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I wanted to be a science writer for the same reason that many of you probably wanted to be scientists. For my generation, at least in our youth, truth and beauty were as one. I dabbled in poetry and paleontology, astronomy and architecture. I finally chose writing because it gave me art and science as well. I'd never heard the phrase 'science writer' but science was always my subject.
When I went into daily newspapering I told my editor I wanted to be a science writer. He grunted and said the paper didn't need one of those. But history was against him, and the young kid he'd hired had a talent for finding science in any story he was assigned. Early on I turned a story about the city's rat eradication program into a piece that could have blended seamlessly with Zinsser's Rats, Lice and History. In my hands a zoning story metamorphosed into a piece on urban demographics. A school bond issue assignment came back to my editor in the form of an un-rejectable profile of a chemistry teacher. The editors grumbled but the readers loved it – and soon everyone outside the paper referred to me as a 'science writer.' I will never forget the great victory it was, the first time my boss called me that.
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The End of Science Writing
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Franklin, Jon
NASW
1997
Abstract: I wanted to be a science writer for the same reason that many of you probably wanted to be scientists. For my generation, at least in our youth, truth and beauty were as one. I dabbled in poetry and paleontology, astronomy and architecture. I finally chose writing because it gave me art and science as well. I'd never heard the phrase 'science writer' but science was always my subject.
When I went into daily newspapering I told my editor I wanted to be a science writer. He grunted and said the paper didn't need one of those. But history was against him, and the young kid he'd hired had a talent for finding science in any story he was assigned. Early on I turned a story about the city's rat eradication program into a piece that could have blended seamlessly with Zinsser's Rats, Lice and History. In my hands a zoning story metamorphosed into a piece on urban demographics. A school bond issue assignment came back to my editor in the form of an un-rejectable profile of a chemistry teacher. The editors grumbled but the readers loved it – and soon everyone outside the paper referred to me as a 'science writer.' I will never forget the great victory it was, the first time my boss called me that.
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