preparatory work of my own to get a head start on the events I would be covering and had a little look at Tuesday’s press conference list, there were quite a few sessions that looked quite juicy!

So the evening moved onto the Union Bar, where the x-change was taking place. With a well earned glass of the finest wine that the bar could provide, I relaxed and listened to the highlights of the day including those events that I had missed. Next on the BA Fellows' agenda was the ‘only’ part that one must attend, it was the ABSW party……. And I will wait for tomorrow to tell you how this bunch of newly crowned news hungry Media Fellows enjoyed their evening!

Read day two

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