When Cristine Russell chose nuclear energy as the topic of the third seminar in the Belfer Center spring series, “Clean Energy and the Media," no one knew of the radioactive disaster that would unfold in Japan. Two weeks after an earthquake and tsunami crippled reactor cooling mechanisms at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the seminar's discussion with scientists and journalists provided valuable insight at a critical point in the crisis.

When swine flu struck swiftly in Mexico, it created a challenge not only for international public health officials but also for journalists around the world assigned to follow the unfolding story. They needed to explain, in the face of great uncertainty and a nonstop news cycle, what the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus was and the potential dangers it posed. It was a difficult story handled most capably by experienced health and science reporters.

In the latest of many recent changes at The Washington Post, the management has announced a new plan to coordinate all health, science and environmental coverage paper-wide—from national to lifestyle—under a single editor.

This week, The Boston Globe stopped running its highly regarded Monday Health/Science section and began placing its content in the paper’s trendy new “g” lifestyle tabloid, as well as its business section. It is the latest casualty at the struggling but storied New England paper, located in what is arguably the center of the health, science, and technology universe. According to health and science editor Gideon Gil, the Globe’s nine-person specialty staff is expected to stay intact—at least for now—and coverage of everything from stem cells to climate change will still have high priority in the paper.

When it comes to tackling a big issue like climate change, reporters have their hands full getting a grip on the science and the policy options. To get help, twenty-eight print, television, and Web journalists from a variety of beats and backgrounds who were invited to a three-day conference aimed at arming them with the tools for writing about climate change in a meaningful way.

Media coverage of climate change is at a crossroads, as it moves beyond the science of global warming into the broader arena of what governments, entrepreneurs, and ordinary citizens are doing about it.

A recent Harvard journalism roundtable featuring prize-winning investigative reporters who have uncovered health scandals from Iraq to China suggested that while a few big papers-at least for the moment-are still putting a premium on investigative coverage, other regional and local papers are struggling to do so.

What a difference a year makes. In 2006, global warming stories were still struggling for front-page attention. By 2007, climate change was the issue du jour and "going green" a daily staple in news stories about everything from home building to Wall Street banking. Much of the credit for this dramatic transformation certainly goes to former Vice President Al Gore and the UN panel of climate change scientists who received the Nobel Peace Prize on Monday.

As the pace of new developments in science and technology quickens, journalists are increasingly confronted with covering complicated technical information as well as the potential social, legal, religious, and political consequences of scientific research. Avian flu, embryonic stem cell research, genetic engineering, global warming, teaching of evolution, and bio-terrorism are just a few of the topics on journalists' plates today.