Globally, science writers are performing a job that is fundamental to international development. Photograph © Siede Preis/Getty Images
At the recent World Conference of Science Journalists in Melbourne, Australia, the final plenary session began with a demonstration I will not soon forget. The event, entitled, "Reporting Science in Emerging Economies," opened with Christina Scott, a journalist from South Africa, at the podium. The lights went out; it was suddenly pitch black. Then Scott lit a lighter and held it aloft.
She asked the audience—containing many science journalists from the West—to imagine the difficulties faced by their peers in the developing world, who work in adverse conditions with frequent power outages, low literacy levels, a lack of government support, and worse. Subsequent panelists from Brazil, Zambia, Sri Lanka, India, and China then reminded me that reporters from developing nations have virtually everything stacked against them. And yet, in many cases they are succeeding. Scott later likened science journalists in the developing world to extremophile bacteria, evolved to thrive in harsh environments.
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In the West, we specialized journalists have been known to occasionally gripe over the mass media's obsession with covering fluff stories about a pop star's shaved head or a celebrity heiress's stint in jail, even as quality science journalism is getting squeezed. Compared with their peers in less-developed parts of the world, though, Western science writers really have very little to complain about. The Melbourne conference—a landmark event that brought together an unprecedented cadre of more than 600 science reporters from across the globe—drove this point home for me. After hearing some of the remarkable stories of heroic reporting being done by a small but dedicated group of developing-world science writers, I'll think twice before complaining about the noise of a lawnmower or jackhammer outside my window, or the sporadic performance of my wireless router.
Science and technology writers in the developing world are taking on issues that have profound implications for the countries and emerging economies in which they report. One need think only of the African AIDS crisis, climate change, prescription-drug access, agricultural biotechnology, bird flu, and many other specific science issues that have huge importance for the developing world. Perhaps the most crucial issue in places like Africa and South Asia is health policy, which is inextricably intertwined with social progress--more-productive nations tend to be those whose citizens are healthier and live longer. Philip Hilts, a former science and medical reporter for both the New York Times and the Washington Post who has spent many years working in developing countries, observed that as health improves, wealth follows. By informing governments, NGOs, and the international community about their countries' health policies, science writers in the developing world are performing a job that's fundamental to international development.
Yet despite having such a critical role to play, in many cases science journalists from the developing world face a series of hurdles that I, comfortably ensconced in Washington, D.C., simply never encounter. For some of these writers, basic research resources like cheap and reliable telephone service, libraries, and even dictionaries can be scarce. And while the physical act of researching and writing can present dramatic logistical challenges, science correspondents in some parts of the world are also faced with the worry that offending despotic or corrupt governments will result in retribution. The number of journalists imprisoned and killed worldwide every year is testament to the dangers implicit in the trade.