Nullius in verba

When asked if I "would be able" to spend a few days in the press office at the Royal Society, it didn't take long to say yes.  I was there from 10 – 12 October.

Duke of York's Column, just outside.

Monday - in contrast to rather unexciting Holborn where my Times Higher placement was, the Royal Society occupies part of the impressive white stuccoed Carlton House Terrace above The Mall, though it is currently shrouded in scaffolding. This part of London is the heart of power and ancient institutions - Whitehall, Westminster, the Royal Academy, the Royal Institution, Buckingham and St James' Palaces, the Institute of Directors and the National Gallery are all within a short walk, and the Royal Academy of Engineering occupies another part of the terrace. The RS motto is nullius in verba which roughly translates as 'take nobody's word for it' - in other words a call for good science, which the press office communicates to a wider world.

The place is heavy with history and marble, and has on display many valuable paintings, objects (such as Newton's Mark II wooden refracting telescope) and even more valuable archives - the RS celebrated its 350 year anniversary last year, founded by Charles II in 1660.

Monday morning - after a briefing from Bill Hartnett who heads the press office, and meeting other staff, we went up to the library where James Hansen, an academic from  New York, was giving a press briefing on what the geological climate record can tell us about current and future man-made climate change. The briefing was linked to a two day conference at the RS on climates of the past. The science was quite complicated, about levels of carbon dioxide forcing, long and short term feedback loops and recent evidence of global warming despite the cooling effects of the 1998 El Nino. But somehow the handful of journalists steered the questioning onto energy supply and nuclear power - a good example of the press looking for a 'story', though I don't yet know what they'll do with the briefing, if anything. Today's news is dominated by a government minister on the ropes (Liam Fox), which is of far more interest than the future of the planet. (See story)

If the journalists at Times Higher are the consumers of stories to sell on to their readership, the press office at the RS is a producer of stories mined from the scholarly activities of its fellows, its science policy team and academic journal authors.

On Tuesday I finished off an online article about a Royal Society Proceedings B paper on the effects of the contraceptive Pill on choice of partner (just the sort of thing the press/public should find interesting - abstract here), but the big event of the day was preparation for a press conference on an RS report being launched on Thursday 'Fuel cycle stewardship in a nuclearrenaissance'.. As they only do a few big policy reports each year, and nuclear power is a hot topic post Fukushima, it was important to get it right. 

Preparation was with Professor Roger Cashmore FRS (who chaired the working group) and Dr Christine Brown, a nuclear industry expert, who would be facing the press on Wednesday (reporting is embargoed until 00:001 hrs on Thursday morning, so the press can file their reports for Thursday). Unfortunately, an entirely separate report by Dr Mike Weightman for DECC, accompanied by a statement from Chris Huhne (also, confusingly, to speak at the RS report launch), came out today on safety of UK nuclear plants following Fukushima.

For Colin ♥ Damian

Although the reports cover quite different areas with only a small overlap, it's unlikely the press will cover both stories within a week, and DECC, by chance, came first. The exercise took four hours in total, though this did include a very pleasant lunch in the basement members'/staff dining room. There was a lot of input from both the press office and the policy department. I certainly learnt a lot about nuclear fuel, and the important distinction between waste and spent fuel which can be reused in the newer generation of thermal light water reactors.

Wednesday morning - gratifying that my online piece about the Pill has possibly lead to the research paper being read and covered by at least nine national and regional papers this morning, and the BBC website. Then up to the library again for the press briefing, where the panel faced some tough questioning about the UK's nuclear industry record and the July closure of the Sellafield MOX plant, although the report is looking at the global industry into the future and what to do with existing stocks of plutonium (The Independent story). In the afternoon I got a chance to talk to Nick Green, head of projects in the RS Science Policy Centre. Nick explained how his team worked with Fellows and others to produce policy reports on a wide range of issues with important implications for the future - the nuclear fuel cycle report being one. Then back to the office to write a short online article on disgust (yes disgust) - the Philosophical Transactions B has a themed issue on this area. Nine dense pages of text were condensed down to about 220 words; disgust is an evolutionary trait which helps prevent disease, but has some interesting links to psychological disorders, apparently. All too soon, as they say, it was time to leave my last press placement and head home to Rutland.

