Video recording, resources and tips from the CASW Connector Chat

On October 9, 2025, CASW Connector hosted a Chat discussing how journalists can approach the firehose of science funding freezes, cuts and reinstatements during the Trump administration. Panelists and participants swapped tips on the best tools to follow the whiplash-inducing changes and how to tame the flood of information into stories that won’t immediately become outdated.

The Chat was facilitated by CASW program director Amber Dance and featured panelists:

  • Katherine Wu, staff writer at The Atlantic
  • Stephanie Lee, senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education
  • Scott Delaney, research scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and co-founder of the Grant Witness database

Below you’ll find a recording of the Chat, takeaways and tips from the presenters, and additional resources shared by attendees.

This tip sheet is a living document; to share additional resources, contact the CASW Connector team at connector@casw.org. And sign up for our newsletter to receive updates about future Connector Chats and resources for science writing.

Be selective in your coverage

There’s too much going on for any one reporter to digest or cover. (Here’s an example of Katie’s work covering the funding whiplash.) But there are ways to pick and choose topics of interest and seek out big stories that reflect the day-to-day changes.

  • Select just a few threads to follow in a given week.
  • Look beyond incremental daily developments, where the landscape is constantly changing. Ask yourself what will still be relevant in a week or so’s time. Wait and see what sticks, and seek broader trends that illustrate the situation.
    • For example: When a federal judge ruled to reinstate $700 million in grants, Stephanie didn’t jump on the daily story. Instead, she started calling researchers to ask what that process of grant restoration looked like, and how they were planning their science knowing the court decision could be reversed. Here’s Stephanie’s story. (Thanks to The Chronicle for the free pdf!)
    • At Nature, Dan Garisto covered how money started coming back to Harvard researchers after grants were reinstated.
  • Watch for changes in NIH priorities, what science is getting funded and what isn’t.
  • Seek examples of projects or scientists that lost funding to illustrate how certain fields have been hit.
    • Here’s an example of how Stephanie focused on one piece of an HIV grant that wasn’t reinstated. (Thanks to The Chronicle for the free pdf!)

Some key storylines in fall 2025

Here are some things our panelists were thinking about in October.

  • The new fiscal year started Oct. 1, but NIH’s budget hasn’t been set.
  • NIH has shifted to multiyear “forward funding,” awarding entire grants up front instead of parcelled out year-by-year. This could change the grant-competition landscape.
  • The federal government is pressuring research universities, investigating dozens over alleged antisemitism and requesting millions of dollars in settlement fees.
  • All of this makes it impossible for researchers to plan ahead and forces them to make hard choices about how to keep their projects running and whether to hire students and postdocs.

Cultivating sources

Some scientists and administrators who usually like to talk are now wary; others are eager to share what they’re going through.

  • This might be a form on a website, an option to reply to a newsletter, a text messaging system, or other options.
  • Social media: Many academics are on BlueSky and LinkedIn.
  • Stay in steady contact with sources via text, email and phone; use Signal for end-to-end encrypted conversations.
  • Try to get multiple sources to corroborate the same facts. With anonymous sources, two is good, three is better, four is great.
  • Try to get hold of written documents when possible, to cite or quote from. This can help protect anonymous sources by disguising the origins of the information.
  • Scientists may be uncomfortable talking to reporters: it may be their first interaction with journalists, and their trust quotient is at a low point. This is a marathon, not a sprint:
    • Consider starting with an off-the-record conversation, asking what their experiences are like, what concerns they have and what journalists should be investigating or drawing attention to.
    • Answer any questions they have about interacting with the media.
    • Always define “off the record” and “on background.” Even experienced media source may not understand properly.
    • Stay in touch and share your stories so they can get a sense of your approach. This may encourage them to offer tips in the future.
    • Consider initially featuring an anxious or anonymous source in a smaller, “gateway” story, so they can see how that goes and if they face any fallout, before they participate in a bigger investigation.
  • Work your network and keep building it. Any time you have a positive interaction with a source, ask if you can keep the conversation going, and if there’s anyone they can refer you to so you can understand more.
  • Don’t forget to build relationships with press officers. Many university PIOs are interested in working with reporters and soothing nervous sources.

Grant Witness tips

Government websites are no longer up-to-date on which grants are funded, and absolute accurate numbers are impossible to come by in the current environment. Grant Witness has been tracking terminated, frozen, and reinstated grants since March 2025, when it began as a Google Spreadsheet. The website now aggregates multiple sources in a regularly updated table, and is a favorite resource for both Stephanie and Katie. It covers NIH and NSF grants, with EPA grant listings in beta, and may expand to other agencies in the future. Delaney offered some tips for using the site:

  • Once you click on “NIH” or “NSF,” the site will load a large Airtable. Look for the “List” and “Grid” options on the upper right of the table; Delaney finds “Grid” view more useful because it includes more extensive information in the table, but it may take longer to load.
  • Make use of “filters” (not the magnifying glass search) to sort the data. For example, type “poss” to amass all the grants that are listed as “Possibly Reinstated.”
  • The table takes time to load within the Grant Witness site, but it’s also possible to access the Airtable more directly. Scroll to the bottom and click “View larger version” for a more streamlined experience. This view also includes sums for grant amounts, at the very bottom, that aren’t on the version embedded in the website.
  • Click individual entries to access more information. The organizers do their best to be precise and make their information sources transparent.
  • Government websites update on Sunday night, so they’re behind by mid-week. Grant Witness updates daily, but it can be tricky to time the changes: Is it when a judge reinstates funding? Or when the scientists actually receive the check? That’s why many grants say “Possibly reinstated.”
  • Delaney and colleagues are well aware that storytelling is necessary for the data to be impactful, and do their best to respond to reporters and be sensitive to deadlines. Reach out to info@grant-witness.us or sdelaney.84 on Signal.

Useful resources

Trackers & Datasets

Backgrounders & Explainers

  • Unlocked: How Government Works, from the Harvard Kennedy Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, is a series of explainers on how government functions such as vaccine approval, Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are supposed to function.
  • Unbreaking is a volunteer-led project assembling backgrounders on governmental changes to issues including medical research funding, food safety and transgender healthcare.

Journalist Discussions

Article Collections