Notes from 50th International STC Conference
Dallas, Texas, May 18-21, 2003

Keynote Address

Natalie Angier

Natalie Angier is a well-known science writer and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. Her most recent book, "Woman: An Intimate Geography" (Anchor 1999) was a finalist for the National Book Award and was nominated for the Samuel Johnson Award, Britain's most lucrative nonfiction literary prize. A founding staff member of Discovery magazine, Angier has written for many well-known lay publications, including Time, The Atlantic, Parade, Washington Monthly, and Reader's Digest — on topics as diverse as scorpions, the human genome project, cancer research, queen bees, orchids, and the courting behavior of dolphins.

Session Description: A well-known science writer and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter offered her insights on accuracy in reporting, clarity in writing, and the importance of understanding and writing to one's audience.

• Humor has almost always followed major news events, whether it be political satire or "gallows humor." Even 9-11 was the subject of delicate satire designed to make a philosophical point without dishonoring the victims (e.g., articles in the online satirical magazine, The Onion, such as "God Angrily Clarifies Anti-Killing Commandment."
• The political profession demands a certain skill at lying (e.g., what if FDR had not said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" but had instead said, "The only thing we have to fear is a crippling decade-long depression that will end our quality of life as we know it"?)
• Reporting demands a certain skill at "cheating"... poetic license, so to speak, in fabricating quotes, dramatizing situations, attributing non-existing sources, etc.
• Jason Blair made up much of his material about travel from his apartment on Brooklyn. "He must be a compulsive pathological liar, just as Winona Ryder is a compulsive pathological thief."
• The Times missed some signs with Jason Blair, such as a high error rate, but within hours after it became evident that he had committed plagiarism and fraud, he was gone.
• Angier defended the newspaper, saying that if reporters are not given a little bit of latitude for an occasional error, they tend to lose their aggressive edge, which would undermine investigative reporting. "Which of you has never made a mistake?" she challenged the audience.
• She then rattled off a litany of humorous errors made by well-recognized writers, including herself.
• She criticized copy editors for focusing too much on corporate style rather than on checking for errors of fact; indeed, they occasionally introduce errors in their zest to achieve stylistic consistency (such as extirpating the "pretentious" term "repertoire" in favor of "repertory."
• Of all the attributes of good writing, the most important is clarity. One effective technique is to write something, leave it for 2 hours, then come back and read it aloud. Suddenly it will sound like it was written by somebody else, because you are no longer mentally filling in the gaps in logic and transition which did not make it into words.
• Never assume people know something; when writing for a lay audience, you really have to bring it down to basics, yet not sound patronizing. That is the unique challenge of the science writer. The general public simply doesn't know much about science.
• "Why is it that science writers can't get away with anything, when sportswriters can... [the audience completed the sentence with spontaneous laughter]." "Sportswriters get to assume their readers know what a field goal is; science writers do not get to assume their readers know what a mammal is."
• Yet she says science writing is a wonderful profession. It's a tough one, however, because scientists are trained to be highly skeptical, constantly challenging others' works, probing for flaws, etc.
• Scientific truth is so much more interesting than fabrication that Angier could not fathom having to make stuff up the way Jason Blair did. Mother Nature is much more inventive than we are.