PCST 2021+ On PIOs
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1. The document provides advice for researchers on how to work effectively with their institution's public information officers (PIOs). 2. PIOs can help researchers by pitching their stories to media outlets, which can lead to funding opportunities, awards nominations, and research partnerships for the researchers. 3. PIOs may provide media training, help craft key messages and communication strategies, and measure the impact of research stories. However, researchers often come to PIOs too late or only want publicity for minor achievements.
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PCST 2021+ On PIOs
- 1. 1 How do (should) researchers work with their science public information officers? 972 Overcoming misinformation about science in the media Roy Meijer (Delft University of Technology / SciCom NL)
- 2. 2 I am here… and here…
- 3. 3 Why communicate? – Institute ‘Research institutions need to communicate for a variety of reasons, including: • to secure funding from state or federal legislators • to attract researchers or graduate students • to disseminate research findings in order to comply with the terms of a grant agreement’ (Handbook for Science Public Information Officers, W. Matthew Shipman)
- 4. 4 Why communicate? - Scientist ‘Publicity help researchers to: • garner award nominations • speaking invitations • funding offers • research partnerships’ (How to work with your institution’s press office to maximize the reach of your work, Roberta Kwok)
- 5. 5 The Handbook – the index • 1 Finding Stories and Deciding What to Write About • 2 Writing Stories • 3 Pitching Stories • 4 Illustrating Stories with Multimedia • 5 Getting Scientists to Tell Their Stories • 6 Telling the Story Yourself: Social Media and Blogs • 7 Measuring Your Story’s Success: Metrics • 8 Stories You Don’t Want: Crisis Communications
- 7. 7 Message
- 8. 8 Insert a picture Why? Who? What? How? Communication Strategy Just a little rational thought on who you want to reach with your communication efforts, what you want to tell them and what you would like them to do with that information, and how to best present, package it and send it out.
- 9. 9
- 10. 10 What do scientists actually come to us for… (aka ‘pet peeves’) • They don’t • But if they do, it’s usually too late • Pens and stickers (and sometimes a university flag) • A press release and an article in some highbrow high-quality newspaper (because read by peers) • The latest poster prize of their promising PhD-student (What is News? News values revisited) • Complain about how the journalist didn’t write down what they wanted • Complain about the headline A scientist guide to ‘newsworthy’ – when do you contact your local communication department, Roy Meijer (blog)
- 11. 11 Roy Meijer – contact info • Twitter: @RoyMeijer • Blog: roy-meijer.nl • LinkedIn: /RoyMeijer • Phone: +31 6 14015008
- 12. 12 Encore quote 1 • Jennifer Cox, Director, Engineering Communications, NC State University, on the NASW (National Association of Science Writers) PIO list : ‘Our job is to report the research and education that is conducted at our institutions. If we don’t do that accurately or if we try to embellish to make it look more important than it is, then we ruin our reputation with reporters and undermine our institutions …’
- 13. 13 Encore quote 2 • Rick Borchelt, Communications Director, DOE Office of Science, on the NASW (National Association of Science Writers) PIO list: ‘When journalists or scientists or politicos hear me say I do ‘media relations’ as part of my job, they generally have a mental picture of me as the ‘reporter whisperer’, or a flak jacket (pun intended) between them and the source or reporter, or a world class schmoozer who is always chatting up reporters about inconsequential research to make them believe it’s a breakthrough. • In reality, MUCH more of my ‘media relations’ time is actually ‘media sociology’ – figuring out what different reporters want and need, but even more importantly teaching non-journalists and non-writers why scicomm is important, why science journalism is important, and why public support of research/knowledge growth is important on a larger social scale. And why they should just do the damned interview already.’
Editor's Notes
- My name is Roy Meijer, and I am one of five Science Public Information Officers at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands, as well as board member of the Dutch science Communication association SciCom NL. I was asked by chair Ionica Smeets to give a glimpse into the practical side of work going on at university PR offices, the actual work done by the people behind all those press releases mentioned by my colleagues in this session.
- Yes, your institute actually does have a PR office, as the PhD Comic states. And apart from regular scicomm and outreach to the general public, we have of course also some mundane reasons to be around, all these should look familiar to you.
- And the some goes for scientists as well of course. Apart from the more idealistic reasons to do scicomm, there is also, and dare I say more importantly? - the ‘what’s in it for me’ angle, described very nicely in Kuchners book, and emphasised in Kwoks Nature article. This is just to shake you up a bit and set the stage for a closer look at the work we do as PIOs.
