This interactive workshop will be an opportunity for participants to exchange ideas about their own journalistic practice, as well as meeting some of Imperial College’s leading scientists. Imperial researchers will present their own work in a press office context, giving workshop participants the chance to interview the scientists and develop news angles specific to their own media organisations. By bringing together the real-life press conference environment with the reflective mode of the exploratory workshop, participants will gain insights in to their own practice whilst also picking up ideas from their peers.

Gareth Mitchell, a lecturer in Imperial College’s Science Communication group and presenter of the BBC’s Digital Planet, will lead the workshop. In his academic and broadcast work, Gareth is interested in the social media and the convergence of print, broadcast and online. Though new media will be addressed extensively in the main WSCJ sessions, this workshop should be an initial opportunity to evaluate science news values in the context of today’s rapidly evolving electronic media.