[Editors] MIT Editors' Club Minutes, 1/22/2007

[Elizabeth Thomson]

MIT EDITORS' CLUB

*Meeting Notes from January 22, 2007*

At Monday's meeting we discussed everything from News Office 
publicity of a breaking MIT story on geothermal energy to key 
resources for finding stories about MIT in the news. Let the New Year 
begin!

*Geothermal Report*

Over the last few days you may have read in the news about a major 
report on geothermal energy as a key US energy source. The 
international panel that prepared the report, released Monday, was 
led by Professor Jeff Tester of MIT.

Here's the inside scoop behind how the News Office helped publicize the report.

I learned about the report last month (Tester called me in advance! 
Yay!), which gave us TIME to develop a public relations plan. First, 
I coordinated writing a press release (several drafts, in this case), 
and asked our photographer, Donna Coveney, to get a picture of 
Tester. Then, with these background materials in hand (plus 15 hard 
copies of the 70-page summary of the report and CDs containing the 
full 400+ pages), my colleague Patti Richards went to work.

Last week Patti in turn identified, then called, a dozen or so of the 
nation's top energy reporters, told them about the report, and 
fed-exed them the materials (which were embargoed until this past 
Monday). She also worked with Tester's office to book interviews.

And then.....we waited.

Monday the stories started to pour in (that day we also sent the 
press release to our full mailing list). The notable exception? The 
New York Times. But in a lovely piece of timing, Patti briefly 
interrupted our Editors' Club meeting to say that the Times was 
indeed doing the story...it would be in the next day's issue 
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/business/23thermal.html?ref=science.

A final quick note: Susan Curran, who runs the MIT homepage 
"spotlight," ran the story as the spotlight Monday, complete with an 
awesome graphic. We'd alerted her to the story in advance, too.

*Finding Stories*

Every time Robyn Fizz, editor of the i/s newsletter, attends this 
meeting, we always learn some Useful Stuff. This time, Robyn told us 
about a talk later that afternoon at the Libraries on toolbars and 
tips for doing web searches. I meant to get these minutes written up 
on Monday in time to alert ya'll to the talk, but....oh well.

Just bringing up the subject of searches led to some Editors talking 
about their favorite tools. For example, Robyn and Jen Carr, a 
postdoc in civil and environmental engineering with an interest in 
science writing, told us about google scholar. This tool allows you 
to access about 500 times more information on a specific topic than 
its famous parent, including journal articles and proprietary 
information. For everything you need to know about google scholar, go 
to http://libraries.mit.edu/help/google-scholar/.

The News Office also uses google to search for MIT stories in the 
news. Simply go to "Google News" at 
http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=wn&q=, 
and do a search for "Massachusetts Institute of Technology" OR MIT

You can also narrow the field to find stories on a particular subject 
by adding another search criterion, such as

"Massachusetts Institute of Technology" OR MIT AND Tester

That last search brought up 79 news stories on the geothermal study.

*Tiger Story*

I actually didn't share this story in Editors' Club, but a member to 
whom I sent it earlier in the day suggested that I append it to these 
minutes. It's about a phone call I got last Friday.

>This afternoon I returned a call on my voicemail from a woman 
>interested in MIT "nanotech work."
>
>When she answered the phone and I identified myself, she transferred 
>me to her husband. He asked whether MIT needed any volunteers to 
>test our new nanoparticles for treating cancer 
>(http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/prostate.html).
>
>"Oh, I'm sorry, sir," I said. "That work isn't yet ready for use in humans."
>
>"Oh, I don't mean for me," he said. "We've got a tiger we'd like to enroll."
>
>Silence on my end, then: "Oh, I'm sorry, sir. That work isn't yet 
>ready for use in animals, either."

*Next Meetings*
-- 
Below are the dates for the remaining MIT Editors Club Spring 2007 
meetings. All
meetings are held in the News Office (11-400) from 12-1 PM. Feel free
to bring a lunch.

Wednesday, February 14

Tuesday, March 20 (with guest Kirk Kolenbrander, Vice President for
Institute Affairs and Secretary of the MIT Corporation)

Thursday, April 19

Monday, May 21

Friday, June 22

Cheers!

Elizabeth

================================
Elizabeth A. Thomson
Senior Science and Engineering Editor
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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