Ohio Middle School Students And SciFri’s “Down To Earth” NASA Event Make The News
January 16, 2025, Ohio — Students from two Ohio middle schools got to ask questions of astronauts living aboard the International Space Station as part of Science Friday’s “Down To Earth” In-Flight Downlink event with NASA. The Times-Reporter and The Medina Gazette, local news outlets, covered what participating meant to the students and the school community.
Read coverage from Uhrichsville
Science Friday Returns To WFYI In Indianapolis
January 14, 2025 — Ahead of Science Friday’s return to WFYI in Indianapolis, the station’s Kyle Long spoke with Ira Flatow. They discussed the show’s past, present and future.
Flora Lichtman To Host Science Friday Alongside Ira Flatow
January 7, 2025, New York, NY — Veteran science journalist Flora Lichtman has been named a Host of Science Friday, the independently produced, trusted source for news and entertaining stories about science distributed by WNYC Studios. Founder Ira Flatow will also continue as Host.
Ira Flatow Talks ‘Science At The Dinner Table’ With Colorado Public Radio
January 3, 2025 — In July 2024, Ira spoke in front of an audience with CPR Southern Colorado Reporter Dan Boyce about making science accessible. Their conversation was broadcast on January 3.
Science Friday’s Rasha Aridi Selected for New Fellowship from Outrider Foundation and Burroughs Wellcome Fund
December 18, 2024, New York, NY—Science Friday, in partnership with Burroughs Wellcome Fund and Outrider Foundation, is thrilled to announce that Producer Rasha Aridi has been named the inaugural Burroughs Wellcome Fund/Outrider Fellow—a new joint venture between Burroughs Wellcome Fund and Outrider Foundation to support Science Friday’s coverage of nuclear arms and climate change, two of the most pressing issues of our time. This two-year fellowship will highlight Aridi’s and Science Friday’s exceptional science journalism.
Science Friday and Grist Collaboration Wins 2024 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award
November 13, 2024 — Science Friday is proud to have partnered with Grist in co-publishing a video and article exploring unusually healthy coral reefs that sit among oil drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Grist reporter Jesse Nichols was awarded a AAAS Kavli Gold Award in the category of video feature/spot news reporting for the story.
SciFri Producer Kathleen Davis Named 2024 Current “Rising Star”
New York, NY, August 12, 2024 — The Science Friday Initiative is proud to announce that producer and guest host Kathleen Davis has been named a 2024 Rising Star in Public Media by Current. “I’m so honored to have been selected as a Rising Star in Public Media,” Davis said. “I’ve dedicated my career to public media because I stand by its mission of free, accessible and educational material for all. It’s a pleasure to be in great company alongside the other 2024 Rising Stars.”
SciFri Wins the Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA)’s First Place Award for Narrative/Produced Podcast
New York, NY, June 6, 2024 — The Science Friday Initiative is honored to have won The Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA)’s First Place award for Narrative/Produced Podcast by an Independent Outlet for How ‘Panda Diplomacy’ Led To Conservation Success,” a science policy story produced by Rasha Aridi and Aja Drain.
Unlock Kids’ Brain Power With Free Online Neuroscience Escape Room
NEW YORK, NY, March 7, 2024 — In partnership with the Dana Foundation, Science Friday has launched “Hack Your Brain,” a free online neuroscience escape
room experience designed to engage middle school students (ages 10-14) in immersive STEM learning. The program kicks off on March 11 for Brain Awareness Week and runs through April.
Digital Producer Emma Gometz Joins The Open Notebook Early Career Fellowship
January 30, 2024 — With generous support from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Kate, Emma, and Claudia will each spend ten months working with individual mentors and the TON editorial team to report and write articles on the craft of science journalism for The Open Notebook.
“Contracting And Paying Sensitivity Readers” by Ariel Zych for RJI
December 18, 2023 – It’s the time of year when many newsrooms are putting the final touches on their budgets for next year. You might be thinking “I’VE TOTALLY MISSED THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PAYING SENSITIVITY READERS in 2024!” But fear not, kind journalists, you probably already have the budget you need to experiment with a few sensitivity readers this year.
“Sensitivity Work Extends Far Beyond Word Choice” by Ariel Zych for RJI
November 23, 2023 — There are a lot of different ways to go about being more inclusive and equitable in our reporting, just like there are multiple opportunities to build inclusive communities where we live and work. Some are suuuuuper easy (thanks inclusion bots and food allergy warnings!) and others require real work, commitment, staffing, and trust building (just look to award-winning collaboratives and newsrooms with inclusive missions at their core like Resolve Philly and Kansas City Defender). Newsrooms looking to do better need only to turn to the consultants, editors, writers, staff, authors, academics, and rockstar sources-turned-collaborators who are hired or who raise their hands to help prevent community harm throughout the reporting process.
