4 - Content: varieties of research news story and how to treat them

Content

We have already said that the title and first par of the release must do two thing; the headline should attract attention, and the first par must do what all good first pars should do, name give you the nub of the story.

If you are a Science PR officer, never give in to academic objections to a good headline (remembering that what you know to be a good headline, most scientists will think is an awful headline). Just as the release is a matter between you, as PR officer, and the journalist – scientists get factual correction rights only – the headline is too important to be left to amateurs and only has the function of hooking the journalist's attention. For that reason it is entirely the PR writer’s prerogative in what is really a technical document, engineered by a skilled professional with the object of attaining coverage.

Angle

Science news releases are easier to write than, say, a release covering the publication of a volume of complex statistics. Science stories usually have a simple message – usually it’s "here’s something we just found out and it’s amazing". Science papers (for we are talking about releases covering individual pieces of research, chiefly) fall into several categories, only some of which can be made into news. Of those which might stand a chance of making news – perhaps two percent of the science industry’s total output, we have the following main categories.

Something you did know and care about is different

This is potentially good material. Scientists say the Loch Ness Monster myth might be due to small earthquakes along the Highland Boundary Fault, causing hydrates to become unstable and so cause surface disturbances and wake effects. This combines an exciting explanation with something everyone in the world has heard of. This story surfaced in 2001 at the Society’s Earth System Processes meeting in Edinburgh (note) and went global.

Something you didn’t know or care about is different

Of those potentially newsy looking papers, this is the worst sort, and the most numerous. Most stuff hasn’t been heard of. So you have to explain the “What” before you go on to explain how it has changed and why that is interesting. This is an uphill struggle. However the main problem occurs when such a paper has been written by a publicity-hungry academic who thinks it’s news because he or she has known about this for years and in his or her world, it is ground-breaking stuff. It is hard to convince such people that nobody else cares about it, and never will because the effort of explaining it will only ever elicit a shrug and a cry of “whatev” at best.

Something you thought was hot and sexy is really not so sexy after all

This is the way science goes. We imagine all kinds of interesting and exciting stuff that, on closer inspection, turns out to be less exciting than we thought on just a little bit of information. A good example - Mammoths did not die out as a result of a meteorite impact in the Younger Dryas after all. The theory was complete hogwash, based on misidentification of materials under the microscope during a period when impacts were used to try to explain everything.

Something that was already sexy is now more sexy

This ALMOST NEVER HAPPENS. Classic example - Dinosaurs were extinguished by a massive meteorite strike at the end of the Cretaceous. The Alvarez, Alvarez, Micel and Asaro paper of 1980 made a well-known subject even sexier. “Single cause” explanations favoured by physicists are of course easier for people to grasp, and do well in the media. The reality is probably that no single cause could be said to have been the dino-killer, but that many causes including major impact/s came together. It is debatable whether discoveries in the Deccan Traps, which are increasingly suggesting that the main eruptive phase was very short and dates right at the K-T boundary, constitutes a de-sexing of this story.

Scientists find some amazing stuff, and who’d have thought it (with pictures)?

Using faint trackways seen in low-angle light, palaeontologists have discovered a giant woodlouse two metres long whose body fossils still await discovery. With pictures, a personal story of the discovery of the traces, and perhaps a speculative reconstruction of the giant woodlouse, this would do well.

Scientists find some amazing stuff, and who’d have thought it (without pictures)?

Scientists discover platinum on a Scottish Island in potentially commercial concentrations. This might have rather unprepossessing illustrations, but it wouldn’t matter because the story itself would have intrinsic interest, and could be illustrated with moody pictures of Rum or wherever. Without-picture stories however need to have more news quality than those with.

As with all popular writing though, the way you present the story and the angle you take on it (the angle here consisting mostly of presentation in the headline and first par) can make all the difference.