200 Words
Apoorva Mandavilli, Senior news editor, Nature Medicine
I’m going to break journalistic tradition here by invoking something really old and religious—in fact, something biblical. Moses—he of the ten commandments—is an important figure in many of the world’s religions. But for all his importance, Moses was not very eloquent and may even have had a speech impediment. So his brother Aaron spoke for him. My point? If you have something important to say, find someone who can say it for you. You are among the smartest people in the world and people deserve to know what you work on. We know you’re busy—you have grants to write, papers to publish, students to train. But here we are, an entire group of people who want to know all about your work and do the hard work of telling people about it. We’ll be the Aaron to your Moses. So here are your commandments:
Thou shalt not present thine work as the cure to everything and shall be honest about its flaws.
Thou shalt not mistrust all journalists because one or two may have misquoted you/thou?
Thou shalt not be offended if the journalist asks where your money comes from.
Thou shalt not ask to see a copy of the article before it goes to press.
Thou shalt call the journalist back.