Tag Archives: Journalism

Time to ditch the press release?

Digital Academia, Politics, Science, , , ,
Fixing the newspapers. Photo (cc) Evil Erin.

Fix­ing the news­pa­pers. Photo (cc) Evil Erin.

At the National Astro­nomy Meet­ing in 2004 I listened to Dr David White­house, who I think was then Sci­ence Editor at the BBC, give advice about feed­ing sci­ence stor­ies to the media. He made quite a few points, but there are three I remember.

  1. Don’t push a story on the grounds it’s the biggest / old­est / shi­ni­est / crum­bli­est etc. thing found. It’s a cliché and it’s dull.
  2. Don’t waste people’s time with the for­mula for ‘x’ where x is any­thing which really shouldn’t have a formula.
  3. Don’t use press releases.

At the time he really didn’t con­vince me. The biggest, old­est and so on remains a staple news item. Like­wise Cliff Arnall has shown you can make money from non­sense for­mu­lae. What really under­mined him though was the news­room run by the RAS at the meet­ing. I could wander in there and see the press releases. The next day I could see the same stor­ies, often with little edit­ing, in the national press. If he were to give the same talk today he might find it even harder. I can go to Eurekalert and pick up a sen­tence from any press release. If I paste it into Google I will find masses of news web­sites repeat­ing the press release near verbatim.

Surely this proves pub­li­city is about get­ting your press release into the right press release mill? I might have a news story by the end of the year and so I’ve thought about what I want to achieve with pub­li­city. I’m job hunt­ing. Press cov­er­age could be really help­ful to intro­duce me and my work to depart­ments. That’s why I’m more inter­ested in qual­ity rather than quant­ity and that’s why I think David White­house could be right.

The reason I was scep­tical is because of an adversarial model of researcher-journalist rela­tions. Basic­ally this is down to two complaints.

  1. Journ­al­ists regur­git­ate press releases without any crit­ical thought.
  2. Journ­al­ists don’t regur­git­ate my press releases without any crit­ical thought.

Clearly that proves that any prob­lems in sci­ence journ­al­ism are the fault of journ­al­ists rather than my work being unnews­worthy. You can’t argue with logic like that unless you’re very drunk.

If you see journ­al­ists as a bar­rier between you and the pub­lic then bypassing them makes sense. The tar­get becomes get­ting the press release as unmangled as pos­sible into the public’s hands. This kind of think­ing is the basis behind Futur­ity. The journ­al­ists are a resource val­ued as far as they can repro­duce the release you’ve given them. Pre­sum­ably there’s a corol­lary to this rela­tion­ship from the journ­al­ists’ side where sci­ent­ists are val­ued as far as fit­ting a mar­ket­ing niche.

David White­house argued that what journ­al­ists really want is an exclus­ive. Stick­ing a press release out means that it’s low pri­or­ity because every­one will be able to cover the story. It wasn’t the best sales pitch because what I heard at the time was “If you put out a press release then lots of people will cover it, but an exclus­ive means only one per­son cov­ers it.” If you’re in the adversarial model then the choice between press release and talk­ing to just one journ­al­ist, who may decide not to run your story, is a no-brainer.

Now I’ve changed my mind.

My work is inter­dis­cip­lin­ary. Journ­als, gen­er­ally, aren’t. That means if I pub­lish my work in one journal then it’ll be missed by a lot of the poten­tial audi­ence because research­ers tend to read journ­als in their own dis­cip­line and only a few out­side it. What I need is to pub­li­cise the work so that research­ers out­side the field of whatever journal I pub­lish in will be aware of the paper. So if I pub­lish in The Journal of Obscure Astro­nomy then I’ll have to find some way to alert clas­si­cists and archae­olo­gists to the paper, else they’ll never read it — even if JOA is open access or the paper’s on arXiv.

