Preserving Journalistic Values

Michele Catanzaro takes up the Nature Marsilius Visiting Professorship for Science Communication at Heidelberg University. Michele Catanzaro - Exploring the question of how journalistic values can be preserved in a changing media landscape will be the main focus of Dr Michele Catanzaro, Spanish-Italian journalist, lecturer and author, in his time at Heidelberg University. While holding the Nature Marsilius Visiting Professorship for Science Communication, Dr Catanzaro, who has a doctorate in physics, will lead several workshops dealing, inter alia, with responsible communication about the risks and benefits of research and technology, and also with approaching the issue of academic freedom. The programme of the visiting professorship - a joint initiative of Holtzbrinck Berlin, the Klaus Tschira Foundation and Heidelberg University - is intended to prepare young researchers in particular for communicating their research to a broad public and contributing to societal dialogue. In a public lecture on 25 July 2023, Michele Catanzaro will talk about the challenges of current fake news and disinformation, as disseminated in social media, for instance. In a workshop on risk communication Michele Cantanzaro will describe and discuss the basic principles of this form of science journalism based on examples from the media. Other workshops will deal with general questions, for example about what scientific topics are of journalistic interest and how researchers can prepare for the interaction with media representatives.