2019 Annual Report

SCIENCE NEWS

2019 NUMBERS A relentless focus on high-quality content and maximizing search engine optimization helped set an all-time high for website traffic in 2019 with 31 million unique page views, a 38.2 percent increase since 2017.

The first glimpse of a black hole on April 10 thrilled people around the world, and they turned to Science News to learn the story behind this sig- nal scientific achievement more than a decade in the making. Enthusiastic readers drove our web traffic to its biggest day ever, with 1.7 million unique page views. We also kept readers up to speed on more earthly scientific achievements, including the first use of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing in human clinical trials to see if the revolutionary technology can treat cancer, sickle cell and other blood disorders, and an inherited form of blindness. Later in the year, Google claimed quantum supremacy, with the company saying it had bested rivals in creating a qubit-based computer that could solve a problem beyond the reach of a supercomputer. Much work remains to be done before quantum computers deliver on their promise, but the announcement highlighted progress being made toward the next big leap in quantum computing. 2019 marked the 150th anniversary of Dmitri Mendeleev’s creation of the modern periodic table of the elements. We celebrated by exploring its history and continuing impact with multiple articles, a video and a commemorative

poster. The periodic table didn’t just reveal the rules that define the rela- tionships among the elements, it an- ticipated the rules governing matter that eventually revealed themselves in quantum theory. Our mission is to keep the public informed of news across the sciences, and we ranged widely, publishing more than 1,000 articles in the year on subjects from climate change to new science emerging from the historic Apollo 11 moon mission. Our work was recognized with more than a dozen prizes, including the National Academies of Sciences, Engineer- ing, and Medicine Communications Award, the most prestigious prize in science journalism, for senior writer Tina Hesman Saey’s investigative series on the shortcomings of popular genetic tests marketed to the public. And our coverage of the Event Hori- zon Telescope earned multiple kudos. But the greatest reward, as always, is the enthusiasm and appreciation of our millions of readers. The year also saw the debut of our re- designed websites, and a 24 percent increase in unique visitors, to 16.1 million. We continue to see year-over- year growth despite a challenging media landscape.

Unique Users

16,108,271

57.7%

10 15

0 5

0 in millions in millions 10 20 30

2017

2018 Year

2019

31,162,250 Unique Page Views

38.2%

2017

2018 Year

2019

20 |  2019 ANNUAL REPORT  |  Science News

Society for Science & the Public |  2019 ANNUAL REPORT  | 21