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Abstract
When Brookhaven National
Laboratory first won Congressional funding for the Relativistic Heavy
Ion Collider (RHIC) in 1991, the Lab's communications staff began to work
with journalists and others to tell RHIC's story. The year 2000 was a
major milestone, as the collider was expected to become operational and
produce its first scientific results. As with any large, complex, publicly
funded scientific endeavor, keeping RHIC in the public eye in a positive
way was and is essential to its success. After all, taxpayers foot the
bill. They have a right to understand the project's goals, feel safe in
its operation, and be in on the exciting atmosphere of discovery.
Despite a variety
of challenges - including difficult science, a long time frame from construction
to initial operation, unrelated environmental troubles at the Lab, and
public fears that RHIC would destroy the world - we successfully reached
a variety of audiences via print, web, and TV news stories, as well as
Laboratory visits and tours, and have sustained their interest in RHIC.
Many of the key elements of our strategic communications program, including
media training for scientists, press kit materials, targeted pitching
to science reporters and reporters in scientists' hometowns, and community
outreach efforts, are presented here.
Target
audiences
- The
science-attentive
public via local, national, and international media, including general
assignment and specialized science reporters
- Local community
members, including educators and school children
- Local, regional,
and national elected officials
- Lab employees (to
instill pride and help them spread RHIC news and enthusiasm)
Challenges
- The science behind
RHIC isn't an easy sell: Its goal - to create a state of matter that
last existed billions of years ago - will offer insight into the evolution
of matter and atomic-scale forces, but might never yield any practical
applications.
- The collider had
been under construction for nearly a decade, with eight prior years
of engineering studies and an ongoing struggle for funding.
- During construction,
a radioactive leak from an unrelated Brookhaven facility stirred up
local environmental fears and distrust.
- In the midst of
that PR nightmare, the Laboratory management was replaced.
- And just as RHIC
was about to go on line, a news story ignited an international media
frenzy focused on the possibility that RHIC might create a black hole
or otherwise destroy the world.
Toolkits
and Research
(materials we prepared, information we gathered, and programs we initiated
to make our communications plan work)
- Media training
for selected scientists who served as spokespersons to communicate RHIC's
scientific goals
- Press kits, news
releases, web pages, photos, fact sheets, brochures, b-roll, and a video
to help tell the scientific story
- A focused effort
leading up to first collisions, which included constant contact with
reporters and scientists
- Specially prepared
T-shirts, pins, and postcards given away or sold as souvenirs to visitors
and Lab employees
- Community outreach,
including a Speakers Bureau, tours of RHIC facilities, and career days
for the general public
- Targeted pitching
to science reporters around the country and around the world, with a
special effort focused on media in RHIC scientists' hometowns
Evaluation
(how we
tested our efforts and judged our success)
- Just
before RHIC went on line, the machine made the headlines, but the news
wasn't so good . . . with many stories focused on the potential for
RHIC to produce conditions that would end the world!
- We identified key
issues and tailored our messages and the level of science explanation
based on feedback from reporters, e-mails, phone calls, and tour/presentation
evaluations.
- By the time of
first collisions in June 2000, we had turned interest in global destruction
to positive science stories. We logged more than 200 print, web, and
TV clips from year 2000 alone.
- Our August 2000
Summer Sunday tour of RHIC drew the largest crowd of any Lab facility
ever (2,000+). We continue to respond to ongoing requests for speakers
and tours.
- The January 2001
Quark Matter conference attracted top-level science reporters from The
New York Times, New Scientist, Science, Popular
Science, Newsday, and more, resulting in extensive national
and international coverage of the first physics results from RHIC.
- Brookhaven's
web page traffic continues to increase every time we have a RHIC
event (e.g., first full-energy collisions, July 2001).
- A BONUS: Our scientists
have been alerting us to more physics news, and we've enjoyed increased
media attention on a variety of stories, including front-page coverage
of muon g-2 in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and
USA Today.
Contact
Karen McNulty Walsh
Principal Media & Communications Specialist
U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory
PO Box 5000, Upton, New York 11973-5000
Phone: 631 344-8350 or 631 344-2345
E-mail: kmcnulty@bnl.gov
Web
Site
www.bnl.gov/rhic/
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Created: 4/19/2002
Last updated: 8/17/2002
Contact: inquiries@nist.gov
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Tracks
indicating the paths taken by thousands of subatomic particles produced
in the collision of gold ions at RHIC.
Examples
of news coverage about RHIC in Newsday and the New York Times.
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