Nature Structural and Molecular Biology provides some insight about Nature Publishing Group’s press office in its April Editorial (Nature Structural and Molecular Biology 16, 345; 2009), in particular how it assists authors to help make the general public more aware of the breakthroughs and insights provided by basic science research.
The Editorial describes the splash made by the publication of an article by J. Sui and colleagues on the isolation of monoclonal antibodies that could recognize a variety of influenza strains, paving the way for a broad-spectrum therapy against ‘flu and giving hope for the development of a long-sought-after universal flu vaccine.
The NPG press office sends press releases to more than 3,000 registered journalists for articles published by all Nature journals, and helps coordinate press coverage by the media. With offices in the US and UK, NPG’s press officers serve as first contacts for journalists both local and internatinally. From the NSMB Editorial:
“The NPG press office is notified of every manuscript that is accepted for publication and is responsible for coordinating the press release of manuscripts once publication dates have been set. For the ”https://www.nature.com/authors/author_services/about_nature_res.html">Nature research journals, research articles are published online every Sunday, and the news embargo lifts at the time of publication on the journals’ websites, at 1 p.m. US Eastern time (6 p.m. London time). The press office performs a variety of tasks as each article is prepared for publication. Importantly for our authors, the press office provides additional notification to the authors of a research paper the Tuesday before the particular Sunday a paper is scheduled to appear online, informing them of our embargo policies, which are strictly enforced. [Nature publishes research papers online twice a week.]
In a recently added service, press officers also contact relevant funding agencies and home institutions involved with the work. This gives adequate time for internal coverage by institutional public information or public affairs offices. Advance notice is particularly useful for large agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, that participate in a large number of research programs and may therefore be contacted about any number of forthcoming research publications.
With backgrounds in the biological and physical sciences, the NPG press officers write the press releases for newsworthy articles published in Nature. They also work with the editors at the Nature research journals to compose press releases for articles that may have wide public appeal. (Usually, articles whose findings have a direct connection to a disease may garner attention, though it can be difficult to predict what will catch the eyes of science journalists.) Author contact details accompany the highlighted papers within a release, along with a list of all papers that are being published in that journal in that particular week. On the Tuesday before the articles will be published online, the press office e-mails a compiled release covering Nature and the Nature research journals for that week to more than 3,000 registered science journalists and media organizations. In some special cases, the press office will also organize a press briefing, at which journalists can speak directly to the researchers about their work."