The news media is definitely fulfilling the University’s Gen Ed expectations. In the past month Wesleyan professors across the curriculum have been in the news, speaking about rebellion in Haiti, human cloning and Technicolor in film history.
Professors are the voice of expertise when journalists need context for current events, or a deeper understanding of our culture, and Wesleyan professors are often sought as sources. The Office of University Communications compiles a list of references to the University and its professors in the news and there are additions almost every day.
Sometimes professors get attention because they are at the right place at the right time. Laura Grabel, professor of biology and natural science, said she’s not usually in the news much. Once a news crew came and filmed her lab, but it never aired. However, this month she was featured in a number of stories in both professional journals and the popular media, including New York Newsday.
Grabel became the center of attention when South Korean researchers announced that they had cloned human embryonic stem cells Feb. 12, a few days before a symposium she sponsored with Professor Lorri Gruen on cloning and stem cell research.
“The announcement of the Koreans really brought attention. I think that’s what got an audience, the timing,” Grabel said.
Grabel enjoys speaking with the media about these issues because she thinks that an informed public discussion of reproductive technology is essential.
“If I can help educate people on the issues that’s great. I’m not into publicity for publicity’s sake,” she said. “I’d like to see a serious discussion that’s not just politically based.”
While Grabel fell into the media’s eye serendipitously, many of the professorial attribution in the news are arranged.
Laura Perillo and David Pesci of the Office of University Communications are responsible for getting professors on television and in the papers. They have the entire curriculum broken up and each is responsible for following the research coming from professors and promoting the University’s departments. They push their stories to reporters.
“It’s [about] sending them a good story, not wasting their time,” Perillo said.
University Communication focuses on stories on topics the media wants to cover. For example, Perillo was very successful at promoting John Kirn’s research on songbirds and botox. Kirn’s research had nothing to do with the trendy cosmetic procedure, but it involved the famous toxin so it piqued the interest of science writers.
“Botox is huge in LA and New York,” Perillo said. “It’s a trend story. You follow the news and you find what they’ll be interested in.”
Professor of Socioloy Alex Dupuy, an acknowledged expert on Caribbean and Haitian development, has been busy speaking with the media since the political crisis in Haiti became front page news. On Feb. 16 he appeared on PBS’s “NewHour with Jim Leher.”
“This morning I was on two talk shows, yesterday I was on two talk shows,” Dupuy said on Wednesday.
Dupuy said he wasn’t sure where reporters get his name. According to Perillo, Pesci, who handles promotion of the sociology department, has aggressively pushed for media contacts on Dupuy’s behalf.
Dupuy, the author of several books on Haiti, said that he is better informed about the current events in Haiti than many in the country right now because he has access to a multiplicity of sources on the internet and has done intensive research.
“I’ve got a lot of calls from U.S reporters in Port-Au-Prince to get a sense of what’s going on,” he said.
According to Dupuy this is a conflict that’s been in the making for the past three years. The opposition never accepted Aristide’s legitimacy after his election in 2000, and now former members of the army, which disbanded in 1994, have taken up against him. The conflict will erupt into civil war if the international community doesn’t intervene because the opposition refuses to negotiate unless Aristide resigns and Aristide refuses to resign.
Dupuy said he offers his perspective because it is his responsibility as an academic. “They call on me because they need to hear some analysis of the situation and they need to put the situation in a historical context,” he said. “It’s a professional obligation to explain to people what they need to understand that I know something about.”
Perillo said that many professors are interested in working with her department because they want to get their work publicized.
“We like to hear what they’re passionate about and that’s what we promote,” she said.
Perillo said that often really interesting work is overlooked, unless someone pushes for it. Sometimes, however, even a taciturn humanities professor can become a big story.
When Assistant Professor of Romance Languages Marcello Simonetta discovered and deciphered a letter written in old Italian that revealed the perpetrator of the Medici assignation, he got international attention. The affair had been a mystery for hundreds of years. The culprit, he found, was the Duke of Urbino. Simonneta’s findings on the “godfather of the renaissance,” were published in The Italian Historical Archives. The Independent of London, La Republica of Italy and El Pais of Spain, among others, covered the story.
The Office of University Communication learned about Simonetta’s breakthrough during a routine search on Lexis-Nexis and they jumped on getting the story published in the States. They’ve presented it to The New York Times. Expect a story this weekend.
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