Embargoes are a fact of life for many people in the science communication field. But a lot of people don’t know what they are, why some institutions require them and/or why some people don’t like them. In a scicomm context, an embargo is when a journal, researcher or public information officer (PIO) gives reporters a copy of a journal article before the article is published – but bars those reporters from releasing any stories about the journal article until it... Read more

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I recently had an interesting Twitter “conversation” about whether public information officers (PIOs) should be allowed to sit in on interviews between reporters and researchers. Some good points were raised, and I thought I’d talk about it a little here. In my opinion, there is no need for me to sit in on an interview between a reporter and a researcher. The researchers I work with are all grown men and women who are quite capable of handling themselves. Furthermore,... Read more

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Part of a PIO’s job is to pitch stories to reporters. Done well, it makes reporters aware of research findings they’ll be interested in, which can lead to good news stories — making all of the relevant parties happy. Done poorly, a story pitch is spam that clogs a reporter’s inbox and makes it likely he or she won’t read your email in the future. So here are some ideas on how to do it well. (Note to reporters: this... Read more

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