News & Media | Projects, People & Resources
Contemporary science journalism is shaped by the way people, projects and resources are merged to transform complex research into trustworthy public knowledge https://katherineharmon.com/. In my portfolio, every task starts with a clear brief, a set of named sources and a recorded trail of data, because audiences in the United Kingdom demand both accuracy and transparency. The following sections describe how I choose stories, manage collaborations, employ specialist tools, manage ethical questions and retain records that stand up to editorial scrutiny. Readers will discover tangible details on procedures, standard costs and the practical choices that determine each published piece.
Picking Projects That Cater to a UK Readership
Project selection is based on an assessment of relevance to readers who follow policy decisions taken in Westminster and research programmes funded by UK Research and Innovation. I manage a rolling list of fifteen topic areas, covering antimicrobial resistance surveillance by the UK Health Security Agency to offshore wind deployment targets established by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Each candidate story is rated for timeliness, availability of primary data and potential to influence daily life, such as changes in energy bills or medicine supply. Stories that score above an internal threshold progress to a one-page treatment outlining the central claim, the evidence required and the expert voices needed to verify it. This scoring sheet follows the assignment from pitch to publication, giving editors a transparent audit trail.
Building and Managing Source Networks
Trustworthy reporting depends on a recorded network of scientists, clinicians, statisticians and press officers who react within agreed time frames. I maintain a contact file that notes each person’s institutional affiliation, publication record and preferred channel, whether that is an institutional email or a confirmed Signal number. Before any interview I send a one-paragraph description of the angle, the planned publication and the deadline, which minimizes back-and-forth and demonstrates respect for the source’s schedule. After publication I append a short note on how the interview was used, allowing future queries to be specific rather than generic. The file is reviewed every quarter so that retired researchers are replaced and new group leaders at institutes such as the Francis Crick Institute or the UK Atomic Energy Authority are incorporated while their work is still in preprint.
Verifying Credentials and Avoiding Conflicts
Each new contact is cross-checked against the institutional website and recent peer-reviewed papers shown in PubMed or Web of Science. If a researcher has received funding from a company whose product features in the story, that fact is recorded in the same file and disclosed in the article. I also record when a source has previously guided government committees, because such experience can provide context but must not be portrayed as independent commentary. This running ledger avoids the common error of citing the same small circle of voices and guarantees that readers receive a balanced range of perspectives.
Moral Decision-Making in Routine Practice
Ethical questions emerge most often around patient stories, commercial sponsorship and the use of unpublished images. For patient accounts I obtain written consent that outlines the level of identification granted, and I keep the form separately from the interview transcript. When a company offers early access to a device or database, I require a written statement that no editorial control is attached; the statement is recorded with the project notes and summarized in the published article if the material affects the central claim. Photographs taken at laboratories are authorized with the press team, and any image that shows an individual’s face is accompanied by a model-release form even if the person is a researcher rather than a patient.
Managing Corrections and Clarifications
Errors are recorded in a public corrections section on my platform, with the date of the original article, the incorrect statement and the corrected text. If the mistake changes a numerical value by more than 5 percent or changes the direction of a finding, I also inform the publisher’s corrections team and seek that the change be recorded in the online version. This method has resulted in three published clarifications over four years, each settled within ten days of the original publication date.
Navigating Open Access and Data-Sharing Rules
After the publication of the UK government’s 2021 open-access policy, most publicly funded research papers need to be available under a Creative Commons licence within twelve months. I maintain a bookmark folder of institutional repositories and the Europe PubMed Central feed, which together highlight approximately 70 percent of papers cited in my stories before they appear in print. When a paper remains behind a paywall, I employ the author’s accepted manuscript, clearly labelled as such, and link to the version of record once it is released. For clinical trial data, I check the registry record on ISRCTN or ClinicalTrials.gov to confirm primary outcome measures before quoting efficacy percentages, because press releases sometimes stress secondary endpoints that were not statistically powered.
