A Strange Way To Do NASA Mission Media Outreach (Update)
Keith’s note: Yesterday I posted a Twitter response to a tweet my New Horizons mission PI Alan Stern. This is what it originally looked like in case it is deleted. My response originally said “Strange media strategy for New Horizons #UltimaThule encounter. Mission PI @AlanStern tweets link to his own mission twitter account @NewHorizons2015 – not NASA's mission Twitter account @NASANewHorizons – and then he bans certain media outlets from following his twitter account.”
@NASAWatch is still banned from following or reading this Twitter account – an account regularly used by a NASA-funded PI to convey information about a NASA-funded mission. Any annotation about this Twitter account being “personal” is meaningless and is amply contradicted by the way that Stern uses it. It is now (apparently) accepted practice by NASA to allow mission PIs to block access to mission information – as they please.
Strange media strategy for New Horizons #UltimaThule encounter. Mission PI @AlanStern tweets link to his own mission twitter account @NewHorizons2015 – not NASA's mission Twitter account @NASANewHorizons – and then he bans certain media outlets from following his twitter account pic.twitter.com/Kew1tTcn7g
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) December 3, 2018
Perhaps not so strange. If Dr. Stern was purely and totally motivated by science and communicating that science to the public, this sort of media strategy would be strange. But there aren’t many people who are purely and totally motivated by those goals. Other motivations can include promoting future missions, promoting work which one’s own institution could do, and promoting ones own career, and the careers of people who work for you.
That means getting press reports for existing missions, and, unfortunately, making sure that press coverage is favorable. I don’t think scientists should do that, but human nature makes that likely rather that surprising. Shunting the attention to a specific web page doesn’t shock me. Nor does trying to shut off access from news sites which have been critical in the past. (And you have to admit that NASA Watch has been critical of Dr. Stern, although not the New Horizons mission.)
This is a political thing. Dr. Stern is trying to make himself and those who work with him look good. That isn’t strange, it’s just marketing his brand. Whether or not scientists or PI’s of NASA missions should do so is a different debate about professional ethics.
I personally don’t think this is ethical. When you’re working on a project like this that’s 100% taxpayer funded, I don’t think that you ought to be able to have a “private” Twitter account specifically to promote that project.
Parody accounts are a whole other kettle-o-fish and are fine, IMHO.
I said I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t say I approved. Actually, I thought I implied I didn’t like this sort of thing. But I think you’re mixing two issues.
First, there is restricting access by blocking people a PI doesn’t like. I definitely don’t like that. Even if it is a personal Twitter account, it’s the account the PI has chosen to use to communicate information about the mission. To me, that means it ought to be completely open. If you squint, restricting access might even be a violation of NASA policies. They’ve gotten pretty serious about requiring open access data. I know calling reports of when and what the spacecraft might be doing “data” might be a stretch, I thought I’d mention it.
But in terms of the existence of a personal twitter account, how is that different from the PI having an non-NASA web site for the mission? I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but there is a great many, largely redundant web sites and pages for most NASA missions. That’s because every institution involved wants to have one of their own, each one putting their own “look at the great things _our_ institution is doing” spin on the coverage. That’s why you’ll see a NASA headquarters web page, a JPL web page, a PI-institution web page, etc. Unfortunately, limiting that to one, official, NASA web page has a big disadvantage: Given various rules and policies about web page content, the official NASA ones tend to be out of date. The ones at the PI institution are easier and faster to update. I know web sites and twitter accounts aren’t the same thing, but I think same rules ought to apply to all sorts of public outreach and media relations.
Agreed that the blocking of access to certain people is more troubling than having a separate Twitter account or separate website for the information. If the data is public, then there shouldn’t be restrictions on who can see that data (especially if it’s a “space news” site like NASA Watch).
Its a NASA-funded mission. Full stop.
What is the technical effect of the ban? I’m guessing you can just log out and view the feed that way. Does it prevent you from, e.g. embedding their tweets on this page? Still doesn’t prevent you from screenshotting what you can see from a logged out PC, etc.
All in all, it seems like this is purely a petty spite move. I can see some value in blocking someone who is stalking or harassing you, since it at least slows them down a little bit, but blocking the media just makes you risk a Streisand Effect.
Why should I as a taxpayer/journalist be blocked from having the same access that all other taxpayers/journalists have?
Sorry if I wasn’t clear – this is a terrible move by Dr. Stern on multiple levels. You are absolutely right, both as a taxpayer and a journalist, you have the right to view the progress and results of publicly funded research.
I was just pointing out that the ease with which you can work around this block makes it seem like more of a middle finger than an actual attempt to prevent you from getting any information. And in a way, that actually makes Dr. Stern’s behavior seem even worse.
Obviously you shouldn’t. And even if unfair treatment doesn’t surprise me, that doesn’t mean I’m in favor of it. But it’s also interesting to wonder why Dr. Stern did it. I assume he wants favorable rather than unfavorable publicity. As Sam S pointed out, restricting media access is a great way for someone to shoot himself (or herself) in the foot. And restricting media access in an ineffective manner is worse, since it produces all the negative publicity without actually achieving the intended goal.
Were I some Famous Scientist, Mr. Cowing is about the last person I would want to block. And for lots of obvious reasons:-)