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Services

Reporting & Writing · Editing · Multimedia Production · Interviewing & Hosting · Rates

Reporting & Writing

I'm a journalist specializing in physical sciences and economics, but will follow a good story wherever it leads. In doing so, I have gained experience covering most sciences, as well as in health, policy, education, and business.

In addition, I use my journalism skills—asking good questions, querying data, providing clear writing—in a variety of contexts. I report and write for a variety of clients about:

  • scientific research
  • meetings
  • data
  • mathematics and statistics
and I create technical documents, too. My background includes a triple major in philosophy (careful writing), mathematics (careful thinking), and statistics (careful number-crunching). I have a master's degree in applied and interdisciplinary mathematics, which I liken to the language of physical sciences and economics.

Writing is the basis of all multimedia work, even if it is a different kind of writing from that of a newspaper, magazine, or book. I enjoy and have experience with all types of writing.

Some examples:

  • To books, I am contributing to a book about science writing itself by writing a chapter about working in multiple media. It is due out in April 2013 and may be pre-ordered on Amazon.

  • To magazines, here's a multi-interview piece I freelanced for PNAS:
    Agents of influence (March 5, 2013).

  • To audio, from 2007-2011 I worked at Science magazine, writing, hosting and producing the magazine's weekly podcast. Here's a link to one show of hundreds I did.

  • To video, I did those at Science, too. Here's a video report I did on doctors prescribing drugs to kids "off label"—meaning there's not sufficient data to know whether the drugs are safe or not for children:

I got my journalism start in radio in 2003 at KUNC, the NPR member-station in Greeley, Colorado. You can read more about that experience in the About section.

Editing

While on staff for 4 years at Science magazine, I edited many of my colleagues' multimedia productions. In print, I have edited:

  • technical presentations for PriceWaterhouseCoopers;
  • textbooks for Houghton Mifflin, McDougal Littell, and Harcourt;
  • and various manuals and reports for other societies, engineering companies, and IT specialists.

The American Physical Society was an editing client for a book-length report by the National Task Force on Teacher Education in Physics. Download a pre-release of the executive summary or report synopsis, if you like. When the full report is published, find it here.

I also freelance edited a portion of the script for the Discovery Channel documentary HIV/AIDS: America’s Divide (2012).

Multimedia Production

Multimedia often takes multiple people, too, and I enjoy working with others. As part of a team at Science, I contributed to two major multimedia websites for special issues:
Plant Genomes (April 25, 2008)
Neandertal Genome (May 7, 2010)

I collaborated with another multimedia freelancer for The Open Notebook, telling a story behind the story of a WNYC Radiolab show: Seeking to awe (2012).

I also do solo multimedia production, providing:

  • voice work
  • websites
  • full-HD video
  • broadcast quality audio
  • and Flash animation.

This website is an example of my coding in HTML, XML, and using CSS. A recent example of my solo full-HD video work is the Science Writers' Handbook trailer.

Interviewing & Hosting

I have experience in both taped and live interviewing & hosting, prompting discussion among multiple interviewees and/or guests, and facilitating discussion with live audiences, too.

These opportunities came about because for four years (until mid-2011) I was host & interviewer of Science magazine's weekly podcast.

By 2010, the show earned an Apple iTunes' "Staff Favorites" designation. When I left Science to follow my spouse for her tenure-track position in North Carolina, the show was regularly in the top-5 of Apple's iTunes rankings for Science & Medicine podcasts, often #3.

Rates

Rates are negotiable. As guidelines, I use the National Association of Science Writers' Wordsworth database for print work, the Editorial Freelance Association's ranges for editing work, the Voices.com rates for vocal work, the Association of Independents in Radio's rates watch for audio work, and the Schedule of Minimums kept by the Writers Guild of America for video work. Please contact me at:

RobertFrederick (at) NASW (dot) org