There is no doubt that the Internet has changed science journalism forever. I remember - sometimes with fondness, sometimes with horror - the way I used to do my job before the rise of the Internet.

There was the telephone, of course, which meant staying up late into the night to call the West Coast of the United States, and into the small hours to talk to Japan and Australia. Whatever time you called Paris they were out to lunch, and if you were calling on Friday afternoon, forget it. Some people would call back. Many wouldn't, or they would call your office when you were at home, or vice versa.

Then there was the fax machine. When I think of it, several words come to mind: paper, toner, empty. And don't forget the Fed Ex man, who would wander aimlessly around your office while you were at lunch, looking for someone to sign for a package. Having passed within six feet of your desk, he would admit failure and take your parcel, containing those essential pictures you ordered, away forever.

Thank goodness for the Internet. Although I've been using email since 1985, I can still remember the first time I logged onto a Web page, the NASA home page, in fact. It was a revelation. Here was information just a mouse click away, whenever I needed it.

Now I can access the home pages of institutions, space missions, and experiments. I can go to the home page for a particular human chromosome or gene therapy experiment. I can look at the ever-growing number of scientist's home pages and see what they look like and even read about their hobbies, usually lesser-known composers or bungee jumping. I can see how many of them have facial hair.

Email allows me to communicate across different time zones and even up into space. Most scientists these days live on their email, and using it allows me to find and keep in touch with more scientists than would have been possible before the Internet arrived.

I can see journals before they are published, read abstracts of submitted papers, look at the programs of conferences, watch space launches streamed live. I can do Web searches for background facts and previous stories. Just a few clicks away are the reports from most other science journalists.

In radio journalism, the Internet has made the studio almost redundant. I can record interviews on my hard disk, compress them, and email them almost anywhere. I can use my PC as a studio with features that many studios do not have (such as noise reduction), and without the worry of being kicked out of it. I can even get scientists to record their own interviews and email me the WAV file.

Without doubt, the Internet has changed everything for science journalism, and not entirely for the better.

The fact is that to be a passable science journalist these days, you need only have about half a dozen bookmarks on your Web browser. They are EurekAlert - that is obviously the main place on the Internet for science journalists; HMS Beagle, of course; Nature's press site; and the European Alpha Galileo site. Add to them a few calls to the U.K. Department of Health and presto, you are a high-flying science journalist.

The concentration of press releases in a few Web sites has resulted in less diversity among journalists. It has made journals and public relations offices more powerful. Look at the newspapers, all the newspapers, and you will see that (in the U.K., at least) they have over 90 percent of their stories in common.

It is now a brave science journalist who ignores a press release in Eurekalert, knowing that all his or her competitors will run with it. This means there are fewer surprises these days. So many journalists are tied to a limited number of Web sites, covering the seemingly endless stream of stories that have to be done, that they just don't have time for individuality. Don't visit the lab; just go to its home page. Don't talk to scientists, just send them emails.

It is not just that journalists have become lazy (or lazier than they were, though some of them never want to leave their terminals unless it's to go down the pub), it's just that with limited time and manpower, and the easy availability of stories, what can you do?

It may surprise those of you who live outside the U.K. just how much American science stories dominate U.K. science journalism. So much so, in fact, that British scientists are moaning louder than ever that even with Anglo-U.S. projects, it's more often than not the U.S. scientist who gets quoted.

There is a perfectly logical explanation for this. America was first on the Internet and, thus, dominates it (except for the world's best news site, if you will allow me a plug). Surf through the home pages of American universities and look at the links to their science news sections . . . very impressive. Now do the same for U.K. universities, and the fact is that you will find hardly any of them that put the effort or the resources into press and PR. This is perhaps the most obvious reason why America dominates.

Call almost any American university about a science story and you will be connected to its almost always helpful science writer. I know of no U.K. university with a resident science writer. It is little wonder that in the U.K., Johns Hopkins University gets as much press as Cambridge, and it's all because of the Internet. The Web has allowed the greater resources and commitment put into science communication in the U.S. to be easily available to the U.K. and the world.

These are early days for the Internet. Technology will drive changes so much that the Internet may be very different in ten years time. It may even be the world's primary mode of communication, science communication included.

David Whitehouse is science editor of BBC News Online.

Andrzej Krauze is an illustrator, poster maker, cartoonist, and painter who illustrates regularly for HMS Beagle, The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, Bookseller, and New Statesman.

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Endlinks

Field Guide For Science Writers - recommended Internet resources, excerpted from the National Association of Science Writers book of the same title.

Science and Technology Links - Internet sources for journalists and broadcasters. From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

WWW Virtual Library: Journalism - includes links to Internet alert, news, and research services.

Related HMS Beagle articles:

• ScienceDaily - a review of this online science-news resource.
• Will the Internet Kill the Embargo? - discusses the potential influence of the Internet on this practice.