The Wilson World August 1998 A Website at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville Free
Baltimore Trip Successful, Fun
By Glynn Wilson
Wilson World Staff Writer
BALTIMORE (UPI) -- The second week of August was a great time to be in Baltimore for the national AEJMC convention. The temperature was mild and the humidity low.
Baltimore's Street Astronomer provided the opening for my dioxin presentation. For $1 on the Inner Harbor boardwalk, this bespeckled street professor offered a bird's-eye view of Jupiter and her four moons, and the shadows and ridges on Earth's moon, precisely what Galileo saw 500 years ago to change humanities' world view. Perhaps we in the relatively new field of communication research are in something like the Copernicun period, before the world could accept the Sun as the center of the known universe.
In any event the Science Communication Interest Group refereed paper session on Wednesday ended in a provacative debate on how the media frame science and environmental issues, and on how newspapers sometimes set the national agenda. I proposed a rethinking of the definition of objectivity in covering science. Moderator Boyce Rensberger, the new director of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship Program at MIT and a former reporter and editor at the Washington Post, couldn't wait for the debate to begin.
"Rather than this simplistic definition of objectivity as blind two-sidedness," I said, "why not think of objectivity as scientists do? Journalists, like academics, should review the research, find the best information available, and come to conclusions about issues when consensus emerges. Of course there will always be dissension, and that's good."
Luckily, the session was proceeded immediately by an afternoon Orioles game at Camden Yards. Baltimore handled Detroit 6-1, sealing it with a grand-slam homer in the bottom of the 8th.
Wednesday night's highlight had to be Bertha's Mussels on Fell's Point. Thursday was job placement day, with interviews at colleges and universities in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and more.
Friday started early with a train trip from Camden Yards to Union Station in D.C. where I was met by Brooks Boliek, Washington Bureau Chief of the Hollywood Reporter. We went by his office downtown briefly, then immediately to Hains Point for 18 holes of golf. Half the holes tee off toward the Washington Monument. You can also see the Capitol and the Jefferson Memorial.
I shot a 92, taking a 7-shot victory over Boliek at home. John the rich kid just back from Costa Rica, Dartmouth, and on his way to med school had the shot of the day with a pitch in from 40 yards. I had the drive of the day, a 280 yard down-the-middle shot to land just right of the fir tree on the toughest hole on the course: Tap in par.
Boliek's four iron worked great most of the day, getting him on the green in regulation or close, but the par putts proved to be illusively straight. I made a lot of par and long bogey saving putts, although the old man Ralph accused me of playing with an "illegal putter."
Saturday started early again at Rock Creek, another National Park owned course in D.C. In spite of the hour and a little soreness, I managed to bring the back nine to it's knees with a 37, including a chip-in for birdie, and par putts from 5, 7 and 9, and a 13-footer to save bogey. Boliek decided he needed a new putter, hopefully an "illegal" one.
You get the picture. Now it's back to work on comprehensive exams and preparation for the fall semester. As they say, it's almost "football time in Te-la-see!"
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