Scientists and the News Media
Part III: How to Work With Institutional Public Relations People
by Robert Finn
(Posted July 25, 1997 · Issue 13; archived August 15, 1997)
During my seven years as a science writer in the California Institute of
Technology's public relations office there were two types of phone calls I
grew to dread. The worst kind went something like this: "Hi, Bob. This
is Dr. Smith over in biology. Alert the media! Call a news conference! I
just got a thousand-dollar grant from the XYZ Foundation, and I want you to
make sure their generosity gets a prominent placement on the front page of
the New York Times."
Almost as bad were the calls that went, "Oh, hi, Bob, Susan Jones
here. I've got an article coming out in tomorrow's issue of Science.
It seems I've created life in my laboratory, and now I've got this pesky
stack of phone messages from reporters, and I wonder if you can call them
all back and tell them that I'm busy this month, but that I'd be willing to
do one or two interviews in August."
In my two previous Press Box articles ("Why It's Good to
Talk" and "How
to Work with Reporters") I argued that scientists should be willing to
talk to reporters, and I gave some advice for doing so. Except in rare
cases, though, dealing with the news media is not a scientist's primary
occupation. Virtually every institution has a public relations, media
relations, or public information office, and the professionals there deal
with reporters every day. Institutional PR people can provide scientists
with valuable advice and assistance in making their interactions with
reporters pleasant and productive.
But scientists need to understand how their PR offices work, the
constraints they are under, and what they can and cannot do. For one thing,
the PR office cannot perform miracles. Yes, you may be excited that you
received that thousand-dollar grant, but I guarantee that the New York
Times cares not a whit. The national news media wouldn't care about
that grant unless it were over $50 million, and probably not even then.
This goes for announcements of awards and promotions too, with rare
exceptions. If you win a Nobel Prize or a MacArthur "genius"
grant, or you're appointed president of a major university, perhaps then
you'll see something about it in the national news media.
This is not to say that it's pointless to promote gifts, prizes, and
promotions. You just need to be realistic in your expectations.
Institutional PR people are often successful in placing announcements about
such events in local newspapers and trade journals, and of course they
should be mentioned in on-campus publications.
Significant science news, as suggested in my second whimsical example
above, presents its own problems. The first is timing. One day's notice is
nowhere near enough time to prepare for the announcement of a significant
scientific finding.
To begin with, you have to allow the science writer time to research and
write a news release. Typically he or she will want to visit you in your
office or lab and learn as much as possible about the result you're
announcing. An accurate and complete news release greatly increases the
chances that the national media - from the New York Times on down -
will report your work correctly. A complete news release also increases the
chances that your name, and those of your collaborators and funding
sources, will be spelled correctly.
Then you have to allow time for the draft of the news release to percolate
through the byways of your institution's administration. Not only will you
expect to read the writer's draft yourself to make corrections, but at many
institutions a staggering number of other people have to approve a news
release before it goes out. For example, during my days at Caltech (it's
possible that things there have changed), a draft of the news release had
to be read and approved by: several copy editors, the director of media
relations, the assistant vice president for public relations, the vice
president for institutional relations, the departmental chairperson, and
occasionally the provost. Moreover, if the release involved an important
donor, it had to be approved by the development office as well as the
donor. All this routinely took weeks.
Then you have to allow time for the release to be printed and mailed to
reporters across the country. For a major announcement (such as the
creation of artificial life!) you'll want an embargoed release to reach the
reporters about a week before the article is published. (An embargo is an
agreement among reporters, journal editors, and PR people that, in return
for advance word on important stories, the reporters will hold their
articles until a specified date and time. See my earlier Press Box articles
"The Scientist, the Journalist, the
Journal, and the Embargo" and "Will
The Internet Kill The Embargo?" for information and opinions on embargoes.
Scientists are often surprised about how much disruption is caused by the
announcement of an important result. You should expect to have as many as
several dozen interview requests. Please allow plenty of time for this;
each reporter will require something between 15 minutes and a half hour on
the phone. If television and radio reporters get interested in the story,
they'll want to visit your office and lab with tape recorders and camera
equipment. All of this will place a burden not only on you, but also on
your office staff and lab workers, and you should prepare them for the
disruption.
Scientists will often suggest that the PR office hold a news conference,
with the idea that handling all the questions at once will be less time-
consuming than responding to interview requests one at a time. But PR
professionals have learned that news conferences present their own
problems, and should be called only in very rare circumstances, typically
only to announce the most significant of results. (Artificial life would
definitely qualify.) There's not much that's more embarrassing to the
institution, and to an individual scientist, than a sea of empty chairs at
a news conference.
Reporters hate news conferences because a telephone interview takes far
less time than traveling to campus, and because they prefer to talk
privately with scientists. In addition, news conference logistics are
daunting. The PR office has to find a room that's big enough for the number
of reporters they expect, but not so large that even a reasonable turnout
looks embarrassingly sparse. They have to arrange for the room to be
adequately furnished and lighted, and make provision for audiovisual
hookups, and then there's the matter of coffee and Danish.
And when all is said and done, I'm not convinced that even a well-attended
news conference decreases the number of interview requests. First of all,
virtually no out-of-town reporters will come, so you'll have to do phone
interviews with them anyway. And there will always be a second wave of
interview requests for any widely reported result as weekly and monthly
publications, attracted by the coverage in the dailies, decide to report on
your work.
Whether the announcement you're making is of worldwide importance, just of
local interest, or somewhere in between, my advice is to call on your
institutional PR people early and often. They can tell you whether the
reporter you're about to speak with has a Ph.D., or whether he isn't quite
sure what a gene is. (I used to advise scientists scheduled to be
interviewed by a certain reporter to use words of fewer than one syllable,
if possible.) They can give you hints on how to conduct yourself in a
television interview, and even what kind of clothing to wear. (Avoid
closely spaced stripes or checks, which tend to show up with an annoying
multicolored shimmer.) And while they can't always prevent reporters from
making mistakes, institutional PR people can help you announce your results
clearly and accurately, and in a way that is least likely to embarrass you
or your institution.
Robert
Finn is a contributing editor for The Scientist who has
written for many publications including Discover, Science
Digest, Nature, and the Los Angeles Times.
Send us your comments and ideas for future articles.
