ESF - Press Officer wanted!

Press Officer

The European Science Foundation (ESF) provides a platform for its Member Organizations to advance European research and explore new directions for research at the European level.

Established in 1974 as an independent non-governmental organisation, ESF currently serves 80 Member Organisations (Research Funding Agencies, Research Performing Organisations and Academies) across 30 countries.

Mission of the Position

The ESF is offering an exciting position with the opportunity for an experienced press officer to further develop media relations at the ESF.

The mission of this position is to provide ESF Member Organisations, the European Research Community in general, the policy makers, the media and society at large with effective communication and to develop and implement a plan for media relations to increase ESF’s international visibility as one of the major players in the European Research Area. This position requires an outgoing, enthousiastic and diplomatic profile to work closely with journalists, scientists and senior management both internally and externally. Good press writing and interviewing skills are a pre-requisite and an existing network of science journalists a bonus.


Position Responsibilities

This position will involve:

• Developing and implementing a plan/guidelines for media relations activities of ESF;
• Identifying and developing proactive media stories;
• Cultivating collaborative relationships with print and broad cast media;
• Networking with international journalists ;
• Pitching stories and securing longer lead placements in top media outlets;
• Writing and editing feature articles;
• Conducting podcast interviews
• Working with ESF scientists and management to write, format and distribute press releases
• Maintaining and further developing the Media Centre on the ESF website
• Handling the prompt reply to media enquiries ;
• Writing and editing all corporate material;
• Liaising with the freelance network and coordinating the work.

Profile and Competences required

The successful jobholder should demonstrate the following competences:

Specific competences

• Degree in communications or journalism and a minimum of 5 years experience in science journalism and communication ;
• A scientific background would be an asset;
• Proven experience of the media and how it works;
• An established network of journalists;
• Proven experience in writing science stories for a variety of media;
• Ability to create quality content in a fast-paced working environment, under pressure and to deliver to tight deadlines;
• Ability to recognise news value and to be proactive in taking action in promoting ESF activities;
• An understanding of how corporate communication fits into the wider objectives of an organisation;
• High standard of spoken and written English;
• Good working knowledge of MS Office systems and of electronic databases and Web sites (Typo 3).
  
  Inter-personal competences:
  
• Action-orientated, responsible and autonomous, creative and willing to take initiatives, an
• continuously improvement-minded;
• Strong inter-personal and excellent communication skills within a multi-national context, including discretion, diplomacy and tolerance;
• Good self organisational skills;
• Good presentational skills;
• Transparency in working and a team-orientated work ethic;
• Commitment to deliver on allocated tasks and respond in a timely manner to deadlines;
• Positive and constructive attitude;
• Capable of demonstrating the ESF’s values: Excellence, Openness, Responsiveness, Pan-European approach, Ethical Awareness and Human Values.
  
  Employment conditions
  
• This full-time position is offered for an 18 months contract, preferably starting as soon as possible, with the possibility of an extension.
• The place of work is Strasbourg, France and the job will involve a significant amount of travel.
• The salary level will be based on experience and qualifications of the successful candidate and will follow ESF terms and conditions.

Please send your application by 02 February 2009 to jobs@esf.org quoting the following reference identifier

PRESS OFF

• Interviews will be held in Strasbourg 20 February 2009.

ESF welcomes applications from disabled candidates. ESF premises are fully equiped for disabled access.

Further details at www.esf.org

Assistant Editor

An Assistant Editor is required to join a small energetic team producing a bi-monthly international journal on renewable energy and water resources development, and organizing annual conferences.

He/she will research and prepare news, help to sub-edit technical features, occasionally report from conferences, and assist with other related aspects of journal production, including proof reading and liaising with authors.

Necessary attributes: excellent standard of English; ability to tackle technical/scientific material and make it readable; good working knowledge of the usual publishing software; confidence to inter-act with readers and contributors by phone, face-to-face as well as by email.
Useful but not essential: qualification in, or aptitude for, civil, electrical or mechanical engineering; knowledge of a second language.

Salary will depend on previous experience.

• Please apply in writing, with a covering letter, CV, and examples of previous work, to: Alison Bartle, Director, Aqua-Media International Ltd, PO Box 285, Wallington, Surrey SM6 6AN.

Roy Greenslade on The Sun's Martian scoop

Roy Greenslade, grand old person of media commentators, has his take on the recent embargo brouhaha in The Guardian, How The Sun got its 'Life on Mars' world exclusive.

