AAAS Annual Meeting News Coverage

How effectively does AAAS engage the public, through service to reporters? In 2007, for instance, the number of original, staff-written international print articles related to the AAAS Meeting in San Francisco set records for the second year in a row. A clippings analysis revealed 277 original print articles in international outlets (not counting republished wire-service or syndicated stories), well above the 178 original international stories generated from the 2006 Meeting, and also higher than the 147 such articles in 2005. If republished versions of stories also are counted, the 2007 Meeting generated 830 international print articles, up from 310 the year before.

Within the United States only, the 2007 AAAS Meeting generated 177 original print articles. This figure was slightly lower than in 2006 when 190 original U.S. print pieces were counted, but well above the total of 120 for the 2005 meeting in Washington, D.C. Moreover, the total number of U.S. print stories related to the 2007 AAAS Meeting reached an all-time high of 1,841 because a large percentage of original articles proved especially popular, and thus were republished many times by other media outlets.

Print news from the 2007 AAAS Meeting—including both U.S. and international coverage, and original as well as republished stories—generated a total of 2,671 total articles worldwide, compared to 1,185 in 2006, if original plus republished stories are counted. The 2,671 total stories count from the 2007 AAAS Meeting included 1,841 U.S. articles and 830 international articles.

Communicating science, technology, and engineering issues to the public by providing information to reporters is directly related to the Association's mandate to engage the public, said Alan I. Leshner, chief executive officer and executive publisher of the journal Science.

Ginger Pinholster

11 February 2008