The question is whether it is legitimate for bloggers to report on what goes on at scientific conferences and meetings. I've done it several times and I never thought there was a problem.
Well, apparently some people disagree. Read about it in the latest issue of Nature: Science journalism: Breaking the convention?.
Blogs and Twitter are opening up meetings to those not actually there. Does that mean too much access to science in the raw, asks Geoff Brumfiel.Next month I'm going to a meeting on "The Tree of Life." I intend to let you all know what goes on at that meeting but it shouldn't be a problem since the participants know what I'm doing and I won't be the only blogger.
There was a time, forty years ago, when some scientific meetings were very closed affairs and scientists could talk openly and frankly about what they were doing without fearing that it would be widely disseminated to non-insiders. There are still a few meetings like that but the vast majority are not.
