the-BA : Media Fellowships 2005

Scientists are being invited to find out how the media work as part of the BA's Media Fellowship scheme.

“To many scientists, the process by which a story moves out of the lab and onto a news page is as much a mystery as the peer review process is to the general public,” says Roland Jackson, Chief Executive of the BA, which runs the scheme. “As a result, a number of scientists still believe that the media misrepresent their research, either through misunderstanding or hyperbole. Our experience of working with the UK science media is that they are amongst the best and most professional in the world, and that the insights they can offer scientists through the Media Fellows scheme are valuable and mutually productive.”

Through the Media Fellowship scheme, practising scientists and engineers are offered placements in media organisations which in the past have included the BBC, the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, Nature and the Times Higher Education Supplement. Following their placements, it is hoped that the scientists will utilise their experience back in the workplace.

“The BA Media Fellowship was an amazing experience and I realised as I left the Financial Times that I really had been a journalist for a month,” said Lisa Wright from the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. “Working with the professionals taught me a great deal about how, as a scientist, I can communicate more effectively. I gained a huge respect for science journalists; their breadth of knowledge puts most researchers to shame.”

Placements take place during the summer and include a week at the BA Festival of Science in September, this year in Dublin. During placements of between 3 and 8 weeks fellows learn to work within the conditions and constraints of the media to produce accurate and well informed pieces about developments in science.

The deadline for applying is Friday 15 April.

	Home

	News

	News from the BA

	News Archive