Press Primer for Managers

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Press Primer for Managers

• Steve Maran
• Press Officer
• American Astronomical Society

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Main Topics

• Talking to the press sensitive matters other
  than emergencies
• When to make a big science announcement
• Vision for increased media recognition of MKO and
  their accomplishments

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Talking to the Press? Stay Alert!

• From page 74 of A Scientist's Guide to Talking
  with the Media, by Richard Hayes Daniel
  Grossman (Rutgers University Press, 2006)
• "I engaged in an informal conversation with an
  environmental reporter from the Las Vegas Review
  Journal prior to the formal interview ...To my
  chagrin, some of my informal comments were quoted
  out of context in the news article. "
• Carol Sing, environmental pollution control
  expert, Henderson, Nevada

• From Scientific American, Letters to the Editors,
  p.10, June 1992
• "I had kidded around with reporter John Horgan as
  I would have with an old drinking buddy had I
  been less tired, I would have known better and
  treated him the way a suspect should treat a
  homicide detective."
• Murray Gell-Mann

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What Happens with Unprepared RemarksTwo clips
from a newspaper story stimulated by a NASA
officials off-the-cuff comments in a National
Public Radio interview
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Your Press Release How Important Is It?
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Know Who You Are Talking To!
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Framing Science
People you can't seem to reason with on a
particular issue can include some Journalists
Politicians Community leaders / Opinion makers
Activists of all kinds Fellow scientists,
engineers, technical managers Examples of such
topics Human-induced global warming,
Evolution vs. Creationism/Intelligent Design,
Embryonic stem cell research
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Framing Science - 2
Scientists think that improving science education
will increase the acceptance of scientifically
derived conclusions/positions Communications
researchers think they know better.
This discussion follows the short article,
"Framing Science" by Nisbet Mooney (Science, 6
April 2007, p.56).
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Framing Science -3 Quotes are from Nisbet
Mooney
People usually do NOT weigh the arguments on both
sides of a question They "use their value
predispositions (such as political or religious
beliefs) as perceptual screens, selecting news
outlets and Web sites whose outlooks match their
own." "Scientists must...'frame' information to
make it relevant to different audiences" instead
of assuming that they can educate most people to
understand their message.
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Framing Science - 4
Global Warming Controversy - Human-Induced or
Not Different attitudes correlate with
political affiliation, not education- Fraction
of college educated citizens who attribute global
warming to human activity by political
affiliation Republicans 23
Democrats 75 WHY? To paraphrase Bill
Clinton, Its the frames, stupid.
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Framing Science - 5

• Frames Used by Opponents of the Scientific
  Consensus on Global Warming
• "scientific uncertainty"
• "unfair economic burden"
• Frames Used by Supporters of the Scientific
  Consensus on Global Warming
• Democratic leaders "a 'Pandora's box' of
  catastrophe
• Certain Evangelical leaders "matter of
  religious morality
• Various opinion makers "public
  accountability" - i.e., criticizing the
  Administration for interfering with free
  communication of climate science research

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Framing Science - 6
In public debate, many scientists prefer "to
safely stick to the facts." This approach is
ethical but it often is doomed, BECAUSE
"...facts will be repeatedly misapplied and
twisted in direct proportion to their relevance
to the political debate and decision-making" In
short, as unnatural as it might feel, in many
cases, scientists should strategically avoid
emphasizing the technical details of science when
trying to defend it. CONCLUSION Dont mess
with the facts, but frame your position or rely
on spokespersons who can. (Quotes are from
Nisbet Mooney)
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When Do You Announce a Discovery? In real
time? Before or After refereeing? Upon
publication?
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Real Time Announcements

• The Good-
• We found a supernova that you can see with
  the naked eye right now in the LMC
• The Bad-
• This seems to be a Type I supernova.
• (Approximate quote from a press report filed by a
  reporter who stood over the shoulder of an
  astronomer getting one of the first good
  spectrograms of SN1987A at an observing console
  in Chile.)

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Real Time Announcements - 2

• The Ugly
• Title and lead paragraph of a scientists press
  release on March 11, 1998
• ONE-MILE-WIDE ASTEROID TO PASS CLOSER THAN THE
  MOON IN 2028
• Recent orbit computations on an asteroid
  discovered last December indicate it virtually
  certain that it will pass within the moon's
  distance of the earth a little more than 30 years
  from now. The chance of an actual collision is
  small, but one is not entirely out of the
  question.
• Space.com Most major news organizations
  reported the threat, which scientists later
  withdrew.

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Before or after refereeing?

