Dear Reader,

A few weeks ago, I attended the Science Writers 2026 conference in Corvallis, Oregon.

After a pretty grueling 13-hour journey from New York City, we had finally made it to the Oregon State University campus. The journey involved a six-hour flight, a few hours of twiddling our thumbs at the airport upon arrival waiting for a coach, and a three-hour drive.

The weekend was filled with different science talks (from the ethics of artificial intelligence to recent research on GLP-1s) as well as sessions on practical skills, like how to incorporate short-form video into your work.

My favorite event was the closing ceremony, a panel discussion about reporting on the MAHA, or Make America Healthy Again, movement. Physician-journalist Jeremy Faust, nutrition researcher Kevin Klatt, and science journalist Tara Haelle led a conversation about the many difficulties of covering the intricacies of this topic. 

They discussed the inherent trickiness of covering a movement that people define and understand differently, as not everyone is aware of RFK’s multi-decade promotion of vaccine hesitancy. Many readers still assume that MAHA is a well-intentioned move to promote healthier eating and living. Because of this, the speakers urged journalists to tie their reporting more directly to MAHA: Haelle highlighted that while many reporters are covering RFK’s policies, not everyone is tying their consequences back to the MAHA mindset directly, meaning readers do not always tie the two together.

Overall, the weekend was full of inspiring conversations and fun networking activities (including a wine and cheese tour of the OSU campus!). If you haven’t already been to the conference, it’s worth checking out!

Best regards,
Zoe Beketova,
Contributing Editor

🌞 NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS

• ✏️ You might have noticed this from our sender signature: Zoe and Pragathi Ravi, who recently concluded their summer internships, have returned to our newsroom as part-time Contributing Editors! Welcome back!

• 🤎 As our fiscal year concluded on September 30th, our Advisory Board member Tyler Jones has stepped down due to an increasing work schedule and other obligations. Thank you for more than four years of service and mentorship!

• 🐠 Yesterday in The Shoots, we recommended The Outlaw Ocean Project’s 28-part Food for Feed investigative series; here’s our Editor-at-Large Kang-Chun Cheng with the cover photo for the Los Angeles Times version of the Western Sahara story!

• ⛰️ Last month, we published a dispatch by tanka dhakal and Manish Aryal from Rasuwa District, Nepal, “How Did The Nepal-Tibet Floods Become This Deadly?”

  Here’s follow-up reporting from tanka and colleague Bhagirathi Pandit, Trauma, Destruction, Disruption: Nepal's Health Workers Struggle in Aftermath of Floods

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