Hav­ing a press release appear on a thou­sand web­sites is great for the ego, but it’s point­less if they’re a thou­sand web­sites that no-one with an interest in clas­sics or archae­ology reads. If I wanted to announce work to a small num­ber of intel­li­gent people I’d post it here. What I need is qual­ity of cov­er­age rather than quant­ity. In fact as I wrote that last sen­tence it struck me how irrel­ev­ant quant­ity of cov­er­age is.

It sounds good. It’s some­thing people can meas­ure in column inches but real­ist­ic­ally 10 column inches in two papers is not twice as good as 5 inches in one paper. Shar­ing links is easy. If the story appeared in just one major site, the link would be passed around. Appear­ing in more papers aids dis­cov­ery, but the stor­ies will all be say­ing sim­ilar things about the work. I was told that the recent pub­lic­a­tions on the Anti­kythera Mech­an­ism appeared as news stor­ies in all the qual­ity papers in the world. But I bet if I were to sit down and read them all I’d find very little new inform­a­tion after the first three stor­ies. Cer­tainly appear­ing in more qual­ity press is a bet­ter res­ult, but the size of the read­er­ship for the major news sites is such that appear­ing in just one major site will still deliver more reach than a hun­dred minor sites.

It also looks like a prac­tical way to aid good journ­al­ism. I’m will­ing to bet that any sci­ence journ­al­ist with even a bit of tal­ent would like to see the end of press releases being called news. If we rein­force the idea that a recycled press release is news then there’s no call for spe­cial­ist sci­ence journ­al­ists because any­one can recycle a press release.

That’s why I’ve decided the next time I have a story — if the journal doesn’t have its own media policy — I’m going to try pitch­ing it dir­ect to a journ­al­ist rather than via a press release. I’m not com­fort­able with this. Every day you can see press releases work­ing in the papers and if web­sites recycle mater­ial big num­bers are attract­ive. But maybe that’s a safety net? If news sites really are put­ting up press releases as news then even if attempts to pitch the exclus­ive fail you can always fall back on a press release. That’s another reason press releases shouldn’t be the first option.

If Futurity is the answer, then I don’t understand the question

Politics, Science, ,

I’d like to blog about the Drayson / Gol­dacre debate before the topic gets too cold, but before I do I thought I’d men­tion Futur­ity. It’s inter­est­ing because it’s sup­posedly, an attempt to address a decline in sci­ence journ­al­ism. “In an increas­ingly com­plex world, the pub­lic needs access to clear, reli­able research news. Futur­ity does the work of gath­er­ing that news,” says the about page of the site. That’s fas­cin­at­ing because, if they’re right, I’ve com­pletely mis­un­der­stood what sci­ence journ­al­ism means.

Here’s an example. First up, a press release from the Uni­ver­sity of Michigan, Research­ers find gene that pro­tects high-fat-diet mice from obesity, which starts like this:

U-M research­ers have iden­ti­fied a gene that acts as a mas­ter switch to con­trol obesity in mice. When the switch is turned off, even high-fat-diet mice remain thin.

Delet­ing the gene, called IKKE, also appears to pro­tect mice against con­di­tions that, in humans, lead to Type 2 dia­betes, which is asso­ci­ated with obesity and is on the rise among Amer­ic­ans, includ­ing chil­dren and adolescents.

Next there’s the press release on the pub­licly access­ible Eurekalert, U-M research­ers find gene that pro­tects high-fat-diet mice from obesity. That reads:

Uni­ver­sity of Michigan research­ers have iden­ti­fied a gene that acts as a mas­ter switch to con­trol obesity in mice. When the switch is turned off, even high-fat-diet mice remain thin.

Delet­ing the gene, called IKKE, also appears to pro­tect mice against con­di­tions that, in humans, lead to Type 2 dia­betes, which is asso­ci­ated with obesity and is on the rise among Amer­ic­ans, includ­ing chil­dren and adolescents.

Finally there’s the public-targetted story: Gene—not diet—makes mice obese?:

Research­ers have iden­ti­fied a gene that acts as a mas­ter switch to con­trol obesity in mice. When the switch is turned off, even mice on high-fat diets remain thin.

