The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) announces the launch of SciLine, a new service that will provide journalists with high-quality scientific expertise and context – on demand and on deadline. In addition to connecting reporters and editors with credible scientists who can quickly and accurately provide evidence-based information of relevance to news stories, SciLine will produce accessible summaries on a variety of newsworthy, science-relevant topics and gather on-the-record comments from experts for use by reporters as they prepare their stories.
While freely available to all journalists, SciLine is designed to be particularly useful to reporters in small and medium media markets who are writing or producing stories about health, medicine, or science and may not have deep science backgrounds or immediate access to credible experts.
“Given the neglect, distrust, denial, and manipulation of evidence today, it is more important than ever that reporters have the best available scientific evidence – provided with clarity and context – to inform the public about issues so very relevant to their lives,” said Rush Holt, chief executive officer at AAAS.
SciLine is based at AAAS headquarters in Washington, DC, and will serve reporters and editors at news outlets throughout the United States. Generous founding support has been provided by the Quadrivium Foundation, with additional funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Rita Allen Foundation, and the Heinz Endowments.
“SciLine’s ultimate mission is not only to shine a light on the best scientific evidence but also to help inform journalists and the public about how reliable evidence is obtained and verified,” said Rick Weiss, SciLine director. “In doing so, the hope is that evidence will be seen not just as another voice in the endless ‘he said, she said’ of assertive discourse, but rather as a documented body of derived knowledge worthy of serious consideration as society addresses looming challenges in areas such as health and medicine, the environment, and national security.”
Weiss brings more than three decades of experience in journalism and public affairs to SciLine, including 15 years as a science reporter at the Washington Post and more than 10 years leading strategic communications and media relations around issues of science and technology in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
“As newsrooms confront dwindling resources and an increasingly competitive information environment, the breadth and depth of science coverage has declined. At the same time, decision-making on public issues increasingly relies on understanding science and technology issues,” said Jennifer Preston, Knight Foundation vice president for journalism. “By connecting journalists with accurate, verified information from experts, SciLine will help to advance quality reporting on these topics, while helping to build trust between news outlets and audiences.”
SciLine’s media activities and operations are guided by an advisory board composed of 14 members, including reporters and editors working in large and small markets on print, broadcast, and digital platforms; communications professionals and academic scholars; and scientists committed to communication with reporters and the public. The founding advisory board members are:
- Nsikan Akpan, science producer, PBS NewsHour;
- Alan Alda, actor, writer, and visiting professor of journalism, Stony Brook University;
- Nancy Baron, director of science outreach, COMPASS;
- Tracy Day, co-founder and chief executive officer, World Science Festival;
- Maggie Fox, senior writer, NBC News;
- S. James Gates Jr., Brown University, and member, AAAS Board of Directors;
- Margaret Hamburg, foreign secretary, National Academy of Medicine, and president-elect, AAAS;
- Laura Helmuth, health, science, and environment editor, The Washington Post;
- Bill Manny, community engagement editor, Idaho Statesman;
- Kathryn Murdoch, co-founder and president, Quadrivium Foundation;
- Geneva Overholser, independent journalist, and senior fellow, Democracy Fund;
- Dietram Scheufele, professor of science communication, University of Wisconsin, Madison;
- Mark Schleifstein, environment reporter, New Orleans Times-Picayune; and,
- Talia Stroud, associate professor of communication studies and journalism, University of Texas, Austin.
SciLine is editorially independent of AAAS and its philanthropic funders. For additional information on SciLine, please visit www.sciline.org.
The launch of SciLine is accompanied by an op-ed in the Oct. 27 issue of Science, “Nipping Misinformation in the Bud,” by Rick Weiss.
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About AAAS
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science as well as Science Translational Medicine, Science Signaling, a digital, open-access journal, Science Advances, Science Immunology, and - coming soon - Science Robotics. AAAS was founded in 1848 and includes nearly 250 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world. The non-profit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education, public engagement, and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert! , the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS. See http://www.aaas.org.
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