The press office
A press-officer friend recently asked me for pointers on how he could help journalists cover the research institute he now works at better. My response follows:
- Avoid the traditional press release format and use something like Axios’s. answer the key questions, nothing more. No self-respecting organisation is going to want to republish press releases. This way also saves you time.
- Make scientists from within the institute, especially women, members of minority groups and postdocs, available for comment – whether on their own research or on work by others. This means keeping them available (at certain times if need be) and displaying their contact information.
- If you’re going to publish blogs, it would be great if they’re on a CC BY or BY-SA (or even something a little more restrictive like CC BY NC ND) license so that interested news organisations can republish them. If you’re using the ND license, please ensure the copy is clear.
- Pictures are often an issue. If you could take some nice pics on your phone and post them on, say, the CC library on Flickr, that would be great. These can be pics of the institute, instruments, labs, important people, events, etc.
If you have inputs/comments for my friend and subscribe to this blog, simply reply to the email in your inbox containing this post and you’ll reach me.