Delet­ing the gene, called IKKE, also appears to pro­tect mice against con­di­tions that, in humans, lead to Type 2 dia­betes, which is asso­ci­ated with obesity and is on the rise among Amer­ic­ans, includ­ing chil­dren and adolescents.

“Futur­ity is aimed at gen­eral audi­ence rather than report­ers” said one of the sites founders in the Columbia Journ­al­ism Review. I’ve looked at a few stor­ies and com­pared them with their Eurekalert coun­ter­parts. What Futur­ity offers is a dif­fer­ent head­line and an occa­sion­ally re-ordered dis­play of inform­a­tion. The link to the National Bur­eau of Eco­nomic Research work­ing paper in the Futur­ity story above comes fur­ther down the page. Is this qual­ity sci­ence journ­al­ism? I wouldn’t have thought so. I’d have called it a press release. I’m not exactly sure how you meas­ure the qual­ity of sci­ence journ­al­ism, but I would have thought there would have been more to report­ing than par­rot­ing the press release. Is this an isol­ated incid­ent? Does Futur­ity offer some­thing that a press-release doesn’t. Here’s the top four stor­ies today on Futur­ity com­pared with their coun­ter­parts on Eurekalert.

Futur­ity Eurekalert
‘Punk-size’ T. rex found in China
CHICAGO—A 9-foot dino­saur from north­east­ern China had evolved all the hall­mark ana­tom­ical fea­tures of Tyr­an­no­saurus rex at least 125 mil­lion years ago, includ­ing a large head com­pared to its torso, tiny arms, and lanky feet well-suited for running.

Uni­ver­sity of Chicago pale­on­to­lo­gist Paul Ser­eno and five coau­thors describe the newly dis­covered dino­saur in the Sept. 17 Sci­ence Express, advanced online edi­tion of the journal Science.

 T. rex body plan deb­uted in Rap­t­orex, but 100th the size
A 9-foot dino­saur from north­east­ern China had evolved all the hall­mark ana­tom­ical fea­tures of Tyr­an­no­saurus rex at least 125 mil­lion years ago. Uni­ver­sity of Chicago pale­on­to­lo­gist Paul Ser­eno and five co-authors describe the newly dis­covered dino­saur in the Sept. 17 Sci­ence Express, advanced online edi­tion of the journal Science.

Rap­t­orex shows that tyr­an­no­saur design evolved at “punk size,” said Ser­eno, a National Geo­graphic Explorer-in-Residence, “basic­ally our body­weight. And that’s pretty stag­ger­ing, because there’s no other example that I can think of where an animal has been so finely designed at about 100th the size that it would even­tu­ally become.”
Photo reveals Africa’s cryptic cat
YALE—An anthro­po­lo­gist has cap­tured pho­to­graphic images of a rare, cougar-like cat ran­ging at night in an endangered Ugandan forest.

The images of the African golden cat (Pro­felis aurata) were taken by a digital infrared cam­era trap set last year by the anthro­po­lo­gist who was study­ing prim­ate beha­vior in the wild.

 No equi­val­ent on Eurekalert, but Yale’s press release reads:
New Haven, Conn. — A Yale anthro­po­lo­gist has cap­tured pho­to­graphic images of a rare, cougar-like cat ran­ging at night in an endangered Ugandan forest.

The images of the African golden cat (Pro­felis aurata) were taken by a digital infrared cam­era trap set last year by the anthro­po­lo­gist who was study­ing prim­ate beha­vior in the wild.
Same name, dif­fer­ent lung can­cer
Lung can­cer in patients who have never smoked is a very dif­fer­ent dis­ease than the lung can­cer smokers get, and should be treated as such, new research finds.

“It is becom­ing increas­ingly clear that the genetic, cel­lu­lar, and molecu­lar nature of lung can­cer in many never-smokers is dif­fer­ent from that of smoking-related lung can­cers, and there is good evid­ence now that the best treat­ment and pre­ven­tion strategies for never-smokers may be dif­fer­ent as well,” says Charles Rudin, asso­ci­ate dir­ector for clin­ical research at the Kim­mel Can­cer Cen­ter at Johns Hop­kins University.

