Media Marketing Communications

As newspaper and magazine newsrooms clear out, people who depended on getting coverage from those reporters are searching for alternatives. One option is to simply hire the reporters themselves. The Los Angeles Kings hockey team has hired former Los Angeles Daily News reporter Rich Hammond, and Major League Baseball has hired a reporter to cover every team for MLB.com (see NYT story).

Another approach is to create your own publication. That’s what 40 research universities in the U.S. (Stanford, Princeton, U of M) have done. Frustrated by the lack of science coverage, they are collaborating on an online publication called Futurity. Since March Futurity has published over 500 stories covering health, medicine, science, design, earth, the environment, culture and society.

Many of the articles are based on peer-reviewed papers published in academic journals, so the PR departments basically just have to translate the scientific jargon into language everyone can understand. Futurity only publishes papers that will be relevant to a general audience with an interest in science, so there is no slogging through inside-baseball science. The writing is sharp, very accessible, and not so different from what you would read in a typical newspaper.

Jenny Leonard, a writer/editor with the University of Rochester’s communications department is Futurity’s editor. She said that concerns about how PR people can provide “fair and balanced” coverage miss the point of Futurity.

“Futurity was not designed to be a replacement for science reporting by journalists,” said Leonard. “Most of the universities involved would rather turn the clock back and have science reporting flourishing and independent reporters covering their stories. Futurity was conceived not as a replacement for journalism, but as a way for universities to react to the current void.”

Tech and biotech companies are facing a similar situation as technology and science trades lose reporters and the remaining print editions continue to thin. Companies will soon have little choice but to create their own media. And once the trades are online I think the playing field between “corporate journalism” and the journalism we see in trades will level considerably in terms of its ability to pull readers. PR, marcom, online community, social media and customer reference functions will merge and companies will have to find that line between promoting their own products and producing credible content that people will read.

Podcast interview guide:
0:48 — Q: How did Futurity get started?.
2:22 – Q: How many visitors to site?
3:45 – Q: How do you provide “fair and balanced” coverage?
5:30 – Q: What are guidelines for publishing criticism of any of these papers?
7:09 – Q: Are the researchers joining in the online conversation?
8:18 – Q: How many stories have you produced?
9:08 – Q: What has the reaction been from reporters and are you getting more press pickup?

 

 Futurity interview with Jenny Leonard [10:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download