Costs and Time Implications
Article processing charges for open-access journals typically span from £1 500 to £4 500, figures that appear on the journal website before submission. When a paper is only available through a read-and-publish agreement negotiated by Jisc, I record the licence type in the story’s reference list so readers know they can access the full text without payment. These administrative details rarely appear in the final article, yet they determine whether a claim can be linked directly to primary evidence or must be qualified with the phrase “according to a pre-print server”.
Essential Tools for Data Handling and Fact Verification
Each dataset that enters a story is stored into a local repository with file-naming conventions that contain the source URL, retrieval date and checksum. I utilize R for initial cleaning when the file surpasses 10 000 rows, and Python’s pandas library when joins across multiple tables are necessary. A separate plain-text log documents each transformation step so that an editor or an interested reader can duplicate the figures. For statistical claims I check the original paper’s supplementary information and, where possible, the analysis code stored in repositories such as Zenodo. When numbers emerge in press releases without underlying data, I ask for the raw spreadsheet through the institution’s freedom-of-information route and note the reference number in the story’s endnotes.
Version Control and Editorial Handover
Manuscripts are drafted in plain Markdown inside a private Git repository. Each commit message contains the working headline, the word-count target and the initials of any colleague who has reviewed a section. Branches are titled by story slug and finish after publication, preserving a complete record of changes requested by editors at outlets such as New Scientist or BBC Science. This system stops accidental overwrites during late-stage edits and allows rapid retrieval of an earlier paragraph if a legal query comes up months later.
Storage, Acknowledgment and Long-Term Access
Released articles are downloaded as PDF/A files within 48 hours and stored in a local archive that is secured to an off-site encrypted drive. Each file is labelled with the ISO date, outlet and slug, allowing fast location when a reader seeks a citation years later. I also upload supplementary material such as interview transcripts or analysis scripts in the Zenodo community “Science Journalism UK”, which provides a DOI and ensures availability for at least twenty years. When a story depends on a dataset that cannot be shared for privacy reasons, I deposit a metadata record that outlines the variables and directs to the custodian’s access procedure.
Acknowledgment Language for Secondary Sources
Secondary sources such as systematic reviews or government statistical releases are framed with a short clause that specifies the producing organisation and the publication date. For example, “Office for National Statistics data released on 14 March 2024 show…” This format permits readers to assess recency without looking through footnotes and reduces the risk of crediting a finding to an individual researcher when the work was in fact collaborative.
FAQ
How do you determine which scientific papers are worth covering for a UK audience?
I rate each paper on pertinence to current UK policy, accessibility of primary data and likely impact on readers’ daily lives. Only papers that meet a minimum score move to a one-page treatment that outlines required evidence and expert voices. The scoring sheet accompanies with the assignment from pitch to publication.
Which measures do you take to validate a new source’s credentials?
Each contact is reviewed against their institutional page and recent publications in PubMed or Web of Science. Any industry funding or advisory roles are recorded in a private file and revealed in the article if relevant. The file is examined quarterly to keep details current.
What tools do you use for data cleaning and version control?
Large datasets are processed in R or Python’s pandas library, with every transformation logged in a plain-text log. Manuscripts are written in Markdown inside a private Git repository so that editors can access the complete change history and earlier versions can be restored if needed.
How do you manage corrections after publication?
Errors are logged on a public corrections page with the original wording and the correction. If the change surpasses five percent or modifies a finding’s direction, the publisher’s corrections desk is also notified. Most clarifications are addressed within ten days.
What becomes to interview transcripts and datasets after a story is published?
Articles are preserved as PDF/A files and backed up off-site. Supplementary material such as transcripts or analysis scripts is placed in Zenodo with a DOI. Datasets that cannot be shared for privacy reasons obtain a metadata record referring to the custodian’s access procedure.
Do you require payment readers to access your published articles?
No. All articles appear in outlets that provide open access or are placed behind a publisher paywall that libraries can manage through Jisc agreements. I do not operate a separate subscription site or position articles behind an additional paywall.