- I’ll give you a quick and very much incomplete overview, loosely based on the index of THE handbook of my colleague at North Carolina State University, Matt Shipman. At my university there are around 2.500 scientists, and at some point or another they all will be working on something that could be newsworthy. Still: we don’t send out thousands of press releases per year. How come? Lack of time would be the main obvious reason, but another reason is that scientists simply don’t look at their work form that newsworthy point of view. As most of them don’t know how media works, they won’t see the media potential of what they are doing, and they simply won’t even consider going to us, or maybe to the media directly. So part of our job is finding those stories, simply walking around our university, and attend meetings, looking over shoulders, keeping our eye open for those great media opportunities. Those random, or maybe semi-organized, encounters are very important to us for finding those newsworthy gems. So you can see how the corona lockdown is seriously limiting our line of work here. It’s hard to build up that network of interesting scientists when you’re stuck in Zoom or Teams... Once that story is found, writing a press release about that subject and sending it out is one thing, but a lot of the time, PIOs reach out to a journalist directly to tip them about something newsworthy coming up > pitching the story. Most journalists will, by the way, then usually still ask for that press release… So, one way or another, writing that press release is a good thing to do no matter what. When we reach out to a journalist, we will usually make a deal about the timing of the news - bringing news first is somehow very important to them -, so if you want to make sure at least one media outlet runs with your story, you give them the scoop. And you send out your own general press release at the same time that news article is published. Certainly not before, as that will ruin your reputation in one go. Our institutes, and our own personal reputation, is something we do value. A large part of the work of getting scientists to tell their stories lies in helping them with a communication strategy and media advice and training. (I’ll skip the rest of the bullets, but I presume the overall picture is clear enough)
- PIOs should be able to give scientists advice on how to handle themselves before, during and after an interview, either with direct and personal media advice, or by organizing media training sessions. The one main point we bring across in our media training is that you should never ever give an interview unprepared. And you use that preparation time to think up the key message or messages that are relevant to the people who will be listening, watching or reading.
- Scientists have a natural tendency to over explain, to get lost in side tracks and nuance, thereby not making the job of the journalist any easier. By trying to limiting yourself to only two or three main messages, you increase the odds of those messages actually being covered in the news item. And another important thing: think up a couple of concrete examples to support your key messages, to make things nice and concrete.
- And we’d like to make sure that those key messages are in line with an overall communication strategy. We would like you to think about this before engaging in any communication activity. Not exactly rocket science, but these basics are still too often overlooked. In general, making scientists aware about such a strategy is something I personally like to do, by giving workshops and lunch lectures, for example on online personal branding.
- Of course, ‘the media’ is not the only way to go about your outreach, so in some way or another PIOs should also help with those other means of getting your message across to the audience of your choice. From simply hooking up one scientist to another within our own institute, or to policitians, to getting them on stage at festivals and other events. This quick sketch of our job is of course far from complete. And usually things work out great. But some of the time, the practical side of things looks a bit different. I’ll also give you a quick look into the inevitable frustrations of our job – and I’m pretty sure all of my fellow PIOs around the world will recognize most of the points coming up next…
- They don’t: already mentioned in my intro: media/communication is simply something not top of mind of scientists, which is why we usually go out to look for them. And when they do, it can be as an afterthought > oh, my paper has just been published, maybe I should notify my press officers? But we have to live by the rules of journalists, and when an article has already been published, it is considered old news to them. A weeks advance preparation time at minimum would be nice – we do have other stuff we’re doing. This happens quite a lot, people think this is the main service the communication department should supply, alongside the making of the flyers, thank you very much. But I have to admit that sometimes we’re happy people come around for this, because of the heads-up we get this way of that interesting event coming up! Yes, of course that high standard newspaper (or talkshow) is extremely important and well known and read among your peers, but is this where your actual target group hangs out? Besides, we can’t just ‘order’ a news article, it doesn’t work like that, laws of journalism and such like. That poster prize is very interesting for the local department newsletter, but I’m sorry, to be quite blunt: the rest of the world out there couldn’t care less. I’ve mentioned this already: this is exactly why we should help you in advance with those key messages Not much to be done about the headlines, I’m afraid. It’s not the journalist who makes the headlines, that’s done right at the end of the process by others, with a bit of clickbait in mind: you have to sell those newspapers, and get those clicks. All right, so much for the complaining, I hope to have given you a quick but useful glimpse into the world of us PIOs, the actual people behind the press releases. There’s quite a bit more we can do for you. Looking very much forward to your comments and questions!