Greenslade adds little that we don't know, and doesn't even seem to have a view on the saga. He just wraps up with a parting observation that "His scoop has certainly stimulated controversy among the community of science journalists, in the States and in Britain. Some of them are clearly upset about Sutherland acting like a reporter while others are wondering whether he has a point about the passivity of a news-managed journalism."

Strangely for The Guardian, which usually gets swamped with readers' observations, the piece has attracted very few comments. One is certainly in line with the 'papers readership: "While Mr Sutherland deserves some credit for sleuthing around the embargo, Mr Greenslade misses the bigger issue: the sensationalistic, misleading way the results were published by The Sun."

Ginger Pinholster replies

Following the publication of Ted Nield's letter to her, Ginger Pinholster of EurekAlert! has asked that her reply and her subsequent letter to Chris Pharo of The Sun be published also.

To Ted Nield
(Chair, ABSW)

Good morning, Ted. I hope that this reply finds you well.

Your input is very helpful, thank you. Please be assured that I'm in the process of re-evaluating the Sun decision. As I told the writer who contacted me yesterday, we are always happy to reconsider decisions.

This morning, I e-mailed a handful of UK-based reporters not affiliated with your inquiry to request their counsel. I also copied a key EurekAlert! advisor and the heads of the NASW and the WFSJ (who are copied again here), inviting them to weigh in as well. My message to that group is below. I'm happy to share this with you in confidence, but on the condition that you refrain from re-distributing it to anyone. I was pleased that my conversation with Mr. Pharo of the Sun seemed to be a productive one this morning. I'll let you know of the final outcome shortly, after I've received some opinions via email.

I'm certainly open to the notion that I might have made a wrong call in this case. I hope that I'll never become so weary of these types of matters that I become arrogant. However, I do firmly reject your allegation of any "petty revenge" modus operandi; none of our decisions are made unilaterally, and all rely upon the input of reporter-advisors. As you might be aware, we have been attempting to the best of our abilities to respond appropriately to a troubling spate of UK-based embargo violations. So, I do think that the ABSW, as the region's professional science journalism society, could play an extremely helpful role in clarifying codes of conduct regarding embargo policies -- on both sides of the fence. I will welcome this input from the ABSW.
Kind regards, Ginger Pinholster

To Chris Pharo
(The Sun)

Dear Mr. Pharo:

Thank you for your phone call this morning. I was impressed that you seemed to be taking this matter seriously, and further that you clearly were genuinely interested in thoughtful problem-solving. As I told you today and Ms. Martina Booth yesterday, I am always happy to re-evaluate embargo-related decisions when sensibly approached in a non-threatening manner, so thanks for the kindness of your tone.

As a first note, I'd like to apologize to the heads of the NASW and the WFSJ since I have copied them on several e-mails already today, and they likely are weary of it by now. But, I'm hoping that this can be the final chapter, describing an amicable resolution.

As I told Mr. Ted Nield of the Association of British Science Writers earlier today, I would first like to emphasize that none of our embargo-related decisions are made unilaterally. I always seek input from at least one reporter-advisor before issuing a ruling, as I did in this case.

I also would like to take this opportunity to provide some broader perspective. We have been attempting to the best of our abilities to respond appropriately to a troubling spate of UK-based embargo violations. As a first step, in response to requests from key British journalists, EurekAlert! recently began a systematic audit whereby all registrants are being asked to reconfirm their current status. In addition, I sent a preemptive reminder notice to all registrants, and thus I was indeed motivated to respond swiftly and firmly to the recent episode involving the Sun.

For the record, I will provide the chronology of the recent case, from my perspective. As you know, non-registrant Mr. Paul Sutherland, being an enterprising journalist, seized upon an unmarked NASA press event invitation to prepare a teaser story related to a forthcoming, embargoed Science paper. While he was not registered with us, two other Sun reporters were in our database. Our long-standing policy, in keeping with what reporter-advisors have asked us to do, has been to revoke access for all registrants at any media outlet involved in an embargo violation. Further, upon investigation, our login records indicated that those reporters had browsed our embargoed section just prior to the appearance of Paul's story. Admittedly, this did raise my suspicions and may have further colored my decision. I would like to speedily emphasize here, however, that I have no evidence whatsoever suggesting that the two Sun registrants shared any embargoed information with Mr. Sutherland. In fact, Mr. Sutherland and one of the registrants have both stated that this absolutely was not the case. You have reaffirmed this as well, and I of course take you all at your word.

However, exacerbating matters was the fact that I did not receive any helpful response by (a) telephoning the Sun's newsroom on the night the story appeared; or by (b) emailing the two registrants to alert them to the problem and ask for their help. A night editor at the Sun seemed unconcerned, and the two Sun registrants never answered my email.

