NPR's All Things Considered: Today's Episode in the Series, "The Human Edge"

[Scott F. Kiesling]

That's how my dude article got so much press. I had a connection to
the press office here at Pitt from publicizing the 'Pittsburghese'
work, and she had asked if I was working on anything else interesting.
I told her I thought folks might find the dude stuff interesting, and 
she told AP. 

So Bruce is right, tell your press office people what you are working on!

SFK

On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 02:29:54PM -0400, Bruce Mannheim wrote:
> From: Bruce Mannheim <mannheim at UMICH.EDU>
> Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:29:54 -0400
> To: "LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG"
>  <LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
> Subject: Re: [LINGANTH] NPR's All Things Considered: Today's Episode in
>  the
>  Series, "The Human Edge"

> Dear all,
> My feeling is that we are perhaps overly idealizing how mass media science
> news works.  As I understand it, many mass media reports draw on university
> press releases.  A scholar might talk to (or work with) a university public
> relations staffer who will write a release with the "germ" of the story
> written down for the public media.  A media outlet, often local draws on it
> for a story that is often not much longer than the original release, and
> that will be in turn picked up by a national wire service.  Press releases
> from publishers work the same way.  So if we are to be proactive about this,
> the place to start is with your own research, and the person to talk to is
> your university press officer (whatever their title might be).  If we don't
> speak for ourselves others will speak for us.

> Regards,

> Bruce
-- 
Scott F. Kiesling, PhD

Associate Professor 
Department of Linguistics
University of Pittsburgh, 2816 CL
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
http://www.linguistics.pitt.edu
Office: +1 412-624-5916