“It Takes Real Effort To Make Journalism Inclusive” by Ariel Zych for RJI
November 15, 2023 — Say your newsroom has an amazing and inclusive style guide; it integrates the National Center on Disability and Journalism’s Disability Style Guide, the Diversity Style Guide, the GLAAD Media Reference Guide, and the Indigenous Journalist’s Association Reporting Guides, among others as well as your newsroom’s particulars, including notes about referring to a recently renamed street in your city, whether “jagoff” constitutes profanity, and the appropriate way to allude to a local restaurant’s most famous entrée. It all resides in a dynamic living document that your journalists update regularly in conversation with one another and a larger professional community…
SciFri Manager of Impact Strategy Nahima Ahmed Judges RJI Student Innovation Competition
September 12, 2023—The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism has announced its call for entries into the 2024 Student Innovation Competition. Entries will be accepted until Oct. 16 and are open to students of all disciplines at any college or university in the United States. The competition challenges teams of 1-4 students to create something — an app, game, event, tool or something else entirely — of practical value for community newsrooms.
SciFri and Rita Allen Foundation Announce Partnership
New York, NY, September 7, 2023— From the coronavirus pandemic to the American reproductive health landscape to the ongoing effects of climate change and the push towards green energy, science and public policy issues are increasingly converging in national discourse. Thanks to a grant from the Rita Allen Foundation, Science Friday will be able to increase public access to science policy reporting that draws out the implications of local events to the national context.
¿Qué debo saber sobre la ola de COVID-19 y las nuevas vacunas en 2023?
In October, Science Friday community manager Santiago Flórez wrote a Spanish-language Q&A article about the new COVID-19 boosters and the rise in cases. It was republished by Connecticut Public Radio in November.
“A Sensitivity Editor Takes On My Tweets” by Ariel Zych for RJI
September 6, 2023 — Not long ago, I began writing social media copy for a story that had just aired on Science Friday, the type of task familiar to digital and audience engagement roles the world over. I had in hand a fully recorded interview and transcript of a two-way discussion about the “Standards of Care,” a set of guidelines written by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health or WPATH that health professionals are encouraged to consult when providing gender affirming care. It was April 2023, and 16 states had made moves to restrict or ban access to gender affirming care for trans kids and teens. The interview was planned as a two-way conversation between…
NABJ Announces Science Friday Among 2023 Salute to Excellence Award Winners
August 8, 2023 — The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) announced its 2023 Salute to Excellence Awards winners during its annual gala at the #NABJ23 Convention & Career Fair last Saturday in Birmingham, Alabama. A collaborative radio piece between KFF and Science Friday was among the winners.
“The Argument For Sensitivity Readers” by Ariel Zych for RJI
August 8, 2023 — Some years ago my news organization began employing sensitivity readers in our work. We didn’t call it that at the time. The broad imperative of these sensitivity professionals was to help ensure that a story did not in any way harm or further marginalize identity communities featured in our coverage. It started with individual producers asking for a little freelance budget to bring in an expert consultant, usually someone who co-identified at the intersection of multiple identities at the heart of a story.
SciFri Director of Audience Ariel Zych Among 2023-2024 RJI Fellows
May 1, 2023 — The newest class of RJI Fellows is working to help newsrooms engage with and accurately represent their communities. Their innovative and practical projects range from teaching journalists how to work with amateur radio operators during natural disasters to improving the quality of reporting on Latino and Hispanic communities.
Their guides, toolkits and other digital resources will be become available for free to journalists and newsrooms at the conclusion of the 8-month fellowships.
Read Ariel’s RJI articles here:
The argument for sensitivity readers
A sensitivity reader takes on my tweets
It takes real effort to make journalism inclusive
Sensitivity work extends far beyond word choice
SciFri Director Charles Bergquist One Of 2023 MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellows
WOODS HOLE, MA, April 27, 2023 — Twelve accomplished science and health journalists have been awarded a highly competitive fellowship in the Logan Science Journalism Program at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL).
Now in its 36th year, the Logan Science Journalism Program provides journalists with immersive, hands-on research training, giving them invaluable insight into the practice of science as well as some of the major news stories of today. The program, which offers a Biomedical course and an Environmental course, will run May 30-June 9 in Woods Hole.
Producer Rasha Aridi Named Outrider Editorial Fellow
MADISON, WI, March 29, 2023 — Outrider Foundation is delighted to announce an exciting addition to its editorial fellowship program, which supports multimedia storytelling about nuclear threats and climate change.
Our newest fellow is Rasha Aridi, a producer at public radio’s Science Friday, an award-winning public radio show dedicated to sharing high-quality, fact-checked, and trustworthy science news and educational programming.