Media Training for Researchers with the Australian Science Media Centre (AusSMC)

Course description

Led by Dr Joseph Milton, Senior Media Officer at Australian Science Media Centre (AusSMC), this session will enable researchers to understand the media, how it works, what it wants and how to increase media interest in – and coverage of – your research. Dr Milton will be joined by Yaz Dedovic, Media Advisor, other journalists, and Flinders researchers who will give their own perspectives on why and how researchers should engage with the media.

Researchers from all disciplines – not just those in science – will benefit from this session.

Topics covered in this session will include:

• What can we learn from journalists when we're telling the stories of research?
• Why is communicating research via the news media important?
• How to tell your story in an engaging, conversational way
• How (and why) news stories are structured
• Dumbing it down...or making it accessible?

There will be time for discussion and Q&A.

The session leader, Dr Joseph Milton is an evolutionary biologist who, after studying plants for ten years at various Scottish universities, made a move into journalism. Since then, he has worked as the assistant editor of a pair of scientific journals for the Royal Society of Biology, and as a journalist at the Financial Times, Nature and New Scientist, among others. Joe joined the London Science Media Centre in 2010, where he was Senior Press Officer for Mental Health, before taking up the position of Senior Media Officer at the Australian Science Media Centre in 2012. Joe is a regular guest on ABC Weekend Nightlife, on ABC NSW & ACT Evenings, and on ABC Radio Darwin Mornings. And for 10 years, Joe was one of ABC Radio National’s ‘research filters’, chatting science on the Drive show with hosts Waleed Ali, Patricia Karvelas, and Andy Park.

Type of course

Information session