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LONG-TERM PROJECTS
The WCSJ2019 is a great event. But, say many, it always ends too soon. That’s why WCSJ2019 is planning two long-term projects to accompany the conference. The idea is to bridge the gap between successive conferences with in-depth work under the flag of the WFSJ. Having been able to secure their budget, these projects have started before WCSJ2019 to allow results to be shown at the conference.
An important feature of the long-term projects is that they are collaborative, bringing together journalists from different regions of the world. While the“Ask an expert” project is fully funded by French language Swiss, French, Belgian and Canadian public broadcasters, the budget of WCSJ2019 includes a 25% share in the “Struggle with Politics” project. The remainder is financed independently. With the help of the WFSJ and the WCSJ2019, these projects give motivated journalists the opportunity to foster the entire field of science journalism.
Here are short summaries of the proposed projects.
STRUGGLE WITH POLITICS. After the election of Donald Trump as US president, scientists around the world marched for science. Many chose to play a more prominent role in the public sphere and some even decided to embark on a political career. The Struggle with politics project intends to give seven journalists from around the world the possibility to follow one such scientist closely during their politico-social coming-out. At the WCSJ2019, each will present multimedia stories about their scientists, including an element of self-reflection as the journalists consider their own role in the realm of science democracy.
ASK AN EXPERT. A team of science journalists finds an expert and asks them, on camera, to answer questions and share their expertise on a hot topic of the day. This format is already well established at the French-language Swiss broadcaster, RTS, (www.avisdexperts.ch/) in collaboration with the universities of Western Switzerland and it now counts more than 2000 experts. The project aims to extend the format to other French-speaking countries, including France, Belgium and Canada. The aim for those public broadcasters is to collect a lot of contributions from international scientists between January 2018 and June 2019, and to showcase them during the WCSJ2019 in Lausanne.