In the fall of 2007, the research nuclear reactor at Penn State University, one of the oldest in the country, started slowly losing water from its cooling pool. Protocol required safety personnel to report the leak to the nuclear regulatory committee, which meant that the news would soon be made public on the NRC website.
Handouts from the session (NASW members only)
In the fall of 2007, the research nuclear reactor at Penn State University, one of the oldest in the country, started slowly losing water from its cooling pool. Protocol required safety personnel to report the leak to the nuclear regulatory committee, which meant that the news would soon be made public on the NRC website.
Sound like a media disaster waiting to happen? In this case the answer was "no," thanks to honesty and a healthy dose of foresight, explained A'ndrea Elyse Messer, one of Penn State's senior science information officers. The purpose of the session she co-chaired with Ohio State's Earle Holland at ScienceWriters 2008 in October in Palo Alto was to discuss how public information officers can handle crisis situations at their institutions without resorting to spin-control tactics.
The first step in the nuclear reactor case, said Messer, was to organize a meeting with everyone at the university who was involved with the situation. It turned out that the leak was minor and posed minimal if any threat to the university community, but conveying the facts clearly and quickly was important for the university to assure reporters and the public there was no need for alarm. "When this whole thing started, it was a nightmare for me because I didn't think it was going to come out so well," said Messer. But the combination of a straightforward news release and capable handling of journalists' questions helped avert any misinformed articles about the leak.
However, PIOs don't always have the opportunity to be so open. In 2005, shortly following the Kansas Board of Education's hearings on intelligent design, a doctoral candidate in Ohio State University's science education program was preparing to defend a dissertation that proposed teaching public high school students data that "challenged macroevolution," recalled Earle Holland, the university's assistant vice president for research communications.
Upon reading the student's proposal, three faculty members who were not part of the student's thesis committee expressed concerns that the project was built on an unsupported premise — that data exist to challenge the theory of macroevolution — and that it was academic misconduct for the student to subject actual high school students to his hypothesis. While the university began an internal investigation of the project, the intelligent design-promoting Discovery Institute caught wind of the story and started posting news items about it on their website. The national media wasn't far behind.
Unlike Messer, Holland was unable to issue a news release carefully explaining the situation because federal law prevents universities from disclosing any information about a student's academic record without permission. Reporters called to discuss the case, but none asked the right questions, Holland said. Had the journalists asked about the student's faculty adviser or even just whether they were missing something, Holland said he could have given them more information because faculty, unlike students, are not protected by the federal restrictions. Holland said reporters have to ask, "What is it that I don't know that I don't know?"
Some of the attendees disagreed with Holland's stance, arguing that he should have taken a more active role in making sure journalists had the story right. The discussion that ensued raised some interesting points about the role of PIOs. Should they always strive to paint their institution in a good light? Should they tell reporters when they're asking the wrong questions and steer them toward the right ones? In the end, both the PIOs and journalists who attended were left with several real-life cases to consider should they encounter similarly difficult situations.
Erica Westly is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn, NY. She writes about science for magazines, including Discover and Scientific American Mind.
