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Public Information Writing: Universities
By Earle Holland
Ages ago when I was still new to writing for universities and only recently removed from the newsroom, I got a call from the head PIO at NSF. Two of our industrial engineers had a project looking for the best way to convey technological advances to state legislators. The work had caught the eye of the agency's powers-that-be and they wanted to do a short booklet touting the project. NSF wanted us to provide the copy.
I met with the faculty, read their proposal and interim reports and hacked out a dozen pages as a tentative manuscript which I sent back to them for review. About a week later, they returned my draft only now it had been cleanly retyped and ran twice as long.
I called and tactfully explained that NSF wanted the Cliff's Notes version. Would they please go back and just review the original, thank you? Although I'm not much of a dancer, we did this waltz twice more with me receiving first 41 pages and then 60 pages with the latter carrying a final note:
“This is as concise as we can make it.”
Fortunately for me, among the pile of materials they'd provided at the start was a short piece they'd done for a professional journal that was less than 15 pages. A quick edit for style and abridgement of the jargon and it was off to NSF. A month or so later, a phone call told me NSF was thrilled with the finished product.
My faculty, however, were livid.
They dashed out a scathing note to the university president reviling my actions and accusing me of “de-scholarizing” their research. The president, in turn, commended my work and gave me a raise.
Sometimes, the best way to do your job is not to do what you're told. Instead, do what's right. That lesson is as valid now as it was three decades ago.
Science writing at a university has to be one of the world's great jobs. If the institution is serious about its research, you're a kid in a candy store. In my case at Ohio State University , with more than 3,500 faculty, the question is what to write about first – not where to look for stories.
The real challenge for university PIOs, however, lies in setting priorities. The writing, I argue, is often the easy part. Good journalism, well described throughout this book, works as well at universities as it does in the conventional news media.
Who do you work for?
Ask PIOs who they answer to and most will tell you who signs their check. They'll list their various supervisors, directors, vice presidents and the rest of the hierarchy up through the board of trustees. Technically, that's true but it's not very helpful. As elsewhere, writers are only obligated to two groups – the people they write about and the readers who'll invest time reading their copy. Everyone else is just an interested spectator.
Before the advent of the Web and the Internet, the typical science PIO's primary reader was a reporter or editor with the “working press.” These gatekeepers controlled the flow of stories that reached the public. And as journalists, they responded best to material that resembled what they themselves produced. Send them something self-serving, bloated and laced with institutional pap and the probability was high that its half-life would be mere seconds. With the coming of the information age, PIOs are now just as likely to have their material seen by millions of readers without the filter of the media. But even in that case, most of those readers can still tell the difference between good journalism and hype. Even dallying with the latter is deadly in the long run.
The other group that should concern university PIOs is their faculty. These geologists, pediatricians, linguists, astronomers, political scientists and botanists are our raw material, the clay from which we try to mold a vase. They are the most important resource an institution can claim and they need care and cultivation. But many university writers err in understanding what this means. They slave away trying to keep researchers happy. Instead, they should focus on dealing with scholars fairly, on telling the science story accurately without the customary institutional wrappings, conveying the magic of the quest in the process. If the relationship between a faculty source and his/her PIO isn't one of professional partnership, then one of the parties is merely a minion. So perhaps the most important job the PIO has is becoming an expert in the eyes of the faculty. Scholars respect knowledge. They need to respect yours.
Clearly there are other obligations that PIOs must regard, more constituencies to consider, more agendas to remember: Administrators, legislators, donors, alumni, students and, of course, “the Public.” But all of these groups can be well served by good journalism. Public institutions, especially, are answerableto the populace and if the public sees the university in a traditional sense – as an institution that fosters new knowledge and inquiry for the greater good – then it is much more likely to support the university's role in society.
Which brings us to the next question.
What exactly is the job of a PIO?
In the early 1980s, AIDS was still an unknown and only a few researchers were wondering aloud what an opportunistic pneumonia had to do with a cancer that usually plagued transplant patients. No one knew its cause. We only knew it affected certain groups of people – Haitians, hemophiliacs and homosexuals. One of Ohio State's microbiologists had recently presented a paper at the annual meeting of the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology proposing a possible animal model for Kaposi's sarcoma that seemed patterned after this emerging disease. It was one of those cases where all the pieces seemed to fit into place and our story stimulated several dozen others in media across the country.
That typically logical and successful scenario of publicizing research came back to haunt us six months later when arriving at work one morning, I opened the student paper to read that this same researcher was claiming to have found the cause of the disease – a microbe native to the Caribbean and Africa which he said he had cultured from a batch of Factor VIII, the blood-clotting element often missing in hemophiliacs. Moreover, the story said, he feared he couldn't solve the mystery since his grant funding was running out. And that element of his claims played prominently in the morning news story. Within an hour, the medical reporter for the local Scripps-Howard paper called, followed by an Associated Press Writer, all following up on the student paper's story. The clincher was a call from a CNN reporter saying he and a crew were boarding a plane and expected to be on campus in a bit more than three hours.
Shortly afterwards, my boss, new to the campus and ordained in the church of public relations – read that as no media experience – bounded into my office saying, “Isn't this great!”
“No!” I replied and explained why:
First, this wasn't linked to a journal publication or a presentation at a scientific meeting, the normal venues for announcing research success. Most reputable scientists refrain from announcing advances in student newspapers.
