Issues around research and the media

AlphaGalileo Foundation
1. AlphaGalileo Foundation delivers research news – releases, event details, publication
information, multimedia items – to a moderated media audience from around the world,
public relations staff and interested lay audiences.
2. The service was created at the suggestion of journalists and public relation staff in the
UK and across Europe who asked for a single Internet portal carrying reputable research
news. The service does not replace university or other web site or news services, but
provides a single site that disseminates its content by email alert, RSS feed and the social
web to journalists who have asked to be kept up to date with specific areas of research.
3. The service is used by all the major European research bodies, CERN, ESA, ESO, EMBL,
Max Plank, CNRS, the European Commission, Elsevier, etc as well as leading UK research
bodies, including Imperial College, University of Warwick, ESRC, London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, etc.
4. The Foundation is a not–for–profit company limited by guarantee. The service is
operated as a 10 nation collaboration.
5. The Foundation suggests that the working group should consider the following topics.

Wider access to research news

6. AlphaGalileo was created to make more research news available to the media.
Discussions on the media and research often focus on quality issues and whilst the quality
of coverage is important so is putting the widest range of news before the media and
encouraging the entire research community to be proactive with the media.
7. We believe that continuing action is required in supporting research bodies in reaching
media they do not normally address; and supporting public relations staff whose primary
role is to promote their employer and who sometimes lack the confidence to engage with
research rather than educational or local media.
8. The Foundation recommends that the working group consider what is required to make
more news available including the relationship between research groups and public
relations staff within institutions. The joint AlphaGalileo Foundation and European
Commission project 'Communiqué' made recommendations in this area. The report is
available from AlphaGalileo – AlphaGalileo Foundation, 'Implementing a European research
media service: Recommendations of the Communiqué initiative following the consultation
phase', 2006

News presentation
9. The significance of the way that news is presented and the way the dialogue between
the research community and the media is managed by research institutions continues to be
critical. The Foundation believes that it should be approached in a way that encourages
communication rather than applying rules that tend to reduce news output.
10. The Social Issues Research Centre's work in the MESSENGER project is a useful source
on the way news is presented to the media and the pitfalls to be avoided. A particular
concern was the misuse of statistics. The report is available on line at
<http://www.sirc.org/messenger/index.html>

Criticism of the media

11. Criticism of the way research news is covered by media should avoid the danger of
believing that the media is the servant of research. That research is of such over–riding
importance that it should be treated differently and with deference by the media, is the
default view for many researchers. It is dangerous viewpoint and, it could be argued, has
contributed to editors suspicion that specialist journalists might be unable to interpret
research news for their viewers or readers in terms that were not just understandable but
relevant to them.
12. The need for an independent media should underpin the Group's work.

Communication without the mediation of the media

13. Whilst the media remain a potent force in communicating with the entire range of
audiences appropriate to research public relations, the growing use of new media by
interested lay audiences to understand research is becoming more significant. The
requirements that this imposes on the research community, technology and the traditional
media are little understood.

Lessons from beyond Britain

14. The working group should consider whether the British experience of media coverage
could be informed by investigating research–media relationships elsewhere in Europe. The
Foundation's experience of the media research relationships in France, Germany and Spain
suggests that they would provide illuminating contrasts with Britain.

Peter Green
AlphaGalileo Foundation

10 August 2009