by Charles Petit
US News and World Report got it about right in its January 29 issue: "The Heavens have their best week since Genesis."
Newspaper science writers who cover astronomy regularly typically expect no more than a story run once a month or so, often well inside. But those smart enough, or lucky enough, and sufficiently endowed with a travel budget, to make it to the American Astronomical Society meeting in San Antonio in mid-January hit the jackpot.
This report is not an account for ScienceWriters readers of difficult, clever, or subtle newsgathering, or an analysis of vexatious journalistic conundra. Just the opposite. It is to acknowledge that science news sometimes plops in your lap and kisses you with stories so obvious even your editors fall in love. The affair also showed how new technologies such as web pages are changing news reporting and, perhaps, the traditional bite of embargoes.
Steve Maran, the Goddard space center astronomer and science writer who doubles as the society's press officer, had been scattering hints for months that it would be a good one. The meeting's news ballooned even beyond his hopes.
"The press was the best we've ever had by far," he said. "Front page three days running in The New York Times, and did you see the TV network coverage! We never have had multiple stories on network news. And I'll tell you something else; we never got called before by Vatican Radio."
At one point, he said, three BBC reporters were on his phone lines at once, calling from different arms of the service in London.
Why the fuss? John Wilford's next-week roundup in the New York Times Science Times led: "Forty billion more galaxies in the universe, half of its missing mass perhaps accounted for in burned-out stars and two new planets of distant stars--not a bad haul of discoveries for one week."
About 1400 astronomers were there (a little under expectation due to the East Coast blizzards), with several hundred papers. But the big three, alluded to by Wilford, were, in brief:
A report from the Hubble Space Telescope Institute on the most detailed, deepest survey of galaxies ever, obtained by aiming the telescope at a seemingly blank piece of sky for most of ten days. Out of it came a picture of a tiny piece of sky swimming with galaxies at a distance far beyond anything possible with ordinary telescopes. Extrapolated to the whole sky, they verified expectations that tens of billions of galaxies are out there, and hinted as to how galaxies form. Plus, the colorful panorama was suitable for page 1.
Possible identification of the great Oz of astronomy, the "missing mass" long hypothesized as out there, invisibly throwing its gravity around but never seen. A Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory-led group measured distortions in the light of stars in a small galaxy near the Milky Way, and inferred the existence of hundreds of billions of dark, burned-out stars in between us and them and presumably embracing the whole galaxy in an invisible, weighty halo.
Planets around other stars. Geoffrey Marcy and David Butler of San Francisco State University reported Jupiter-sized planets around two stars about 35 light years away. The planets seem to be at distances where liquid water, and even life, are possible. There was frenzied speculation about finding Earth-like planets out there, and NASA chief Daniel Goldin assured the astronomers that his agency would put up the money to find them.
The last made the biggest wave. After the 8:30 a.m. press conference and formal presentation, Marcy and Butler took phone calls and did TV interviews long into the night. Dan Rather, Jim Lehrer, and Peter Jennings chattered enthusiastically.
About 80 media members were there, mostly print but including TV crews from PBS, the Discovery Channel Canada, and the BBC plus local network affiliates. Newspapers represented included The New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, my paper, many from Texas, several news weeklies, and of course loads of special interest science publications.
People not there filled the phone lines, e-mail, and faxlines to catch up. For instance, William Cook of US News, which had that nice title noted above on its roundup, played catch-up from afar.
Glennda Chui of the San Jose Mercury News had covered Marcy extensively over the years, but could not convince her editors to send her. But Mercury News fans who read the paper on the Internet, via its "Mercury Center" Web Page, got it earlier than anybody else.
An editor's advisory the day before the announcement let her know about the planet, and Ligeia Polidora, PR person for San Francisco State University, faxed her the press release. Chui reached Marcy by phone and put together a fast version of the story that was posted at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. She couldn't put the story in the newspaper until the following morning (when I and every other newspaper reporter had it), but there she was on the Web the instant Marcy started his press conference.
This may give a taste of how things can change in the on-line news world. My own paper, for instance, does not scoop itself with stories on the Web page. How long can that last, one wonders, if other papers jam their stories on the Internet as soon as they're edited.
Maran reports he did nothing unusual to hype the meeting. His operations, however, have a reputation for polish and smooth, effective spoon-feeding of a complete story. Not only does Maran get the newsmakers on the dais to summarize their stuff, but completing the package he often recruits a knowledgeable but somewhat skeptical additional expert to comment in the press conference.
"The thing I want to mention is my philosophy for attracting the media," he said. "One is to pay no heed to who is giving invited talks and prize lectures. I think I have a feeling for what writers want because I do a little bit of it myself."
He added, "Everything we are shooting for is the daily print press. If you take care of the newspapers and the wires, you will provide more than enough for the news weeklies and science magazines. We pay no heed to television at all. We love to get it (TV), but I found out long ago that no matter what promises they make, or you make, they are just not going to commit the asset of a crew until the day they are coming. So we don't schedule anything for them. We rely on print to build interest from assignment editors."
He corrected himself slightly, saying some TV outfits are worth cultivating, such as CNN. But, he added, some TV was eager but indiscriminate. "Dan Rather's (CBS) coverage was the only one I actually saw. He did the planet story and talked about 'Link Observatory' on Mount Hamilton (it's Lick), and while talking about Marcy and Butler they had a B-roll showing the Hubble deep field. No rhyme or reason to it. It was embarrassing, but then again they didn't mention the meeting."
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