THE OPEN NOTEBOOK

The Open Notebook is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is widely regarded as the leading online source of training and educational materials for journalists who cover science. Our ultimate goal is to enable communities to navigate the complexities of how science affects our everyday lives. Toward that end, our work focuses on strengthening journalistic coverage of science, environment, health, and technology. Our publications, courses, workshops, and mentoring programs empower journalists in the U.S. and globally to tell stories that matter, contributing to an informed and engaged society.

We are dedicated to fostering a supportive, diverse, and inclusive global community that enables reporters and editors who cover science to learn and thrive. We envision a world in which journalists everywhere are fully empowered to tell impactful stories about science that contribute to a more informed and engaged society, combat misinformation, and enable communities to navigate the complexities of our ever-changing world.

Our publications, courses, workshops, and mentoring programs empower journalists in the U.S. and globally to tell stories that matter, contributing to an informed and engaged society. Below is a summary of our major programs.

PUBLISHING TOOLS AND RESOURCES FOR JOURNALISTS WHO COVER SCIENCE

• We have published almost 600 in-depth articles on the craft of science journalism, and all of them are freely available to anyone worldwide.
• More than 50 of these center diversity, equity and inclusion in science journalism; these include articles on topics such as covering Indigenous communities, reporting and writing with trans-inclusion in mind, navigating bias in newsrooms, finding diverse sources for science stories, freelancing on a student visa, covering health disparities, and much more.
• TON en Español is our collection of dozens of popular TON articles translated into Spanish, reaching some 15,000 readers.
• We offer a variety of resources to assist local journalists, including a community of practice for local and general-assignment reporters, a brown-bag series for local newsrooms, and a library of articles and tip sheets focused on challenges that journalists may face in covering science at the local level.
• Our Science Writers Database is a free, global directory of science journalists, writers, editors, and other communicators who cover science.
• The TON Pitch Database is a searchable resource containing 308 successful queries to a wide range of publications. This unique tool gives science journalists the opportunity to study the first—and often the most difficult—step in producing outstanding science stories.
• Our book The Craft of Science Writing, published by the University of Chicago Press, offers an essential primer for science writers, students, and others who want to improve their science communication skills.

TRAINING AND MENTORING STUDENTS AND WORKING JOURNALISTS
• We offer free online skills courses through our Science Journalism Master Classes; more than 9,000 people have taken at least one of our courses, which have an 83% completion rate, on average.
• We run a number of mentoring programs, including an intensive yearlong mentored fellowship for early-career science journalists, a community of practice for local journalists interested in integrating science, health, environment or technology into their stories; a one-to-one mentoring program for science journalists from historically underrepresented communities; and a peer-mentoring community for international students in science writing
• We run workshops, both under our own auspices and in partnership with newsrooms, universities, and other organizations. These include training workshops on topics such finding effective story angles and pitching science stories; covering scientific studies, editing science stories and coaching writers; covering science with diversity, equity, and inclusion in mind; data analysis and visualization; and structuring science stories.

The Open Notebook has been publishing regularly since October 2010, and weekly since January 2013.

The co-founders of The Open Notebook are Siri Carpenter and Jeanne Erdmann, experienced science journalists, each with more than 20 years of experience in the field. Carpenter, TON's executive director and editor-in-chief, is an award-winning journalist and editor whose work has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Science, Science News, Scientific American, and many other publications. TON's board includes nine respected journalists whose work has been recognized with numerous awards.

Contributors to the site include dozens of highly regarded journalists and editors. Examples include Christie Aschwanden, Brooke Borel, Shraddha Chakradhar, Nadia Drake, Jeanne Erdmann, Laura Helmuth, Jane C. Hu, Jude Isabella, Jyoti Madhusoodanan, Amanda Mascarelli, Michelle Nijhuis, Kendra Pierre-Louis, Sandeep Ravindran, Alexandra Witze, David Wolman, Katherine J. Wu, Ed Yong, Tom Yulsman, Sarah Zhang, and Carl Zimmer, among many others.

The Open Notebook was launched in October, 2010. Every month, 15,000–25,000 people from around the world visit the site each month. The Open Notebook is widely regarded as the “textbook of science journalism."

Our goals are:

* To continue to expand and deepen the resources we offer to help journalists develop their skills and find community.

* To support increased diversity, equity and inclusion in science journalism.

* To curate our resources to aid journalism instructors in incorporating TON into course planning and to allow journalists at all levels of experience to use TON as a self-directed curriculum.