This episode is presented by eBay.

Rob, everyone loves a deal and a bargain from time to time, don't they? Absolutely, mate. And you know where you can grab a great deal? Talk to me. Where? The eBay app. Yes, you are correct. You didn't need to talk to me. I already knew it. I love eBay. When you're buying, you can discover loads of hidden gems. there's so many items where you think I would have never found that anywhere else.

Then when you're buying, you can discover loads of hidden gems. There's so many items where you think I would have never found that anywhere else. Then when you're selling, it's so simple and most

importantly, free. It's free, Rob. When it's this easy to sell for free and there's great deals

on things you love. You can't help but say when it's eBay. It excludes vehicles and business

sellers.

Welcome to Science Talk, the more or less weekly podcast of Scientific American, posted on February 16th, 2010.

I'm Steve Merski. This week on the podcast, a little inside baseball. But if you're a consumer of science news, which you are, you'll be interested.

We're going to be talking about science and science news on the web, blogging, and various other related issues, with three experts.

Former Scientific American Editor-in-Chief John Rennie, current SIAM website news editor Robin Lloyd, and the ubiquitous blogger Borah Zifkovich, better known as simply

Bora or Borah Z.

First up, John Rennie, who spoke at the recent Science Online 2011 conference in North Carolina,

which is run by Bora.

John's topic was, can online science journalism be better than traditional science journalism?

My name is John Rennie. I'm a PLOS blogger. I was the editor-in-chief of Scientific American

for 15 years, so basically right around the time that there started to be a web that mainstream media could put things onto.

And so if the question that we want to talk about today is, can science journalism online

be better than traditional online journalism?

The answer that leaps to mind for me at that point is, mother of God, I hope so.

But putting that in the appropriate context, now it's not just that obviously online journalism

lends itself so well to a lot of good coverage. In fact that it's

so easily lent to dialogue, to linking to sources, to multimedia, to the diversity of opportunities

...