Given that we've had a prior embargo violation by the Sun, I elected to remove both registrants from access. My response had little to do with Mr. Sutherland's story -- which it's clear he developed using a source that was fair game: a NASA document that unfortunately was not marked as embargoed -- but mainly reflected the fact that the Sun's response, or lack thereof, struck me as cavalier. Also, again, I had to take into consideration the prior violation, and then put it into the perspective of all the UK-related problems we have been experiencing lately.

As a further response to the recent unpleasantness, I also of course did contact NASA to explain why routing unmarked press invitations to tabloid journalists is perhaps not in the best interests of the broader reporting community.

My understanding is that the Association of British Science Writers has now instituted an inquiry.
Reference: http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=42903&c=1

What I've told Mr. Nield is that I believe the ABSW, as the region's professional science journalism society, could play an extremely helpful role in clarifying codes of conduct regarding embargo policies -- on both sides of the fence. I will welcome this input from the ABSW. I further will enhance our existing reporter-advisory committee to include UK representation.

Meanwhile, after seeking and obtaining further counsel from additional reporter-advisors today, I am lifting the ban on the Sun and reinstating the two registrants. (Please give me a couple of hours to implement this process since my staff member who handles those tasks is out of the office.) By way of this e-mail, I officially acknowledge that Mr. Sutherland was never in violation, nor did I suggest this to anyone at any point in time; the ban was implemented, as I've explained, based on the lack of any positive response from the Sun, and in light of the prior violation.

Please note, based on the earlier violation, which was unambiguous, if there is any future embargo problem -- whether deliberate or accidental, between now and the end of 2009 -- I will again revoke Sun registrants' access to embargoed content on EurekAlert!. To be fair to all, and to provide equitable access to journalists in both developed and developing regions, including those with and without advanced technologies and other such resources, we must continue to take our embargo policies very seriously. Please be assured that I will not hesitate to enforce our embargo policies in the future.

I hope that you'll agree this is an amicable resolution.

Thank you again for your call. Kind regards, Ginger Pinholster

EurekAlert! lifts ban on The Sun

Breaking news....EurekAlert! has reinstated the Sun newspaper's access to embargoed material. According to Paul Sutherland, the journalist behind the 'Life on Mars' story at the centre of this controversy, EurekAlert! now accept that no embargoes were broken in writing the Sun's front page story.

ABSW Chair Writes to EurekAlert! in support of freelance member Paul Sutherland

Ted Nield, Chair of the ABSW has written today to Ginger Pinholster of the AAAS regarding EurekAlert! suspension of The Sun newspaper, for the 'Life on Mars' story written by ABSW member Paul Sutherland:

Dear Ginger,

I am writing to you in my capacity as Chair of the Association of British Science Writers (ABSW) to draw to your attention the concern being expressed over here about the suspension of the UK newspaper The Sun from EurekAlert’s embargoed news service, and more particularly, about the potential damage this may do to the author of the story, Paul Sutherland, who is a freelance journalist and ABSW member.

I understand that Paul wrote his story (“Life on Mars”), which was The Sun’s splash on Thursday 15, entirely from material already in the public domain, using good journalistic nous and a nose for news. We also understand that you accept that Paul’s story was written without any embargo being broken.

If this is true, it seems to me that EurekAlert is penalising The Sun merely for having got to a story first, without the help of embargoed NASA press releases. I do not think this is in the correct spirit of the proper relations between news providers and journalists. It is inevitable that other news outlets, many of which consider themselves very important, will have been dismayed by the fact that they were scooped by Paul and The Sun; but that is surely the nature of journalism and should have no bearing upon the case.

It is my view that to ban The Sun in this way is unfairly penalising that newspaper merely for being first with the story, which is doubly unfair on their other writers, particularly in the medical field who are now put at a competitive disadvantage. Finally I think this action may in some way carry an implied slur upon the professionalism of Mr Paul Sutherland, which could arguably put his career in jeopardy.

I believe it would be greatly appreciated by all if EurekAlert could make it clear that they do not hold Mr Sutherland responsible for any embargo break.

I would also urge EurekAlert to reconsider what many here think looks like a disproportionate act of petty revenge, unworthy of AAAS and EurekAlert.

This issue has once again drawn attention to the balance of power between news providers and journalists. At a recent meeting of the ASBW (AGM, Tuesday 20), we resolved to convene a working party to consider this whole area and to bring forward a draft report and recommendations for discussion at the World Conference of Science Journalism in London this year (30 June – 2 July http://www.wcsj2009.org/).

Ted Nield, Chair, ABSW