No one knows when the first press release came fluttering across a reporter's desk, or who wrote it--perhaps Edison announcing his electric bulb or maybe James Watt letting off steam about you-know-what. No matter; if current newsroom grousing about the flood of releases is any guide, these ancient missives, like many of their modern descendants, probably wound up unopened in the nearest compactor. So, if you're a diligent university public information officer, how do you get public notice for notable (and, yes, not so notable) achievements of your scientists?
That question was tackled by five media-wise PIOs at an NASW workshop titled "Beyond the Printed Press Release: Ways to Promote University Research" held prior to this year's AAAS meeting in Baltimore. As expected, they came up with some savvy answers.
Paul Lowenberg, manager of news and information at the University of Washington, talked about how he used instructional seminars to get ideas into print or onto the air. "Typically, it will involve a conversation between a handful of reporters--no more than four or five--and one of our scientists," he said. "Often the session will be for background purposes, though it can be pegged to something in the news." Everyone usually comes away pleased, both faculty and press, Lowenberg said. And the cost is no more than about $25 for a coffee setup at the faculty club--just enough to pay for a few lattes in coffee-mad Seattle.
Susan Gaidos, senior science editor for the Purdue News Service, described how it was increasingly delivering news electronically. "Some reporters won't open postal mail, but will open e-mail," she said. The PurdueNet, as the system is called, not only saves time and money, not to mention trees; it also lets subscribing reporters pick and chose stories from a periodic digest, which summarizes the latest Purdue news release in such categories as science, agriculture and lifestyle. Even publishable graphics can be downloaded. Still, when PurdueNet queried subscribers (2,500 at last count), four out of five reporters said they still wanted backup copies of releases snail-mailed to them. Who says the paper release is obsolete?
Actually, this was the gist of Conrad J. Storad's message to the workshop. As director of research publications at Arizona State University, he said he had managed to do a complete end run around the press. His vehicle: the ASU Research magazine, a handsome four-color publication (circulation: 70,000 copies) that describes the work of the university's scientists. By distributing it widely around the state--for example, at high-traffic medical and dental offices--he gets so-called "egghead stories" (that editors like to shun) directly to the public. That tactic has worked so well, Storad said, ASU has spun off a public TV version of the magazine. It is also toying with a children's edition.
Kiddie readers are a direct target of Ohio State University science writers, according OSU's Kelly M. Kershner. Two years ago they began producing a weekly illustrated newspaper column for children aged 9 to 12 called "Smart Stuff with Twig Walkingstick." Its characters are two friendly bugs who talk breezily about plants, animals, food and other cool scientific stuff. (Sample: "Why do turkeys gobble? They're sounding their call of the wild.") Ohio State gets only a small credit line at the bottom of the column, but 143 papers are publishing it. Recently the science-minded bugs began waving their antennae before a wider audience via a new 90-second weekly science broadcast called "Twig Radio," in which the principals are played by Ohio State actors.
Although some ink-stained listeners thought he was pronouncing their obsolescence with excessive glee, Jack Sheehan, assistant public affairs director at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, said unequivocally that "print is dead." Because 80 percent of Americans get their news from radio and/or TV, said ex-broadcaster Sheehan, PIOs should begin thinking like broadcasters to peddle their news. Radio is the easier of the two broadcast media to crack, he said, because interviews can be done by phone (radio-quality lines help), experts can be lined up right on campus and radio stations (especially talk shows) have an insatiable appetite for news, particularly of medicine. "Talk show producers," he said, "are overworked, underpaid, generally abused and have to come up with fresh guests every day. If you can deliver, they will call." Television, he allowed, is harder to crack, but it can be done if you think pictures, tell the story simply, make your experts available for live interviews. "Remember," Sheehan added, "in TVland, if it's live, it has to be important."
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Frederic Golden, a former writer and editor at Time and Discover, is now learning the tricks of the PIO trade as a science writer at the University of California, Santa Barbara.