Today I am at the Wissenschaft (science) journalism conference in Bremen Germany.

Although I couldn’t appreciate the majority of the conference which was in German, I want to take this as an opportunity to catch up on science journalism and crowdsourcing, both what is going on in the United States and what I’ve gathered about the happenings in Germany.

To get ready for this meeting I called an old colleague Christie Nicholson who works at Scientific American, the countries oldest magazine. The site went through a redesign about two weeks ago and as part of the new site, which always comments everywhere, they launched a community section to the site. There are plans to grow out this community site further. Chrisite is the new community manager, a job that news organizations are increasingly going to fill.

Her job is to bring people into the community, make them feel at home and to get the reporters to engage with that community. It’s not an easy job and while it isn’t traditional “journalism,” — Christie is a perfect example of how a journalists job discription is changing.

But an avid science fan will know that Sciam is a little late to the game. Seed Magazine (where I used to work) has science blogs which has over 60 scientific bloggers.

In Germany, as it turns out, Seed is trying to expand as well. During my panel on Web 2.0 and science journalism someone in the crowd explained that she works for Seed and is trying to build a replica of science blogs in Europe. But she is not alone. On the panel with me was the editor of Spektrum Wissenblog (scienceblogs) which is trying to do the same thing.

The competition was potent, even to somebody who doesn’t speak the language.

All this sparked a few thoughts.

First: Community is no longer a dirty or scary word. Sciam, Seed, in the US, Germany and all over the world. Online communities are becoming understood and a valued commodity. When Google bought YouTube I said the price they payed wasn’t for the technology (they already had Google Video) what they bought was the community. News organizations realize that creating niche communities is a way to stay relevant to advertisers and readers.

And science journalism, which de-facto covers a “boring” subject to lots of people, can only benefit by creating a vibrant community of people who have a passion for the subject. What science journalism needs are people who criticize science because they love science (as opposed to people who criticize because they don’t believe in science). That’s what these communities can offer - and how they will improve science journalism.

The next thought that crossed my mind, however, was how science journalism can take these communities to the next level by actively crowdsourcing information out of them?

The Houston Chronicle has done it (and will perhaps try it again in the Beat Blogging project). Science organizations have even used the public in crowdsourced experiments. Can journalism organizations rely on the crowd to collect information for publishing?

Most of the journalists I talk to have an initial reaction of fear: “How will I know if the information is accurate”? That fear is compounded for science journalists who are covering a beat of numbers and facts.

It’s important to remember that (a: science journalists are not necessarily scientists. We don’t DO science - we explain science. Hopefully we explain it in a way that tells a story - one that is relevant to the reader. If we can’t tell a good story that brings the reader in the story, then we haven’t done our job. (b. It’s all about disclosure.

That said. I still think we are a long way before we see readers taking water or air samples to aid their local environmental reporter. But that type of crowdsourcing is, I believe, a potential that exists right now. The question is who will be able to step up?

It’s no easy task either. I don’t think news organizations are acting out of cowardice - but because they are stupified as to how to coordinate something on a massive scale.

So for now - communities are being created and formed. In a few years, I expect these communities will be called on to do more than just comment.