"As Editor in Chief of Cosmos magazine, I know how difficult it is to find talented, scientifically literate story tellers.  The Catalyst journalists leave me in awe.

Many are one-time scientists who retrained as journalists. They combine scientific rigour with a finely honed TV story-telling skill. They deftly wield the best that their form has to offer with thrilling graphics,  film and narrative.

It is not an easy skill to find or to train.  The Catalyst team have crafted a rare culture of excellence in science journalism.  Some recent one hour documentary formats, presented by “specialists”, have been far less successful at hitting the mark, falling into the indulgence of “trust me; I’m an expert”, or devolving to a personality cult.

Risking the loss of this extraordinary talent pool, built up over years, at a time when the craft of science journalism is imperilled, is mystifying to me. 

While I understand the need for change in how Catalyst is produced, I am yet to be convinced about the solution the ABC has come up with. I am concerned that the long form documentary style will make it much harder to respond to topical issues that the public cares about – normally people want to have context and depth on an issue once it has made a big splash in the news, with topics like radiation safety following Fukushima and red meat causing cancer being obvious examples. I fear that one hour documentaries will take too long to produce, making them less nimble and responsive.
 
Having scientists host these documentaries is a worthy idea and could be great, but most senior scientists are not ready made Dr Karls or Brian Coxs and I suspect that finding genuine experts with inbuilt TV talent will be tougher than it sounds.

My worry is also that if they are irregular (one every three weeks?), it will be hard to maintain a fan base.

The disappointing decision from the ABC to axe Catalyst raises a number of pressing questions.  The replacement seems to be scientist driven content in the one hour doco format.  Given the talent in the award winning journalists that have been driving Catalyst, it seems we are about to lose some of our great science storytellers.  While scientists can sometimes be excellent communicators, they are going to need a lot of support--and they wont necessarily bring a critical and unbiased lens to science. 

In fact, it is this area of unbiased, investigative reporting of science where the media landscape is barren.  Save for Cosmos magazine and the brave attempts by science journalists and the AusSMC, critical science reporting which tells us what science means, helps us with our expectations and realistically portrays science about which we can be excited is a rare commodity. 

In cutting Catalyst, the ABC has potentially set free an audience for Australia's science stories. But our expectations of our national broadcaster need to be raised.  We need critical investigative science journalism to help us navigate our new global circumstances where science, technology and innovation are our watchwords

All round, this is a bad move in the wrong direction by the ABC but I’m surprised that it’s taken this long to axe Catalyst.
 
As a flagship program for communicating contemporary Australian Science, Catalyst does its job best in a magazine format. That format has offered the flexibility needed to cover the breadth of science conducted in this country and around the world. Moving to a one hour documentary format will greatly reduce the breadth of stories that can be told. Outsourcing these productions, if this occurs, will compromise the depth and integrity with which they can be covered.
 
While Catalyst has been crying out for a review of the editorial control over its content for some time now, the changes proposed today will not achieve that end.
 
Over the last 16 years the ABC has put together a highly efficient and productive unit in the offices of Catalyst. It is the most effective science communication forum in the country. It is extremely short-sighted to axe this national treasure on purely commercial grounds.
 
My thoughts go out to all my old colleagues on the program whose years of faithful service have just been rejected by the ABC.