Second, the researcher had refused to provide his data to officials at the Food and Drug Administration. Their frantic call for help on that issue came in among the media frenzy.
And last, I learned while talking with the researcher that he'd even called an undersecretary of The Department of Health, Education and Welfare (surprisingly getting through!) and tried to leverage more grant funding based on the press reports.
“We don't report on research this way,” I explained, “nobody does.” By now, my boss, an assistant vice president for research, and the president's chief advisor were all crowding my office and seriously discussing “lying low.” Instead, I argued for issuing a release disowning the reported research findings, pointing out that they had not undergone any sort of peer review, which was the benchmark against which research must be judged. I added a couple of statements about our surprise at the announcement and we released it by late morning.
The resulting coverage – locally and nationally -- was fair, beginning with the alleged claims and then quickly moving to our lack of endorsement, coupled with concerns by the FDA and by the manufacturer of the Factor VIII. About a year later, the researcher left campus for parts unknown, and we eventually learned the mystery disease grew from a virus and not contaminated blood products as he had claimed.
But that morning, our decision gained the university years of credibility by taking the high road. We could have just as easily hid but instead, we publicly announced the standards our research must meet, and in doing so taught readers a bit more about the scientific process and the culture of research. In this case, the PIO's job was to defend the integrity of the institution and of the research community, and not to capitalize on a media coverage opportunity.
So what do you stand for?
Doing the “right thing” in a situation so blatantly screwy is relatively easy.
Doing it all the time is a lot harder.
During a rather dark time in the late 1980s, the best efforts of a pair of dedicated radiation safety officers on campus just couldn't keep pace with the actual administration of radioactive materials on campus. After several months of trying to keep a finger in the dike, a team of Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigators arrived. Their two-week investigation ended with a report citing more than 30 violations, many based on faulty paperwork but some very serious infractions. Apparently, we couldn't account for some lost radioactive sources. We learned late one afternoon that their report would be posted in the NRC's public viewing room the next morning and that reporters were awaiting its arrival.
The next day, the head of research at the medical center, who oversaw the radiation safety program, stood facing a packed room of reporters who smelled blood. His message was clear: “We messed up; we let things slip, and we're sorry. Also, here's how we're gong to fix it,” and proceeded to outline a plan for revamping the currently flawed program. The questions ran for more than an hour, with another hour of one-on-one interviews. We had given the media copies of the NRC's report, our plan for remediation, an item-by-item response to each violation, and a news release giving an overview of the situation. The coverage could have been a whole lot worse had we tried to dodge the bullet.
For PIOs, dealing with research risks is a lot tougher than just writing about research but doing it right in the bad times almost assures that you'll be dealt with fairly in the good times. The stories that simply report research findings will be better received.
When I started in the business, there were less than a dozen university PIOs whose job was solely research reporting. Now there are probably a thousand. Reporters on the receiving end of our work really need a way to separate wheat from chaff. My approach includes a constant underlying reminder that stories we offer can be trusted. That may seem like a small thing, but in a world filled corporate PR types, spin doctors and marketers, straight-forward reporting from a campus PIO can be nectar to a thirsty reporter.
Long-time science communications guru Rick Borchelt, director of communications and public affairs for the Whitehead Institute, has broached a fairly fundamental premise: Among the most valuable assets an institution can claim is what he calls its “trust portfolio,” the degree to which information flowing outward is considered accurate and reliable. Borchelt believes that often, the university science writer is the keeper of the trust portfolio, a key player on campus responsible for setting a standard for reporting and maintaining the university's reputation. Of course, countless factors affect institutional reputations and, while individuals can readily affect reputations negatively, few can do so positively. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
For years I've argued that in the research arena, someone needs to play the role of institutional conscience. Somebody on the inside needs to be asking the tough questions of university leaders, knowing that someone on the outside it eventually sure to do the same. If universities are to maintain their respected role in our culture – that of being somewhat above the fray and devoted to scholarship and truth – someone needs to serve as watcher on the wall, alert for early signs of trouble and ready to give warning.
But carrying out this role doesn't come easily and few PIOs are hired with that charge included in the job description. And in a university culture, where power really derives from the respect one receives, people have to earn such a post. Key to success with this area are the relationships the science PIO builds. Those of us with a role in handling research risk incidents on campus absolutely must be seen as key players. All too often, I meet PIOs who are clueless about their campus biosafety officers, radiation safety officer, infection control committee chair, chief of university police, head of computer security, chairs of the IRBs (institutional review boards), lab animal experts, and conflict-of-interest officers. These are the key people in the bad times. If you don't already have a trust relationship with them before something happens, it surely won't happen while you're trying to put out whatever fire is roaring your way.
In a sense, the science PIO's own image or reputation is important both on campus and off. Faculty researchers have to have faith in PIOs' ability to understand their science, as well as the idiosyncrasies of the research culture. “First responders” to a research crisis must see PIOs as important partners. And the news media (and the larger publics beyond) need to be confident that the research stories told by the institution are accurate and unembellished. PIOs who can do this tend to have strong personalities, are opinionated and are dis-inclined to acquiesce to power for no good reason. They believe what they are doing is important beyond the institutional boundaries, that it is more important to be right than to be well-liked.
In the end, the actual role of the science PIO is precisely what those two engineers had accused me of doing 30 years ago – to de-scholarize research.
Count me guilty as charged, and proud of it.
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