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Surviving a Media Onslaught

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By Chris Woolston

For one day last April, Marc Hedrick's lab was the news-media center of Los Angeles. While TV crews from ABC, CBS, and NBC jockeyed for camera angles and collected sound bites, reporters from all over the country kept the phone constantly ringing.

For Mr. Hedrick, an associate professor of pediatrics and surgery at the University of California at Los Angeles, the road to fame started with an article he co-wrote in the April issue of Tissue Engineering. But his "big break" was the accompanying news release. The first sentence alone had press-stopping power: "Scientists at UCLA and the University of Pittsburgh have isolated fat as the first practical, plentiful, and economic source of stem cells."

Stem cells and fat -- for journalists, it was a dream combination. The networks could explore thorny ethical issues, explain cutting-edge research, AND run their stock footage of huge bellies at the local mall. In addition to giving interviews to every major television network, Mr. Hedrick fielded calls from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times of London, the Associated Press, National Public Radio, and practically every news outlet in Los Angeles. "There was no physical way I could respond to all of the requests," he says. "I had to perform triage."

Few scientists ever find themselves in such a firestorm. But whether they study galaxies or daphnia, there's a good chance they will eventually catch the attention of at least one reporter. That's not a bad thing: Media coverage can raise the profile of scientists, boost their grant support, and even speed the pace of scientific discovery. Of course, reporters can also be obtrusive, misguided, and, worst of all, flat-out wrong.

What kind of coverage will greet your next big discovery?

If you see anything remotely newsworthy in your future, you should learn how to get the most out of the media. With the right approach, your 15 minutes of fame (broken into roughly 100 nine-second sound bites) can brighten your entire career.

Power of the Press

Some scientists would rather spend a day in a fume hood than a few moments with a reporter, but most see the value of the news media, says Dennis Meredith, a veteran public-information officer at Duke University. "Every scientist understands that funding is a political process," he says. "If you want your research funded, you have to talk about it."

And when a scientist talks about research, other scientists listen. In fact, a television spot or newspaper story can help build scientific partnerships. In recent months, Mr. Hedrick has started collaborating with several obesity and fat-cell specialists who saw articles about him in the popular news media. None of them were regular subscribers to Tissue Engineering.

There's another reason to get the word out: Grabbing headlines can help you rack up citations. A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1991 showed just how valuable a little publicity can be. The study focused on articles from the journal that were featured in The New York Times in the summer of 1978, a period when the newspaper was on strike. (Reporters did their jobs as usual to produce a "paper of record," but the papers were never distributed.) For the sake of comparison, the researchers also looked at every article from the journal that the Times covered in 1979.

As it turned out, the summer of 1978 was a bad time to make a medical breakthrough. Research articles covered during the strike collected far fewer citations over the next decade than articles published in the "real" Times.

Preparing for the Spotlight

Even if you're eager to publicize your work, it's natural to feel uneasy in the spotlight. Scientists worry about being misquoted and misunderstood. Most of all, they don't want to seem boastful. "My biggest concern was that someone would overstate the significance of our findings," Mr. Hedrick says. "When you get under the camera and under the lights, things can come out different than you mean them to."

Researchers can protect themselves -- and their reputations -- with a little preparation, Mr. Meredith says. For one thing, it always helps to give the reporter a press release that clearly summarizes the main points of the story. Most scientists also need to spend some time polishing their presentation. "They often don't realize that the average sound bite is only nine seconds," he says. "They have to practice saying what they are going to say in nine seconds."

When working with TV crews, scientists must remember to stay lively, Mr. Meredith says. "If they speak in a monotone voice, it won't come across well," he says. They should project their voices, gesture broadly, and most of all, stay loose in front of the camera. If they feel nervous, they should do a few local interviews before sitting on the couch at Good Morning America, he says.

No matter whom they talk to, scientists should learn to speak clearly, slowly, and in terms the average person can understand. "That's the biggest problem for scientists: They believe everyone knows what reverse transcriptase is," Mr. Meredith says. (Mr. Hedrick, for one, never had trouble using simple words. "I have two young kids, and I'm from Oklahoma," he says. "My problem is finding big words.")

Researchers looking for more tips should read Mr. Meredith's Communicating Science News, a valuable guide for anyone who needs to explain complex topics to the news media. Free online copies are available at the Web site of the National Association of Science Writers. A print version of the guide is available through the Web site for $8.

If you're a scientist at a larger university, you may also have the chance to go through an intensive media-training program offered on the campus. Such programs, which often include mock interviews, can be especially helpful for researchers who spend a lot of time on television or who have to discuss potentially controversial subjects, Mr. Meredith says. However, there's such a thing as being TOO prepared. "Some scientists get over-trained," he says. "You see them waving their hands, and it's too artificial."

For print and radio reporters, about the least-appealing source is a scientist who "gestures broadly" and speaks in blurbs. Reporters can easily spot the scientists who have had a little too much media training, says Joe Palca, a science correspondent for National Public Radio. "They tend to speak in sound bites," he says. (While well-suited for television, sound bites fall short during lengthy, in-depth radio programs.) Mr. Palca prefers scientists who speak with passion, precision, and great detail. "They should understand that their only audience is the science writer, not the general public. The science writer is the expert at clearly expressing complex ideas. [Scientists] can get twisted up trying to dumb down their topic."

Now that the dust from the media stampede has mostly settled, Mr. Hedrick has enjoyed a chance to reflect. For the most part, the coverage his story received was fair and accurate, he says. It was also just a little over the top: "The story probably got more press than it deserved. Other people are doing better research but don't get half the publicity." Still, if NBC, CBS, or ABC ever calls again, he'll happily welcome them into his lab. He just hopes that next time they don't all arrive on the same day.