Replica of Ariel 1

Pictures from the 2nd floor atrium - the painting is an original by Damian Hirst. The central circle is a little space vehicle, and the caption scrawled in pencil in the corner reads  For Colin ♥ Damian / Rome wasn't built in a day. It refers to the ill-fated Beagle 2 mission, lead by Professor Colin Pillinger FRS, which failed to make a successful landing on Mars on Christmas Day 2003. The satellite is a replica of Ariel 1, the first UK satellite which was launched for scientific purposes in 1962, which hangs from the ceiling.

From our Bradford correspondent

At 2am on Friday morning in a rather seedy Bradford nightclub, my part in the 2011 British Science Festival, and my media placement, came to an end. The festival staff and media fellows had invaded the place and virtually monopolised the dance floor, after a very enjoyable festival dinner in the grand Midland Hotel – they were partying hard after many months of hard work. (Already, the plans are well underway for the 2012 festival which will be in Aberdeen.)

The Green where we stayed

The festival began in earnest for the media at 7.30 on Monday morning, when science journalists assembled in the press centre at Student Central on the Bradford University campus – most clustered with their laptops around three sets of desks in one room, but the BBC had their own room. The Times, Guardian, Mail, Telegraph, Irish Times, Mirror, Independent, Press Association, Financial Times, Australia Broadcast Corporation, BBC and the Naked Scientist had sent people, plus eight media fellows (one unfortunately unable to come). With pastries, tea and coffee on tap, all we needed were some stories. The first press conference was at 8.00, and continued hourly until early afternoon. Although there were written press releases, useful for fact checking and getting names right, most of the interesting stuff came from the journalists’ questions.

Bradford Town Hall

And so the daily pattern became established. As the Times Higher does not do stories purely about science findings, I spent most of my time working in tandem with Martin Ince, who was reporting for the British Science Association online news. We alternated press conferences and wrote up stories in between. By coincidence, Martin had worked for Times Higher becoming deputy editor, until he left a few years ago. The seasoned journalists were mostly on their own, so worked relentlessly attending press conferences, doing a few interviews and writing up.

read the stories here

The papers might be very competitive, but ‘press pack’ is a good description - the journalists work almost as a team, discussing whether stories are worthwhile, what angle to take, the scientific details. It was explained to me that they all have a common enemy, the hungry news desk which must be fed, and that they tend to ‘follow the leader’ and file the same stories because they don’t want to be accused of missing something if it appears in a rival publication. I really can’t remember what the first press conference was about; after writing up a story, one’s memory seems to be wiped clean ready for the next one. A lot of stories make it to online news, but are squeezed out from the printed edition by other news; one major daily had two people in Bradford plus a media fellow, but only two festival stories had appeared in the paper by Thursday, I was told by a reliable source. By contrast, the Irish Times always covers science strongly and had about four printed stories a day.

Staying in the new student village, 'The Green' as the first occupants was interesting for me as it has the highest BREEAM score of any building in the world (95.05%), although there were some teething problems like bathroom lights staying on either for seconds or hours.

Although the majority of festival events were only a 5 minute walk away, I only attended one (on an alternative future for nuclear power using thorium reactors – watch this space) and most of the journalists were probably too busy to attend any. Rather surprisingly, they live in something of a media bubble, with material filtered through the press conferences, though they do get direct access to the scientists.

It was refreshing to be involved with a vast range of science again – geo-engineering using stratospheric balloons, communication in the brain, GM grasses to clean up toxic explosives, the psychology of overeating, plate tectonics, dark matter in the universe, to name a few.

The evenings passed in a blur of free bars and curries, which made the early start tough sometimes – by the end we were almost looking forward to returning to our day jobs.

On the last afternoon, Robert (Lord, Professor etc.) Winston was around, and Martin suggested we try to get a word. We went into the speakers’ lounge (probably off-limits to journalists in theory, but everyone was getting a bit demob happy by then). Lord Winston was standing munching an apple before going off to do a TV interview, but to my surprise agreed to a brief interview. We found a few chairs in the corner and he talked eloquently for about 10 minutes about the themes of his new book on science and society, “Bad ideas?...”, basically to improve the dialogue between science and the rest of society. This made up for missing David Willetts, who’d dropped in during the morning.

It's not all over yet though, as I hope to be working with the media people at the Royal Society in October for three days, and will be telling the research councils about my experiences in November.

But it’s back to work on Monday, with a different perspective on the media. I might even start a blog about energy...

