What do science writers do?

Journalists write short news stories or scripts that take hours or days to write, longer features, which can take several days, weeks or months. Book authors may spend many months – sometimes years – researching a topic in far greater depth. 

Journalists move onto new stories quickly and are always learning. It’s exciting to be writing about the frontiers of research and to know that many people will read or watch your work, and perhaps be influenced by it. On the downside, journalism can be stressful. Journalists work to constant, unmovable deadlines. They can have as little as an hour to get to grips with complex subjects about which they may know very little, and then write a story picking out the need-to-know messages, understandable by a general audience. Many journalists also complain of increasing workloads as the onset of digital media has brought pressure to produce 24/7 online news, podcasts, blogs, social media posts and other content.

Reporters can be employed full-time by a media organisation (‘staff reporters’) though such positions are relatively few and highly competitive. Freelancers, by contrast, are self-employed, running their own business of writing or producing content for many outlets. Freelancers have more autonomy to pursue stories that interest them and to manage their own time, but they often have less financial security and may have to work harder to get a commission from an editor.

Editors oversee the process: they typically commission stories from reporters. They might commission stories they have identified, or ones that reporters have ‘pitched’ to them. Editing a story can involve anything from tweaking a few words to rewriting most of the piece. 

Sub-editors check stories for accuracy, grammar and clarity, including matching a publication’s ‘house style’, after editing and before publication.