 Guide on lung can­cer in ‘never-smokers’: A dif­fer­ent dis­ease and dif­fer­ent treat­ments
A com­mit­tee of sci­ent­ists led by Johns Hop­kins invest­ig­at­ors has pub­lished a new guide to the bio­logy, dia­gnosis and treat­ment of lung can­cer in never-smokers, for­ti­fy­ing meas­ures for what phys­i­cians have long known is a very dif­fer­ent dis­ease than in smokers.

“It is becom­ing increas­ingly clear that the genetic, cel­lu­lar, and molecu­lar nature of lung can­cer in many never-smokers is dif­fer­ent from that of smoking-related lung can­cers, and there is good evid­ence now that the best treat­ment and pre­ven­tion strategies for never-smokers may be dif­fer­ent as well,” says Charles M. Rudin, M.D., Ph.D., asso­ci­ate dir­ector for Clin­ical Research at the Johns Hop­kins Kim­mel Can­cer Cen­ter. Lung can­cer in never-smokers is the sixth lead­ing cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S.
Nan­otubes may yield greener solar cells
CORNELL—Using a car­bon nan­otube instead of tra­di­tional sil­icon, research­ers have cre­ated the basic ele­ments of a solar cell that may lead to much more effi­cient ways of con­vert­ing light to electricity.

The research­ers fab­ric­ated, tested, and meas­ured a simple solar cell called a pho­to­di­ode, formed from an indi­vidual car­bon nan­otube. Repor­ted online Sept. 11 in the journal Sci­ence, the research­ers describe how their device con­verts light to elec­tri­city in an extremely effi­cient pro­cess that mul­ti­plies the amount of elec­trical cur­rent that flows. This pro­cess could prove import­ant for next-generation high effi­ciency solar cells, the research­ers say.

 Car­bon nan­otubes could make effi­cient solar cells

Using a car­bon nan­otube instead of tra­di­tional sil­icon, Cor­nell research­ers have cre­ated the basic ele­ments of a solar cell that hope­fully will lead to much more effi­cient ways of con­vert­ing light to elec­tri­city than now used in cal­cu­lat­ors and on rooftops.

The research­ers fab­ric­ated, tested and meas­ured a simple solar cell called a pho­to­di­ode, formed from an indi­vidual car­bon nan­otube. Repor­ted online Sept. 11 in the journal Sci­ence, the research­ers — led by Paul McEuen, the Gold­win Smith Pro­fessor of Phys­ics, and Jiwoong Park, assist­ant pro­fessor of chem­istry and chem­ical bio­logy — describe how their device con­verts light to elec­tri­city in an extremely effi­cient pro­cess that mul­ti­plies the amount of elec­trical cur­rent that flows. This pro­cess could prove import­ant for next-generation high effi­ciency solar cells, the research­ers say.

To me the stor­ies on Futur­ity look like re-headlined and slightly tweaked press-releases. The table above is not an entirely fair com­par­ison so if you’re scep­tical you can click on the links to see the stor­ies in full. Futur­ity has a yel­low masthead.

One of the points Ben Gol­dacre made in the Times Higher debate was that not every pub­lished study is worth a whole news story. The end res­ult would be the Daily Mail Onco­lo­gical Onto­logy Pro­ject which fol­lows the Daily Mail’s attempt to clas­sify everything in the world as things that cause or cure can­cer. In the case above obesity is a com­plex prob­lem with diet­ary, hered­it­ary and social factors. There’s no magic bul­let to solve the prob­lem. It’s a com­plex story that needs con­text to make sense but you’re not going to get that from a press release. What is prob­ably a very good piece of research has been turned into quite a bad story.

