Public relations, the Media and astronomy in Ireland

When we try to promote Astronomy to the public through the Radio/Television we are met with a brick wall here in Ireland, we get comments like we only deal with "Astronomy......." well you know the rest of that sentence.
Every time there is an Astronomy related event for example Hale Bopp, Solar eclipses, Lunar eclipse, the Perseids/Leonids meteor shower it is the same.
It's always the same face/voice and more power to him, but what worries me is that other groups especially local non profit making Astronomy clubs, IFAS, The Irish Astronomical Society or The Irish Astronomical Association never seem to get a word in.
We have to win the public relations battle and inform the public about ourselves
Is it possible that none of our groups ever tried to contact the media to publicize an event in the past, I doubt it, 96FM in Cork recently informed one of the local astronomers that they only broadcasted information received from "the one and only" you know who!
I wonder what will be the result on 16 or 17th November if Radio Stations and Rte as well as the media are given information about the up and coming Leonid meteor shower which should be as good as an average Perseids
Should we not have a PRO to advance our cause?
Charles

hi Charles,

about 10-seconds of totality here in Dublin and nowt after that!

good points about the media dealings. I think though that by chipping away people will build local media contacts. One of the guys in Clare FM has asked me keep him up to date on any interesting stuff and does a 2 or 3 minute slot with me occasionally.

the big thing with press releases to the media is that it's hard to know whether they will be used and if so, will it be sensationalised. Certainly I've been shocked by some of the wild pronouncements in the media in the past about the visibility of this, that or t'other.

a PRO would need to be often available at the drop of a hat. Far better I think to cultivate a contact and keep in regular touch with them. As well, offering clear, concise and accurate information is a must. Screaming headlines on a fax often attract attention but your stuff should be able to convey the item in the first two sentences -- media people are too busy to read beyond that.

what IFAS could look at is to appoint maybe a few people to compile press-releases that could be placed on the newsgroup and downloadable by local clubs to feed to media.

Al White has asked me for the list of media people I know but it's not just radio, TV etc. . . . Forfas, on www.science.ie , have an events section that you can register info on and they are very receptive of info on science topics. They put up an article I wrote on the lunar eclipse. The science.ie site also issues a monthly e-mail newsletter highlighting stuff. They also promoted the Whirlpool Star Party on their site using stuff I sent them.

the Association of Science Teachers of Ireland is another angle as is Mary Mulvihill's monthly e-mail newsletter. Mary has also promoted various items for me through her contacts. Local schools, a monthly skynotes poster tacked up in local libraries, etc. are also ideas. Time, unfortunately, is the big problem when it's not a fulltime job for us.

best of luck,

John F.
SDAS

When we try to promote Astronomy to the public through the Radio/Television we are met with a brick wall here in Ireland, we get comments like we only deal with "Astronomy......." well you know the rest of that sentence.

The groups here have all tried to contact TV and radio stations and have always got this response? - I find that hard to believe. Who here, for example, tried to contact their local radio station to talk about the Lunar Eclipse? One weakness of A&S Ltd. is they only have one 'expert'. There must be hundreds of media/publicity channels in Ireland - He can't be everywhere at once!

A strength of IFAS is that it had local club representation at a lot of locations across Ireland. A&S Ltd. are centralised in Dublin. I'm sure the local newspapers/radio stations would be much happier to talk to a local club representative rather than waiting in line for the A&S Ltd. 'expert'

In fact, I have been contacted directly by radio stations for interviews in the past (not astronomy related), but in each case they contacted me. I'm sure the researcher at, say Lite FM, would be delighted if a representative from IFAS (or one of the Dublin clubs) had contacted them on Friday morning to talk about the Lunar Eclipse on the Scott Williams show. And these researchers, once they have you as a contact, tend to contact you again in the future.

Scott Williams always mentioned my website address at least 3/4 times before/during/after the interview (this was a non-astro website)

I wonder what will be the result on 16 or 17th November if Radio Stations and Rte as well as the media are given information about the up and coming Leonid meteor shower which should be as good as an average Perseids
Should we not have a PRO to advance our cause?

