[Editors] MIT Editors' Club Minutes, 1/18/2005

[Elizabeth Thomson]

MIT EDITORS' CLUB

*Meeting Notes from January 18, 2005*

Our first meeting of 2005 addressed a topic essential to 
communicators: How do you find story ideas? Below are examples 
offered by Editors at this meeting:

--Get out of the office!  Everyone agreed that this is key, whether 
you peruse lecture announcements posted along the hallways or make an 
appointment to get a tour of a lab you haven't been in for a while.

--Many folks send regular e-mail notes to faculty asking about news 
in their areas. Debbie Levey, editor of the newsletter for Civil and 
Environmental Engineering, does so every few months; the 
communications  folks from the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical 
Research send out quarterly queries. Debbie finds that it's most 
effective to give several examples of what she means by news: "Will 
you be presenting at a conference? Has a paper been accepted by a 
technical journal? Have you done (or are you planning) something 
interesting within the MIT community?" As an example of the latter, 
she referred to one professor's secretary who also happens to be an 
artist and gives lectures to that end that complement the prof's 
design class.

--Network!  Keep in touch with administrative officers and other good 
resources for story ideas. I personally find that Editors' Club folks 
(YOU) are invaluable.

--Do electronic searches for media stories about your lab/department, 
or the university as a whole.  Jay Chrepta, the new communications 
officer for the Department of Mechanical Engineering, wrote that he's 
had great luck with but Google News (news.google.com) and Yahoo News 
(news.yahoo.com). Both have email alerts for specific search 
criteria. Also: try LexisNexis, which is free for MIT folks through 
the Libraries (http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe).

--Many of the major technical journals such as Nature and Science 
alert the News Office (me) if an MIT scientist is publishing in the 
following week's issue. Although a week is barely enough time to 
write a news release, get it reviewed by the scientist, AND 
potentially get photos taken, it's better than no advance notice at 
all. The best of all worlds? When a scientist (or member of Editors' 
Club! Hint! Hint!) calls to tell me that a paper has just been 
ACCEPTED by a given journal. That usually means that the article 
itself won't be out for 3-4 months, which gives plenty of time to 
prepare a press release (and photos) about the work.

*Next Meetings*
Following are the dates for MIT Editors' Club meetings through June. 
All meetings will be in the News Office (11-400) from 12-1.

Wednesday, FEBRUARY 23

Monday, MARCH 14

Thursday, APRIL 21

Tuesday, MAY 10

Thursday, JUNE 16


Cheers!

Elizabeth

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Elizabeth A. Thomson
Assistant Director, Science & Engineering News
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
News Office, Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA  02139-4307
617-258-5402 (ph); 617-258-8762 (fax)
<thomson at mit.edu>

<http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www>
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