It might be more inter­est­ing to ask “Why are around 35 top uni­ver­sit­ies releas­ing warmed-over press releases on a web­site when the pub­lic already have access to Eurekalert?” You could make it sound quite sin­is­ter. Are the rich uni­ver­sit­ies attempt­ing to hive off pub­lic interest away from Eurekalert so they don’t have to com­pete with Hicks­ville State Uni­ver­sity? Altern­at­ively is it an attempt to dis­tance the uni­ver­sit­ies from some of Eurekalert’s more eccent­ric contributors?

There’ll be more from me on sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion over the next month as I’ve been think­ing about it for a few months now. One idea I’m not keen on is that the prob­lem is the mass media. Clearly they con­trib­ute, but Futur­ity shows that when you bypass sci­ence journ­al­ists alto­gether the res­ult looks amaz­ingly sim­ilar to the kind of report­ing people com­plain about.

I’ll con­cede that there could be some­thing really clever about Futur­ity which couldn’t be done by tweak­ing Eurekalert. I’m no media expert so it’s entri­rely pos­sible that there’s some big prob­lem that Futur­ity is the per­fect shape fix, but if Futur­ity is the answer, then I don’t under­stand the question.

Blogging and the English Law

Digital Academia, , , ,
donkey
A guest appear­ance from the law. Photo (cc) Jür­gen Schiller Gar­cía.

First a dis­claimer: My legal qual­i­fic­a­tions go as far as an A-Level I did at nightclass.

Non­ethe­less I’ve been read­ing a few posts recently on Eng­lish law by other blog­gers and they all seem to be mak­ing the same mis­take. The blog­gers are intel­li­gent, fair and reas­on­able and the make the assump­tion that Eng­lish law would be too. So I’m throw­ing up some points for dis­cus­sion, most of it applies to blog­gers around the world, but there are one or two stings for blog­gers based in Eng­land and Wales.

Tip One: Be a multi-millionaire

This is use­ful in any legal sys­tem, but espe­cially in Eng­land when you real­ise where the law comes from. We don’t have a 20th cen­tury or 19th cen­tury legal sys­tem in the UK. It’s a multi-layered cake of cases which has been built up over the cen­tur­ies. Old laws remain in effect because they’re often use­ful. For example until a few years ago the legal defin­i­tion of murder in Eng­land dated from Lord Coke’s rul­ing in 1597.

Murder is when a man of sound memory, and of the age of dis­cre­tion, unlaw­fully kil­leth within any county of the realm any reas­on­able creature in rerum natura under the king’s peace, with malice afore­thought, either expressed by the party, or implied by law, so as the party wounded, or hurt, &c. die of the wound, or hurt, &c. within a year and a day after the same

It was only updated recently because life-support machines were mak­ing the year and a day clause questionable.

A lot of law is like this, it isn’t form­ally writ­ten down. It’s com­mon law which means there’s a huge tra­di­tion of rely­ing on pre­ced­ent and find­ing the right pre­ced­ent is where a lot of law­yers make their money. Unfor­tu­nately there wasn’t a medi­eval inter­net and Eng­lish legis­la­tion is a bit slow. Laws developed for a time when few people had access to a press are being called into ser­vice for libel on the inter­net. There are few pre­ced­ents, so hav­ing a very good law­yer to make your case is a massive help. Incid­ent­ally, the fact the law goes back many cen­tur­ies in the UK is part of the con­tri­bu­tion to the fact that Scot­tish law is not the same as Eng­lish law. Chan­ging one doesn’t neces­sar­ily have much effect on the other.

Par­lia­ment could codify the law, and every so often they do. There’s plenty of demand for new laws though so older laws tend to get tidied when the clam­our gets loud enough. With my big cyn­ical hat on, there’ll be an elec­tion soon and all the politi­cial parties will want fund­ing from donors with deep pock­ets. These would also be the kind of donors who are best pro­tec­ted by a vague and pur­chased justice and will want to fund parties with other pri­or­it­ies, as par­lia­ment­ary time is lim­ited. It’s not going to change soon. Simply declar­ing swathes of com­mon law out­dated isn’t a prac­tical option either. If you want a bet­ter libel law then you’ll need to pres­sure MPs to change it.
Con­tinue read­ing →