Tag Archives: New Scientist

New Scientist leads print categories for ABSW science journalism award

The New Scientist leads the shortlist for this year’s Association of Science Writers’ Awards.

The awards, organised by the Association of British Science Writers, are divided into four categories: Best news item; best feature, best scripted/edited television programme or online video; best investigative journalism, and best newcomer.

The ABSW has also added a new radio or podcast prize this year, sponsored by the Royal Society.

New Scientist holds two out of the three nominations in both the news and feature categories. Freelancer Shaoni Bhattacharya is nominated for ‘Tracking the Rhino Killers’ and New Scientist staff reporter Jessica Hamzelou is nominated for ‘Too Young to Know Better’. They will compete against the Independent’s science editor Steve Connor, who is nominated for ‘Fabricated Quote Used to Discredit Climate Scientist’.

Bhattacharya is also nominated in the feature category for ‘Murder in the Bat Cave’, published in New Scientist. She will go up against the magazine’s Brussels correspondent Debora McKenzie, nominated for ‘Living in Denial: Why sensible people reject the truth’, and David Adam for ‘The Hottest Year’, published in Nature magazine.

Another New Scientist reporter, Linda Geddes is nominated in the investigative category for ‘Between Prison and Freedom’, and the magazine’s careers editor Jessica Griggs is nominated for best newcomer.

Geddes will compete for the investigative prize against a team entry from freelancer Philip Carter and British Medical Journal assistant editor Deborah Cohen, and freelancer Fred Pearce for a climate change article in the Guardian.

See the full shortlist at this link.

Related content:

Bastiat prize fund increases to £42,000

British journalists take joint win in European cancer reporting awards

Journalism awards currently open for entries

#followjourn: @rogerhighfield – Roger Highfield/editor

#followjourn: Roger Highfield

Who? Roger Highfield, editor of New Scientist and former Telegraph science editor.

Where? On the New Scientist site, as well as Roger’s personal site, Boffin, which has an archive of his articles for New Scientist and others. He continues to write for the Telegraph and those articles can be found collected at this link.

Contact? @rogerhighfield

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

New Scientist peeks into people’s buying brains with ‘neuromarketing’

Certainly among the more forward thinking magazines in terms of content, New Scientist has this week boldly gone where no magazine (they “suspect”) has gone before: neuromarketing.

Neuromarketing is a from of marketing that uses brain-imaging technology to “peek into people’s heads and discover what they really want”.

You may find that sinister. What right does anyone have to try to read your mind? Or perhaps you are sceptical and consider the idea laughable. But neuromarketing, once dismissed as a fad, is becoming part and parcel of modern consumer society. So we decided to take a good look at it – and try it out ourselves.

A group of New Scientist readers – 19 men, to be precise – were connected to an electroencephalograph (EEG) machine shown various cover designs for the latest edition, after which NeuroFocus Europe, the company undertaking the tests, looked for “specific EEG patterns which the company believes betray whether or not a person will buy a product”.

The winning design is now on the newsstands. As for how it will sell, that is another test entirely.

See the full post at this link…

You can also take part in the magazine’s “Rate the Cover” survey at this link.

DutchNews.nl: RBI to grow online income by 50 per cent in three years

An internal document from Reed Business Information, publisher of Estates Gazette and New Scientist, says the company wants to grow its revenue from online activities by 50 per cent within three years.

Full DutchNews.nl story at this link…

According to a Dow Jones report on the document, the publisher specifically wants to raise the sale of online publications by 50 per cent in three years.

The division also needs additional cost cutting and an end to duplication of costs, chief executive Keith Jones said in the memo to staff.

Earlier this year RBI’s parent company Reed Elsevier announced the sale of several US magazine titles; in April RBI announced plans for 50 redundancies in the UK – you can see a full timeline of recent events at the company at this link.

Bad Science: Ben Goldacre on scientists and the media

Ben Goldacre links to his interview for the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 – ‘talking about dumbing down science’. He joins Kathy Sykes, who has just written a piece in New Scientist on the topic, to discuss scientists and their participation in the media.

Full post at this link…

RBI staff vote against further industrial action

National Union of Journalist (NUJ) members at Reed Business Information (RBI) have voted against further industrial action following a strike ballot at the publisher.

In the Wednesday ballot, 111 voted against further action being taken in response to proposed merger of production desks at Flight International, ICIS and Contract Journal and issues of compulsory redundancies.

According to an internal memo seen by Journalism.co.uk, the NUJ chapel will meet with the company again on March 4 to discuss new offers to staff, with separate meetings to be held for members at New Scientist and Estates Gazette.

In the ballot, 64 NUJ members voted in favour of taking industrial action.

Last month the group announced 35 staff redundancies in the UK, citing ‘long-term structural needs’ and the new challenges of the economic downturn.

Parent company Reed Elsevier recently extended loan arrangements for its $2 billion debt.

In December Reed terminated the sale of magazine arm RBI, as a result of ‘the recent deterioration in macro-economic outlook and poor credit market conditions’.

PPA Magazines 2008: Grazia scoops PPA magazine of the year award

Grazia was crowned consumer magazine of the year at last night’s PPA awards, with Incisive Media’s Legal Week named weekly business magazine of the year.

Brand Republic was chosen as the best non-subscription business website and Workplace Law Magazine’s site the best paid for.

Elsewhere Reed Business Information (RBI) title New Scientist picked up the interactive consumer magazine of the year award, beating competition from Nuts, InStyle and Empire.

For a full list of the award winners visit the PPA’s magazine conference 2008 website.

How do: Newscientist.com to be revamped

The website of the New Scientist magazine will undergo a revamp after cutting a deal with development company Code to complete the makeover.

Code, which will work with in-house development team on the new site, will focus on improving usability, navigation and enhancing the site’s social media features.

The online edition of the title had its previous redesign in 2004.