Any journalist who has stuck a toe in the rising tide of information contained on the Internet has probably confronted at least two problems: one, the information that's there isn't always updated in a timely fashion--or at least timely enough for a journalist working on a daily deadline--and two, things can be hard to find.
EurekAlert is an attempt to solve both the problems in one service. Sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, EurekAlert will be a kind of one-stop shopping for working science journalists. There will be embargoed press releases and/or tables of contents from the top research journals, including Science, Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, with others expected to come on board. There will also be embargoed news releases from research universities and research-intensive industries around the world. And there will be lists of scientific meetings, links to university and industry home pages on the World Wide Web, and other resource material, including an on-line version of the AAAS Science Sources book.
Historians will probably argue over this point someday, but Dennis Meredith of Duke University is certainly one of the first to see the need for such a service, and he convinced Nan Broadbent and other officials at AAAS to make it happen. For university press offices, EurekAlert should be a money saver. Once it catches on, Meredith expects universities will move away from expensive direct mailing as the primary method of putting out news releases.
Now, as we all know, TANSTAAFL (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch), so you're probably wondering who's paying for EurekAlert. Right now, the answer is a bit murky. Genentech has kicked in $25,000 and Monsanto $5,000 initially. According to Ellen Cooper of AAAS, applications have gone to several foundations for support. Some of the immediate hardware costs are being borne indirectly by Stanford University, which received several workstations from Sun Computers with instructions to do good things with them, and EurekAlert seemed to fill the bill. Ultimately, AAAS expects to be able to charge universities and journals for the service of posting their news material--not much, but at least enough to cover the cost of the service. In the meantime, AAAS is committed to keeping the service up and running for a time that will be measured in years, not weeks or months. At one point, AAAS was considering asking NASW for a contribution, but in the end, it was thought best by both sides to keep NASW as a customer, rather than a sponsor of EurekAlert. NASW does "endorse" EurekAlert, and wishes the venture well. NASW also will take up a small corner of the same Stanford computers that house EurekAlert for the new and completely separate NASW Internet site, http://www.nasw.org.
While AAAS will be directly responsible for the daily operations of EurekAlert, it quickly became clear to Broadbent and her colleagues that they would need advice on some of the policy issues that were bound to come up---specifically, who should be allowed to view embargoed material, and what should be posted in embargo areas? The advisory committee (Jerry Bishop, The Wall Street Journal; Frank Blanchard, The Whitaker Foundation; Rick Borchelt, Office of Science and Technology Policy; Edward (Tad) Campion, The New England Journal of Medicine; Nan Broadbent, AAAS; Steve Connor, The Sunday Times; Ellen Cooper, AAAS; Richard Harris, National Public Radio; Earle Holland, Ohio State University; Robert Lee Hotz, The Los Angeles Times; Michael Kenward, freelance; Kim McDonald, Chronicle of Higher Education; Dennis Meredith, Duke University; Joe Palca, National Public Radio; Charles Petit, The San Francisco Chronicle; Paul Raeburn, Business Week; Paul Recer, Associated Press; Joanne Rodgers, Johns Hopkins Medical Institution; Cristine Russell, Washington Post/freelance; David Salisbury, Stanford University; Susan Turner-Lowe, National Academy of Sciences; David Voss, Science; Nicholas Wade, The New York Times ) met in March at AAAS headquarters in Washington, D.C. The committee was strongly of the opinion that only working journalists should have unlimited access to the embargoed areas of EurekAlert, although public information officers will be able to see material they or their institutions post in embargoed areas. In order to maintain journal autonomy, each journal that posts on the service will establish and maintain its own list of who has access to embargoed material.
Of course, this raises once again the sometimes thorny question of who is a working journalist. The committee offered some guidelines---active membership in NASW, a full-time job with a periodical or broadcast outlet, or bona fide freelance writers. The committee was particularly concerned that no investment advisors posing as journalists should be allowed in. AAAS will apply these rules itself in most cases, but when questionable cases arise, a standing subcommittee of the advisory committee will be asked to make a ruling.
To check out EurekAlert, simply point your Web browser at http://www.EurekAlert.org. You'll be asked to register, and when you receive your password by return e-mail, it's off to the races.
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