The grocer's apostrophe

Friday - sadly my last day at THE offices. One of the editors gleefully announced to the office that she'd found a "grocer's apostrophe" (a term unfamiliar to me) in a press release from an organisation closely connected with academia - in this case a possessive its written it's, although (green) grocers of course are well known for rogue apostrophes in apple's, pear's etc. Accuracy and consistency in language is of course key for any publication - they have a lengthy style guide here*, and at least some academics could spot a grocer's apostrophe a mile off.

Having asked to learn more about sub-editing, I was pleased to be given a book review to check (written by a guest academic) - more for grammar, punctuation and typos than 'style' which belongs to the author (the piece had already been 'fact checked'). It was surprisingly intense work. I did find a few minor things, including "Opus Dei" mid-sentence which should have been "opus Dei", though I had to check that in the OED. Later, after tidying up two more articles I'd been writing, I was given another sub challenge:

Heading here heading

here heading here

Standfirst standfirst here please

by A N Other standfirst

- the actual book title and details were given further down after the cover picture. There is rule here that you are not allowed to use any words in the book title, which made it quite a challenge as the title was very long, and included words central to the book for which there really are no simple synonyms. I was quite pleased with my final suggestions however, which were of course completely different from those of the professional, and await with interest to see what appears in print. At 6 o'clock I checked my last proof, and sadly left Red Lion Square at the end of my London placement, though looking forward to the Science Festival in Bradford starting for us on Sunday. I hope to see some of my work in forthcoming editions of Times Higher.

* Another unfamiliar term was the Oxford comma, typically when placed in a list before and,  as in "Tom, Dick, and Harry" but generally omitted in British English (except presumably in Oxford) - see Wikipedia.

The NIB of it - or 'Off to the bunker!'

There - I offer two witty titles. Today started rather slowly. I was hoping to do a telephone interview with a Dutch lady about the future of journal articles, she said she'd contact me later but never did. Our team of writers - about eight of us - had the weekly editorial meeting at 10.30 where everyone reported on progress and ideas. People get around - within the next week people are going to Kampala, Copenhagen and Oxford, and even I was asked if I would go to a morning conference tomorrow on higher education and enterprise at the Royal Institution, speakers including David Willetts plus a few others with impressive job titles - I accepted of course, although unfortunately it clashed with the press briefing for the Science Festival. Then at 11.37, there were cries of "oh...." as the lights died and all the computer screens went black. We waited, started talking, there was no sign of power being restored. Someone shouted "Off to the bunker!". It transpired this was not entirely a joke; TLS does rent emergency office space to continue operations on a reduced scale if their offices are put out of action for an extended period.

I realised how completely the modern office is dependent on electricity, not just to write (or type), but to read; the printer is little used and most things are found and read onscreen. Soon people were looking at their phones, checking Twitter, texting friends locally to see how extensive the power cut was (not very) - battery power and radio now the only link into the digital world. Gradually people drifted off for an early lunch or to find out what was going on, including me. But within an hour power was restored and we were back at our screens - for a few minutes until the fire alarm went off, to general amusement, and we all trooped down to gather in the leafy surroundings of Red Lion Square. Here I had a very interesting chat to the book editor (who incidentally does not edit books, but organises the book reviews). False alarm, linked probably to the power outage, and at last back to work. I spent the afternoon writing two NIB (News In Brief) articles, and did a telephone interview with someone from a publishing company who, after a complicated exchange of emails with their colleague, rang me from a hotel room in Japan. A NIB article is just 90 words, which is quite a challenge when the source is usually a press release of several hundred words. As Mark Twain wrote, "If I'd had more time, I'd have written a shorter letter".

Information overload

(I thought I'd uploaded this on Monday night, but it was still a draft...) On Monday morning the office is awash with the weekend papers, provided to check for higher education stories. Most of the supplements lie untouched, so there's no shortage of reading material for lunchtime, but, I go for a wander around Lincoln's Inn and adjacent fields (actually a modest park) instead. Most of the day is spent exploring the issue of 'semantic content', which means things like embedding datasets and links to the chemical database ChemSpider www.chemspider.com/  in (mostly scientific) papers. I resist the temptation to just 'read the literature', and talk to two people on the phone, which provides lots of good material. In particular, Cameron Neylon http://cameronneylon.net/ makes some interesting points about how best to communicate ideas, compared to what we need to record and archive; the PDF format is criticised (see 'Ceci n’est pas un hamburger:...' ). This job is taking me into all sorts of areas of unfamiliar media and ideas - one website claims that two biomedical papers (on average) are published every minute. On the way home, I have a look around the Apple store in Covent Garden - three floors of technology goodies in a stripped-back space of bare bricks, glass stairs and white tables, the only bright colour being the inviting screens of numerous devices - no doubt great for semantic content. There are hundreds of people there, though it's past 6 o'clock. Perhaps they are just sheltering from the rain.

