[AZ-Observing] Re: Mercury
- From: BillFerris@xxxxxxx
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 12:40:51 -0400
Brian Workman wrote:
>OK this is a bit pedantic, but one of my pet peeves is seeing junk like this
>in an official press release. It should say "700-degree _temperatures_".
[snip]
>The folks at NASA who write this stuff ought to know better. Writing like
>this misleads the public and fosters erroneous concepts.
>
>Sorry for ranting but I feel much better now.
Hi Brian,
I'll jump in on behalf of the person at NASA who wrote the release. I'd wager
the word, heat, was chosen for a couple of reasons.
Press releases are typically written using conversational language that meets
the needs of radio and television news media. If it can be said using a
one-syllable word, the one-syllable word gets the nod. Also, time being such a
precious resource, each word needs to paint a picture. Heat, is more evocative
of the extreme conditions near Mercury than the word, temperature.
Journalists must choose between the technically correct and the evocative,
every day. The good newspeople use words that add more as pictures than they
lose in technical accuracy. A well written press release takes this reality of
mass media into account.
A good public information officer (PIO) writes in a style that suffers minimal
editing at the hands of the media. This approach gives the PIO a fighting
chance at preserve accuracy in the story the public gets. When NASA issues a
press release, they do so knowing some of the writing may not be strictly
accurate. But their version is more accurate than the version a local reporter
would produce from a formally written, technically accurate release.
That said, I encourage you to share your comments with NASA's public
information office. They should appreciate the feedback and you may inspire
them to work that much harder to preserve accuracy while writing to meet the
constraints of mass news media.
Regards,
Bill in Flagstaff
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