The A&S Ltd. marketing campaign is fairly transparent, and certainly wouldn't need a dedicated PRO to achieve something like that. We're not talking major product launch or something here. Just a bit of publicity to start the ball rolling. Think about it, How does A&S Ltd. publicise itself? A few emails to the right newspapers, email mailshots to their subscribers, and a few well-placed radio/TV interviews to tell everyone about the phoenix park star parties. That's about it. There is no secret or magic involved.

And if nobody else wants to do it, I will.

John.

Hi,

I've started putting together a media contact list for ILPAC, its very sparse at the moment but I should have more time closer to christmas to get a more comprehensive list together. Please, send me any details of local media contacts that we could send scientific releases to, thanks to those who have already btw. I'd be happy to distribute the list among the member clubs when its got a useful number of contacts.

It's always the same face/voice and more power to him, but what worries me is that other groups especially local non profit making Astronomy clubs, IFAS, The Irish Astronomical Society or The Irish Astronomical Association never seem to get a word in.
.....
Should we not have a PRO to advance our cause?

The IAA does get in, particularly on the Northern radio and UTV. I know some people here were in touch with local and national media about the aurora, not sure if anyone got mentioned though!

I don't know if a PRO for the IFAS is the way to go either, the IFAS is a fairly nebulous group that you cant join, has no meetings etc. [I'm not faulting the IFAS for that, its meant to be an umberella group not another national club]. Personally, i think having a dedicated PRO for the IAS, would be part of the way to go. The IAS is the other National Astronomy Club, so that seems a good group to talk to national media. Perhaps the IAS already has this officer, in which case they may just need to be more vocal

Locally, the member clubs can talk to their local media, who I'm sure would much rather have a local person on the radio to talk.

Taking on the marketing machine of A&S is not something IFAS/IAS realistically can do, and arguably is not something we want to do, AI/A&S despite their organisation and motives have got more people looking up at night that would otherwise have done so (ok they probably have turned a few people off too!). They do it full time as their job. The best that can be achieved on a national level is to have journalists get releases from the IAS and AI and hope they do a bit of journalism with their multiple sources.

I've been a member on and off of AI/A&S for several years, and the one thing they are hopless at is organising at a local level. Time and time again I heard of AI opeing a local branch somewhere and it fading out. The speciality of the IFAS clubs is at the local level, and having those clubs promote astronomy locally is probably the best way to go.

This way is beneficial to everyone, if the IAS was to get the national media saying `to find out about your local astronomy club go to www.irishastronomy.org ` then all clubs benefit.

Just my 2c !

Cheers,
~Al

The A&S Ltd. marketing campaign is fairly transparent, and certainly wouldn't need a dedicated PRO to achieve something like that. We're not talking major product launch or something here.

It would be better though to just have one person to contact rather than getting news for multiple people.

Just a bit of publicity to start the ball rolling. Think about it, How does A&S Ltd. publicise itself? A few emails to the right newspapers, email mailshots to their subscribers, and a few well-placed radio/TV interviews to tell everyone about the phoenix park star parties. That's about it. There is no secret or magic involved.

Thats exactly what I've started doing, a few emails and faxes. ILPAC will properly start promoting itself over the next few months when myself and Colm have a bit of time to spare!

Cheers,
~Al

if the IAS was to get the national media saying `to find out about your local astronomy club go to www.irishastronomy.org ` then all clubs benefit.

Just to let you know, after the mars watch in the phoenix park, I did a good few internet searches for astronomy in Ireland. After hours of searching (different search engines, many different search terms) all I came up with was AI and Dunsink Observatory. As far as I could see that was it for astronomy in Ireland. I thought AI was a club and it was the national astronomy club for Ireland. It was only a few weeks later when Jhonan set up his website and put up his links that I realised IFAS, IAA and IAS existed. I suppose what I'm trying to say is, raising your search engine ratings might be as beneficial as getting radio time.