It's Friday - but you'd never guess

People in the shared offices of THE and TES work hard. When I left at 6 pm for the 91 bus to Kings Cross and home, the office was still half full. And they don't stop for coffee much either, unlike newsrooms in the movies, even though it's freely available in a kitchen with a fancy coffee machine; writing is an intense business. The relentless weekly cycle, 52 editions a year demanding to be constantly fed with high quality, accurate and (one hopes) interesting material, imposes a discipline which many academics could learn something from.


On the BBC news last night there was a piece about an FOI request by the tobacco company Philip Morris to a research team at Stirling University. The research examines why the teenagers start smoking and what they think of tobacco marketing.  I thought it might make a good story for me to write. But no. "That story's old", says the news editor, "the Independent did a big story on it today but I don't know why. We covered it weeks ago". In fact it appeared in THE on July 21st.


Journalists know what's going on - it's their job - and often a story has appeared several times in various places, or re-emerges from time to time like a retro-virus. Looking for material about students using professional editing and proof-reading services, I came across a story in the Guardian from 2006. But it was reporting on an article published in the THE.....end of story.


Tobacco story THE July 21 2011 (scroll down)

[Note - this was scribbled on the train home on Friday but entered on the blog on Saturday - at least blogs don't lie about posting time]

Half way through - already!

Bikes, bikes - but is there a space to dock mine?

I'm half way through my stint at Times Higher, which is hard to believe - still struggling to learn how to write as a journalist. It's hard to report what others have  said and not slip in my own take on things - 'editorialising' as it's called. I did my  first phone interview yesterday with a professor in New York - having had several email  exchanges with various people. It certainly gave me fresh material, for an article on  self-plagiarism (for those who think that's an oxymoron, read the article!). I also went  to my first outside meeting - a briefing on climate modelling with Professor Alan Thorpe,  Director General of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), at the  Wellcome Foundation on Euston Road. Only about 10 people were there, including Susan Watts  from the BBC who asked a question about cloud physics. 

An electric car plugged in outside the office.

I've been using the TFL Barclays bikes (better known as Boris bikes) here for the first time and found them really useful, although struggled to release them from the docking station until someone explained you have to lift the back wheel - nowhere does it tell you this. The main problem is finding a space at your destination, which can take longer than the journey. On Wednesday eveing I cycled  about 2 miles to join another media fellow, Hamish, and some people from the British Science Association at a Science Museum 'late' opening (adults only, so they can play on  the hands-on stuff unpestered). I spent about 15 minutes, first to find the docking point at South Ken. was full, then going up to an almost empty one on Princes Gate which is a fair  walk from the museum. But it's only £1 for 24 hours access, and for that rides under 30  minutes are free. They are easy and fun to ride, and of course you don't have to worry  about security once the bike is redocked. There are so many cyclists in London now that it  is reaching a 'tipping point' for tranport around the centre.

Link to article 'UCU to ballot for strike action at Middlesex' (online)

Link to article on publication costs
Link to article on social media for university marketing 

First week

Arriving on Sunday night and finding my room in an LSE hall a short distance from Trafalgar Square, it was somehow reassuring to turn on the TV and see Nick Higham doing an interview on News 24. He had been one of the people giving us some media tips on our information day with the British Science Association in June at the Science Museum. And I can just see Nelson from my 10th floor room!

Monday morning - the first thng that struck me about Times Higher Education (THE), on arrival at their offices in a modest pink granite block on Red Lion Square in Holborn, was how young the staff were. And then, how quiet and calm the open plan office was. Perhaps I had expected harried reporters rushing about shouting 'hold the front page', or whatever the equivalent is for a weekly magazine, but it was just like any other office.

Sunset from the kitchen window.

I got a short news item online later the same day (not science though) but it was a boost to my confidence. Since then I've worked on two longer articles, one of which has reached the proof stage. The two most difficult things are working out where to get stories from (as THE don't report simple science, there's no point trawling EurekaAlert), and plucking up the courage to contact people for comments on issues. And finally, to remember I'm reporting, not crafting academic articles about what I've been doing!

Times Higher online