the-BA : Web diary 3

Monday 22 August

The day started relatively quietly, but I soon found myself filing a couple of stories from interesting press releases.

The first piece was about a new gene implicated in ovarian cancer prognosis and the second reported on a new study indicating that people from the West and East literally see the world in different ways – tracking eye movements with a computer indicated that American students tend to focus on the main objects in a picture, while Chinese students pay a lot more attention to context. Again the presence of jargon-free usable quotes was rare… as scientists we either need to write clearer quotes, or provide two sets of them – one for the popular press and one for the more specialist journals.

The second piece made it in as a NIB (news in-brief) on page 2. I still feel distraught by the sense of immediate rejection when articles are not published… but as one of the other Fellows Laura observed over a drink last night: at least it’s quick rejection and you can move on to the next thing. In academia rejection is a much more painful and drawn out experience.

Another feature idea I pitched was rejected. I’m still having trouble getting to grips with the mix of news value and giving a new angle that such an article needs.

A news item relevant to the avian flu epidemic broke today, with authorities in the Netherlands announcing that all chickens are to be kept inside. I assisted Mark with this piece by putting together a Question & Answer piece about Avian Flu, link still coming, to supplement his main article.

Tuesday 23 August

I still can’t write openings. Basically, the gist of any new research needs to go into the first three paragraphs of a piece – to help the reader to decide whether to keep on reading. This is not easy.

One important rule: never start a piece with an Adverb or a participle (after revising my primary school grammar, I have learned that this means words such as giggling, helping, jumping etc.). The best way to learn how to write opening paragraphs is just to read lots of others already published.

This morning I attended a press conference at the BMA with Nigel (the Health Editor) launching a new report on population screening. The conference was very well attended, not least by Media Fellows – Laura, Jennifer and myself all asked questions.

Back in the office I wrote a piece about a new placebo effect study. Explaining the placebo effect and the controversy it raises is not easy. Mark advised me to try and get to the core of what I wanted to communicate and determine what the reader will take away from it – this would form the first few paragraphs.

I met with one of the features writers this afternoon. It seems that one of my ideas may (finally) show some promise.

There won’t be any diary entries from me for the rest of this week, as I’m switching back to academia for a few days. I’m off to Barcelona for a conference (and nice weather, I hope) and will be back next Tuesday, after the bank holiday weekend.

Read week 4 of Ainsley's diary

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