• "...a press that equates a peer-reviewed
  experiment with a public relations document
  should expect the public to equate Time with the
  National Enquirer."
• --From an editorial, "Credibility in Science and
  the Press," by the Editor of Science, Daniel E.
  Koshland, Jr. (Vol. 254, No. 5032, p.629, 1
  November 1991)

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Before or after refereeing? - 2

• THREE FAMOUS REFEREED PAPERS IN NATURE
• THAT WERE WRONG
• July 1993 Danish other scientists declare
  climate inherently unstable so that the Earth
  "might plunge without warning into a new ice
  age." (Quote from reporter Nicholas Wade)
• February 1993 Scientists at Harvard Medical
  School Massachusetts General Hospital claim a
  new triple-drug therapy that they say "may be the
  Achilles heel" of the AIDS virus. (Quote
  attributed to the science team by Wade)
• July 1991 Discovery of the first exoplanet by
  radio astronomers at the University of
  Manchester.
• --From Nicholas Wade, Method and Madness - When
  Experts Err, New York Times Magazine (February 6,
  1994, p.12).

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Before or after refereeing? - 3
WHY THREE FAMOUS REFEREED PAPERS IN NATURE WERE
WRONG
Danish Ice Age warning- Based on bottom section
of a Greenland ice core This later was shown by
another science team to be churned and mixed up
by glacier flows over rough bedrock, producing
the false appearance of rapid back-and-forth
climate changes. Bad sample? Harvard/Mass
General AIDS breakthrough- Senior colleagues
found that student's lab data (basis of the
paper) overlooked some mutations which
inactivated the virus independently of the drug
therapy. Bad analysis? Manchester pulsar
planet- Principal Investigator realized that
computations "failed to allow completely for the
fact discovered by Kepler in 1609 that the
earth's orbit around the sun is not circular but
slightly elliptical." Bad data processing?
BOTTOM LINE refereeing is a hit or miss
proposition.
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Before or after refereeing? - 4
THREE FAMOUS UNREFEREED ANNOUNCEMENTS THAT WERE
WRONG From K.C. Cole Robert Lee Hotz,
"Science, Hype and Profit a Perilous Mix, Los
Angeles Times (January 24, 1999) December 1993
South Korean researchers claim "first step
toward human cloning by combining a woman's
adult stem cell with one of her eggs to create an
embryo. November 1998 Massachusetts biotech
firm announces combining human embryo cells and
animal cells for first time. May 28, 1997 "An
Iowa physicist created a continuing international
stir with his suggestion that Earth's atmosphere
is bombarded every day by thousands of fluffy
snow comets -- weighing up to 40
tons. (Quotes from Cole Hotz)
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Bottom Line on Announcing Before or After
Refereeing

• The author and their institution will ultimately
• gain fame or blame for the big announcement,
  whether refereed or not.
• Its up to you to be sure of your message when
  you proceed to deliver it

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New Vision for Mauna Kea Observatories Media
Relations
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Breaking News from the Mauna Kea Observatories
Todays report is from the Canada-France-Hawaii-T
elescope Joint Astronomy Centre Caltech
Submillimeter Observatory NASA Infrared
Telescope Facility Gemini Observatory
Subaru Telescope W.M. Keck
Observatory
Smithsonian/Taiwan Submillimeter Array
University of Hawaii Institute for
Astronomy
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Collective Format, Individual
Announcements--The Good--

• Identical format for teleconference briefings or
  ultimately, webcasts and for media advisories
  that announce the briefings
• The individual observatory making each
  announcement takes responsibility, pays costs
  (but see bottom bullet)
• Establishes a brand of Mauna Kea Observatories
  announcements that reporters will heed, like the
  Hubble Space Telescope brand developed by NASA.
  
• Enhances public appreciation of Observatories on
  MK
• Likely candidate for foundation grant for new
  kind of international cooperation in public
  information/education

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Collective Format, Individual Announcements
-2---The Bad--

• Must convince your sponsoring institutions to
  approve this process
• Institutions can make simultaneous
  releases through their own channels
• Must convince scientist-authors to use this
  process
• Authors institutions can make
  simultaneous releases too
• Must convince funding agencies to sign off on
  these announcements
• Agencies can make simultaneous releases
  also

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Collective Format, Individual Announcements
-2---The Ugly--
Teleconferences or webcasts must be live at
inconvenient times depending on prime target
media USA mainland press working
hours across 3 time zones West
European press Japanese and other
Asian media Observatory press officers will need
extensive RR after coordinating each press
conference with multiple institutions,
scientists, and funding agencies
What better place for RR than Hawaii?