On 5/5/12 10:27 AM, Bryan Bishop wrote:
On Sat, May 5, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Jonathan Cline <jncline@gmail.com> wrote:
Presumably a smart journalist does not need to attempt sensationalism to gain points.
Maybe we should just start pre-writing the articles for them. But there's not much to gain from that?
Definitely the best way to proceed. Ignore the noisy signals and amplify the desired source signal. In other words, write source articles for the media (aka press releases), and generate beneficial sound bites which journalists love to include - meanwhile, refuse to give any other statements. This is what marketing depts attempt to do in industry (most are not great at it). Apple has excelled at ignoring the media (refusing to comment to journalists - because comments are typically twisted and slanted by journalists) and instead they generate their own news.
Keep in mind that one of the primary purposes of outreach is to inform the public, aka get normal people talking about GMO and perhaps contributing. This group is a form of outreach, and contributes to the buzz which causes normal people to start talking and perhaps contributing. So don't get so worked up about bad press. In most cases it doesn't matter what the public talks about (mad/evil scientists, genius breakthroughs, etc) as long as they are talking about science. So, for example, create press about creating a zombie e. coli. If the negative-minded readers/journalists have nothing to talk about (and they won't talk about the good technology, because they want to be negative!), they'll invent a negative story -- so generate something for them to talk about instead, and it fills their negative-appetite temporarily -- meanwhile demonstrating their immature attitude.
Why journalists haven't pounced on the NASA story, I have no idea! NASA wants to teraform Mars with ancient, re-incarnated martian bacteria, which requires resurrecting unknown microbes on Earth first. Talk about Little Boy and Fat Man! Yet the journalists are chasing down a few incredibly smart kids working in their kitchen labs? Wow, strange priorities.
FYI the FBI's cake is still a lie.
## Jonathan Cline ## jcline@ieee.org ## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223 ########################
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