Growing up on an Australian farm, Alison Binney watched animals and clouds to forecast the weather. Now she spends her days taking a more active role in the sciences, working to facilitate the future of science journalism.

As a child, Binney learned to watch turtles, noticing if they were moving toward or away from water. She watched snakes to see if they shed their skin earlier than usual. If the clouds were rolling in lower or faster than the previous day, she knew.

On World Environment Day - 5 June, 2009 - Binney launched New Science Journalism, or NSJ, from her adopted home in Germany. The platform allows students and young professionals to showcase their science reporting, environmental reporting in particular, and earn a percentage of ad revenues.

It also allows Binney to study the tendencies and motivations of science reporters.

“I chose to focus intensively on science communication mainly because I feel there is a general ignorance of what is really going on in our world - and I too am ignorant on issues and want to dig a bit deeper,” Binney said via e-mail. “I am instinctively connected to environmental issues as I grew up on a farm in Australia.”

Binney runs NSJ in her free time; her days are mostly spent working as a freelance communications consultant in Freiburg and finishing work on her postgraduate studies. She is working toward a doctorate degree in science communication from the University of New South Wales in Sydney. She previously earned her bachelor’s of journalism at the University of Southern Queensland.

NSJ is an attempt to create a respected destination site for researched, journalistic content, Binney said. Students and professionals are invited to contribute, but the focus is on emerging science reporters who are trying to amass clips.

“I was frustrated … with the separatism and ubiquity of blogging, and the sheer frustration of trying to sort through millions of online media to find a ‘single’ authoritative outlet for ‘maturing science news media,’” She said in an e-mail. “I am extremely interested in how we will manage to keep this crazy momentum of online technology developments in some sort of order and at the same time transfer the best, most relevant scientific knowledge to the mass, non-scientific public.”

The key tenets of NSJ:

Free real estate
Science journalists from around the world who have not yet built enough rapport to sell their work – be it text, graphics, still images or video – may post their reporting, unedited, on any science-related topic. For free.

“There is no ‘catch mechanism’ in place such as editors as (again, logistically, and without funding), this would be tough and legally dangerous,” Binney said. “The project is using the power of peer-to-peer review online and commenting facilities to also address reliability and fact-checking queries.”

Revenue sharing
With Binney’s NSJARex plan – short for New Science Journalism Advertising Revenue Exchange - contributors may earn a percentage of the site’s ad revenues.

From NSJARex:The NSJARex™ scheme is designed to reward the contributing journalists and communicators by splitting revenue among contributing student communicators in any calendar month. Students who contribute to the magazine in any calendar month get a percentage share of advertising revenue raised in that same month.

The scheme is not in effect yet, though, and won’t be until there is “an established flow of news and advertising revenue,” Binney said.

“It is a chicken/egg scenario where advertisers, rightly, want a readership base, and also naturally, it would be nice to be rewarded for contributed content,” she said. “However, it is also receiving a lot of positive attention for simply allowing students the opportunity to get published in a professional news environment. This was the initial, and remains the, intention to promote a professional independent science news environment.”

Final destination
NSJ wants to be a destination site, not a distribution centre. Copyright belongs to NSJ; for now, work is not meant to be syndicated.

But that could change after a 2010 review of the project’s direction.

“An early idea was to be able to integrate a financial reward scheme for the young journalists where their content earns royalties,” Binney said.

Southern twist
So far, the majority of approximately 130 reports come from Africa, in particular Zambia, Nigeria and Uganda. Three reporters have registered as professional journalists:

Danstan Kaunda
Esther Nakkazi
Femi Adeolu Amele

Binney said she hopes to make use of collaborative tools like Google Wave to spark networking among science journalists around the world.

Published: October 30, 2009