Work with the media

It mostly happens after hours

Dr Claire Flanagan
University of the Witwatersrand Planetarium, Johannesburg, South Africa

My media tips based on many years of working with the Johannesburg media:

• Be accessible! Make sure your mobile phone number is available to them (mine is on the after-hours voice message on our office phone).

• The media want something unique - the local angle, the personal story - otherwise they could just re-print press releases.

• Put high-resolution, good-looking visuals on your website so media can get at them after-hours; I can't tell you how many local astronomy stories have not got into our shows because there are no visuals, or the visuals are too low-resolution;

• Be prepared to help media outside of normal office hours - they don't keep normal office hours. One of our best successes was local television news following up a "strange sight" in the sky over the weekend; they called our mobile number; I managed to contact the satellite re-entry people (who also work unusual hours); they sent a camera crew round to the Planetarium on a Sunday, and we got prime-time news coverage as a result!

• Offer (very firmly) to proof-read anything technical, especially for the print media - we're often too rushed to do this, but it can be disastrous. Just a couple of weeks ago I talked to a print journalist about an event (Venus near the Moon) that is relatively common - a fact I'd stressed in an e-mail and over the phone. The resulting article quoted "Dr Flanagan of the Planetarium says this is extremely rare!" The best approach is to say something like: if you e-mail it to me, then call on my cell to tell me you've e-mailed it, then I promise I will proof-read JUST THE TECHNICAL DETAILS (you can't edit any opinion they want to publish), and I promise I will send you any comments, and I will only correct technical inaccuracies, and I will do this within 30 seconds". The problem is they are on deadline, always working late, always rushing on to the next story, and they do not want you to hold them up.

• Thank and compliment the media if they publish anything from you.