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 Karen Ashford, Director of Media and Communications, other journalists and Flinders researchers (Associate Professor Alice Gorman and Professor Corey Bradshaw) 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?
• The mainstream media – what is it anyway?
• How to tell your story in an engaging, conversational way
• The media landscape: an industry on the ropes – how has news changed and what does that mean for researchers?
• 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 scientific journal, The Biologist, and worked 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 Radio National Drive’s Research Filter slot, chatting science with host Patricia Karvelas, on ABC Radio Darwin Mornings, and ABC South QLD Drive.

Type of course

Online course