[Cosmo-media] how GazWyb got interested in our paper

[Boud Roukema]

Hi Andrzej, hi all,

On Tue, 25 May 2004, Andrzej Marecki wrote:

> > Apparently GW initially heard about the CSSK paper in PRD or, it
> > seems, a related paper in Nature - Staszek then redirected GW to a more
> > interesting paper - ours :).
>
> (One of) the PR(s) announcing acceptance of CSSK paper to PRL is here:
> http://www.aip.org/pnu/2004/split/685-1.html
>
> > This makes more sense in understanding how the dependent media work -
> > they generally only start from stuff which is officially distributed
> > from up above by the Politbiuro ;),
>
> Is AIP a Politbiuro? If not, then where is the Politbiuro that controls AIP?
> Whitehouse.gov? And who says that what AIP distributes is more "official"
> than what other parties do? (I'm just curious.)

I agree that using the term "Politbiuro" was not precise - that's why
there was the ";)".

>
> > But then they want to publish quickly, before the excitement from the
> > Politbiuro announcement becomes "old news", which is why there is not
> > much time to negotiate press releases where the people who really know
> > have time to prepare something and to insist on something like a link to
> >
> > http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kształt_Wszechświata .
> >
> > Anyway, given the circumstances, i think Staszek got a good result. :)
>
> Well, Jacek Kuroń, one of the leaders of Polish anti-communist movement in
> 70-ties (later Solidarność activist) said once: "Don't burn Politburo -
> establish your own." (Not exact quotation but never mind.) Even if we assume
> that AIP is a kinda of Politbiuro (?) and GW is inspired by them then
> why-oh-why didn't we write to GW on 25 Feb when the 1st draft of the paper
> was posted on astro-ph??! Why didn't we point their attention to both our
> result and the http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kształt_Wszechświata *then*?
> I'm pretty sure they would get interested.

i'm not convinced it would be that easy, though i agree that something
for improving communication between cosmologists and mainstream media
science journalists could be possible.

> Conclusion: IMHO, it's better to blame ourselves than "dark forces" that
> govern the world.

In the case of general reporting on cosmology, i agree that the "dark
forces" are most likely not as strong as for things like human rights,
where the Herman & Chomsky propaganda model is much more relevant:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model

For cosmology, the "ownership" and "funding" parameters probably have
very little effect on what a newspaper selects.

The "sourcing" parameter is essentially what you're saying: it's up to
us to provide press releases. However, a science journalist who keeps up
with the latest science *could* try to regularly read astro-ph abstracts,
and in that way would certainly have plenty of source material.

Well, something which might be feasible would be some sort of
invitation to the GW journalist (an open invitation to others as well
of course), to participate in the cosmo-media mailing list, or in one
of the Usenet discussion groups, and also to discuss this with the
other Polish cosmologists (Krakow, Szczecin - on the cosmo-pl at astro
list) to find some practical way where we can cooperate to promote
constructive, transparent, efficient, communication of cosmology...

As long as we're only discussing this on cosmo-media, people on the list
can't complain about being spammed :).

But personally i'd rather do it carefully so that if we do try
something it has a chance of turning into something which functions in
the long term, minimises politbiuro effects ;), and minimises
distraction from the fun stuff - the science itself.

pozdr
boud