External Media

Sharing your research and scholarship with external media can be daunting. How much should you prepare? What tone should you have when discussing your research? How much control do you have over how you are quoted? Will your message be taken out of context?

Unlike writing an article about your research for The Conversation, promoting your research via radio, TV news, and other external media places most of the control into the hands of the editors, reporters and producers of those venues.

Need help promoting your scholarship?

The good news is that Boise State’s Office of Communications and Marketing is here to help you with everything from writing a press release to preparing for a TV interview. Getting in touch early with Mike Sharp, the Director of Media Relations, will help you make a game plan about how to communicate about your work, what to expect during an interview and much more.

Thinking about writing a press release? Contact the Director of Media Relations at least two weeks before you would like a press release to be published about your scholarship. Not every story requires a press release, and many stories may benefit more from targeted media contact by the director.

Essential Reading

We also highly recommend reading “How to work with your institution’s press office to maximize the reach of your work” published in the journal Nature by Roberta Kwok. Here are a few highlights:

• After the press release is issued, be available for interviews for about one week.
• Return journalists’ calls and e-mails promptly. Reporters often face extremely tight deadlines.”
• Prepare a few key points. Put your pitch-writing skills to practice.
• Be conversational — don’t be afraid to show a human side and tell anecdotes.
• Assume that everything you say can be published. There is no such thing as ‘off the record.’
• Most journalists will not send you a draft of the article to look over. However, researchers can offer to answer fact-checking questions.
• If an article contains an error or sensationalizes the findings, ask for a correction, write a letter to the editor, or respond on social media and tag the journalist.

We also recommend “On the Record” published in Nature by Amber Dance. This piece describes the value of working with external media, and how to manage your expectations and how to prepare for media interviews.