Scientific journalist
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A scientific journalist is a journalist who specializes in writing about science topics.
A scientific journalist needs to be proficient in two areas: as a journalist, he must write well enough for magazines and newspapers, and as an amateur scientist, or at least as a dedicated learner capable of following complex science and explaining it in simple terms.
Many scientific journalists, after years of experience, are expert enough on a subject to publish entire books about a topic, e.g. astronomy, oceanography, geology. These books are a major channel for public education - often a scientist's writing is too terse to be enjoyable, while a book written by a good scientific journalist can interest the generic reader and convey a great amount of information. See also science writer
Notable scientific journalists:
- Piero Angela (and his son Alberto Angela)
- Christopher Bird
- David Bradley (scientific journalism website (http://www.sciencebase.com) science blog (http://www.sciencebase.com/SciObs.html))
- Barry Cipra
- Gina Kolata
- Robert Kunzig
- Matt Ridley (website (http://www.mattridley.net/))
- Carl Zimmer (website (http://www.carlzimmer.com/), blog (http://www.corante.com/loom/))