KC and USC
Clifford at 11:43 pm, October 27th, 2005
Here’s some news I’ve been bursting to tell you for a while, but had to wait until it was official. It is going to be announced tomorrow, so we’re ahead of the pack here. You may recall the science writer/journalist K.C. Cole, who I’ve mentioned before in connection with the programme Categorically Not! about which I’ve posted here, here and here, and whose comments also featured in a recent post by Sean. Well, she’s left the LA Times, and has moved to… USC!
I’m excited about this because of my interests in the communication of science to the public, and how this might be done more effectively (and in larger quantities), toward my ultimate goal of increased science awareness in society at large, which I’ve shared with you here. One of the key things that has to be tackled in this area is of course the better training of journalists in this specific area of science coverage.
So I’m really excited because she’ll be joining USC’s excellent Annenberg School of Communication faculty (in the Journalism subdivision), and she will be specifically charged with the creation of a new gradaute degree programme focussing on science and technology. This is really great, since she’ll be involved in drawing on the whole campus worth of science and technology expertise and the huge interdisciplinary spirit that USC has.
I also expect that now she’s on campus full time, I’ll be able to tempt her into collaborating on some exicting projects which will bring the Physics and Astronomy department (and perhaps other science departments) into closer contact with the Annenberg School, in parallel with some of the other collaborative efforts I’m trying out with my friends and colleagues in the School of Theatre and the Cinema-Television School. (I hope to tell you more about some of that some time soon.)
Anyway, I forsee more exciting times ahead with this new development!
(Never let it be said that I don’t bring you breaking news from time to time….)
-cvj
[Update: The Annenberg School now has a press release.]
Search
Contributors
Alumni and Guests
Recent Comments:
- Beer Magnet (8)
- Julianne: True mk, but it wouldn’t use magnets. And...
- mk: Hmmm. Clever…I suppose. You could make one of these...
- Ed: The only reason I’d use a railgun is to aim it at...
- The Almighty Bob: You’re thinking in the right...
- Ed: Now if only those used hard drive magnets could be hooked...
- Props to Mitt Romney (14)
- Sandy: -Don’t most people get their basic ideas about...
- Leif: Surely there are some people that wouldn’t behave...
- Coin: So does this mean he’s decided to become a liberal...
- The Almighty Bob: You’re not kidding about the last...
- Clark: But I think that’s Voltaire’s point. Most...
- All Those Facts and Knowledge Just Get in the Way (42)
- Sandy: Economics is part hard science part social science. If...
- The Almighty Bob: ‘Best’ healthcare is debatable;...
- Neil B.: Valter, this is likely much of my...
- Valter: Neil B. You write “most economists instinctively...
- Sandy: Neil, I don’t think there is any question that...
- I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, spammers like me. (22)
- BlogD: A “new breed”? Boy, have you not been...
- Trent: Thank you. You have helped someone more than you could...
- Count Iblis: The internet is (self) aware and cannot stop...
- andy.s: I wonder if the spam percentage of email is close to...
- The Almighty Bob: They’re called “link...
- My New Favorite Conference Title (25)
- Lab Lemming: Ahhh! I tried to post links to the GISS model...
- Lab Lemming: Sam, If you want to get a climate model and...
Recent Posts
- Beer Magnet
- I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, spammers like me.
- Props to Mitt Romney
- We’re Back
- My New Favorite Conference Title
- All Those Facts and Knowledge Just Get in the Way
- Proposals and Framing
- The McNair Program
- Teeny-Weenie Massive Galaxies
- The Physics of Chocolate
- Vacation
- Wishes of the Dead
- Public Intellectuals
- Weighty Spin
- Guest Post: Juan Collar on Dark Matter Detection
- Sixers!!!!
- Influence
- When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced
- Q Score
- What Should I Say if Someone Asks Me, “Will the Large Hadron Collider Destroy the World?”
- On Choosing a Graduate School: A Dialogue
- Goodbye.
- The Truth, Respectfully
- Energy Doesn’t Grow on Trees
- You Would Have to Be Destroyed
Links
(click to display)Meta
- Rss Feed
- Atom Feed
- Comments Rss Feed
- Google Blog Search
- Technorati Profile
- Bloglines citations
- BlogPulse listing
- TTLB Ecosystem
- Powered by WordPress
- Theme modified from K2
- Hosted by InMotion Hosting
This is really fantastic news for USC!
But even better…. fantastic news for journalism in general. If she can get that next generation of writers (and ultimately editors) to learn to avoid those myriad pitfalls that seem to result in the sort of dreadful coverage of science that we’ve discussed on this blog a lot…..that would be huge! I can think of few people as well suited to tackle this job. (No pressure KC…but we’re hopeful!).
-cvj
Great news on all fronts. I’m a big fan. KC is at the very top of her field - someone who knows how to write about science and who, when you talk to her, you can tell has a real thirst to get her mind around the issues, and who isn’t looking for a sound bite to take the place of a complicated story. Congratulations to KC and to USC.
I hope my defintion of objectivity doesn’t sound like a sound bite, Mark?
[…] So I tapped into my Network of Good People….. beat the drums a bit….brainstormed. (Hard, because I was in the middle of writing a paper at the time, but sleep, who needs it?) So I called Oliver, and we talked. I called my good friend and new colleague journalist/writer K.C. Cole, and we talked. I called my good friend, rising filmmaker Jules DiBiase, with whom I’ve previously worked on a screenplay and who shares my passion for portraying good science and real scientists on TV and Film (by the way, there’s an excellent TV pilot begging to be produced! Anyone brave enough to take on the challenge to do it and keep the science true? email me!)… and we talked. […]
[…] So two mornings ago while ironing a shirt, to my surprise I heard a familiar voice coming from the radio. It was my friend and colleague KC Cole, doing one of her commentaries on science and society. This one was entitled “The Evolution Evidence”, and she talks about scientific evidence …. “How do we know what we know?”. She talks about evidence in everyday experience, and then extrapolates to evolution, the Big Bang, etc. Very well done. […]
[…] I had a sinful lunch of coffee and delicate french pastries with the science writer KC Cole yesterday, at the excellent French patisserie Boule, over in West Hollywood. […]
[…] Hmmm, so it seems that I keep running into my colleague KC Cole this week. While settling down to drink my morning coffee after a couple of hours of battling dust around the house and leaves outside the house, I found myself looking at the LA Times’ Book Review section, and saw that KC wrote a review of the book entitled “What We Believe but Cannot Prove”, edited by John Brockman. The subtitle of the book is “Today’s leading thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty”. […]
[…] It was by the science writer (and now USC professor) KC Cole, and the title was “Lost in Translation: Writing about Science for the General Public”. Excellent title. Very very interesting topic, don’t you think, given all that we’ve discussed here and all that I have been known to rant (a bit) about here on the issue. […]
[…] Well, it was a splendid party on the terrace. I won’t go into the details since I’m very tired and you’re probably not that interested anyway. I met a huge number of interesting people. I was there mostly through LA Times connections (via K. C. Cole and Jonathan Kirsch) and so I met an awful lot of excellent columnists, critics and editors. There were soem other USC people there as well such as Annenberg School of Communication people, and Barry Glassner, our Executive Vice-Provost, who’s also a noted sociologist and author (see his “The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things”, for example). But I also met a lot of authors (some already mentioned), publishers and agents. […]