Notable and quotable
UMass Amherst faculty lend their expertise to the media on topics from global warming to kids’ TV.
Listed in many a newspaper or television reporter’s Rolodex are phone numbers with the prefix 545 or 577, the main UMass Amherst exchanges. Stories on most every topic gain heft from expert sources, and there are plenty of experts on this campus. A few weeks ago, CNN news anchor Lou Dobbs got in touch with
geosciences professor Raymond Bradley to talk about a widely-discussed National Academy of Sciences report on global warming. It wasn’t the first time that Bradley cropped up in a national news story. As one of the authors of a landmark paper charting climatic change over millennia, he is often interviewed on the subject.About the same time, fans of
NPR’s Marketplace might have tuned in to hear host Kai Ryssdal discussing with Ira Bryck whether you should ever loan money to your brother. Bryck, the director of the UMass Amherst Family Business Center , advised, “If you were a banker, you would be considering that person’s character and their collateral, and I think that as the lender you have every right to consider those same things.”Bryck was also interviewed for a story in a recent issue of BusinessWeek Online, in which he talked about what it takes to bring the younger generation into a family business.
UMass Amherst faculty show up in media all over the place. Rick Wolff, from the economics department, was quoted not long ago in London’s
Daily Telegraph, talking about the U.S. housing boom going bust, and predicting that it could “take the U.S. economy down with it.” The August issue of the Chicago-based magazine In These Times quotes another campus economist, Robert Pollin, in a story about the effect of living-wage mandates for garment workers on consumer prices.Formidable grasp of a subject makes many UMass Amherst faculty sought-after sources. To mention a few: Political science professor Sheldon Goldman comments frequently on Supreme Court–related developments—like the hearings this spring on Justice Alito’s nomination to the court. He’s been quoted in
The Christian Science Monitor, Newsday, USA Today, and MSNBC. Fergus Clydesdale from food science, has talked turkey with The New York Times, was tapped for his take on trans fats by The Washington Post, and has commented on other nutrition-related issues elsewhere. Psychology professor Ervin Staub, a source for a recentL.A. Times
article about the “potentially immoral forces of groups,” has offered his insights into news events like Abu Ghraib on CNN and NPR and in Reuters newswire stories. And when Emily Bazelon, a senior editor at the online magazine Slate wrote earlier this year about the seventies educational television program The Electric Company, she turned to psychology professor Daniel Anderson—“kids-TV guru” was how she described him—for his opinion on how children react to what she called the show’s “disco feel.”What makes a professor notable and quotable? Obviously, profound knowledge of an area of research and study is key. Being an author, like Bradley, of a high-profile paper or a member of a prominent committee may catch a reporter’s eye, too. For instance, Clydesdale served on the Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans; its report, released in 2005, received widespread coverage. In May,
The Wall Street Journal sought out the opinion of James Young from Judaic and Near Eastern studies on soaring cost estimates for the New York World Trade Center Memorial—not surprising, given that he was a member of the jury that selected the original design for the memorial. And the PBS program Frontline ran an excerpt from Young’s book At Memory’s Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architectureon its Web site because, as it explained, he was “the only foreigner and the only Jew to serve on Germany’s commission to select the its national Holocaust memorial.”
Media savvy is vital to forging a successful relationship with journalists, according to Ed Blaguszewski, director of the UMass Amherst News Office. “Faculty who become regular commentators follow the news, understand how their knowledge intersects with current events, and articulate an opinion concisely. They also understand that in today’s 24/7 news environment, speed is prized. Journalists often request to speak with an expert today, if not within the hour. The best expert is often the available expert.”
The News Office works with the media to find available experts. Says Blaguszewski, “We’re matchmakers. We interview faculty to discover their research and expertise, and we talk daily with reporters to pitch stories and identify their interests. Those conversations, combined with an experts database that we maintain and a national media request service, help us connect the right experts to receptive journalists.”
Some academics may avoid the limelight; but for those who do go public, points out Blaguszewski, “The rewards are many. They have the opportunity to educate the public and contribute to civic debate, and [it means] increased visibility and recognition of the campus and its programs.”
The aforementioned Ira Bryck is one who has become expert at being an expert. Having been on Marketplace several times, for instance, he knows, “Radio is an entertainment medium. Points need to be pithy, not too raggedy. I know that I’m not talking to an audience who has specifically shown up to hear me speak, so I try to give what I say general appeal, so that someone might think, ‘I never thought about family business like that before.’ I also like having the chance to debunk accepted wisdom, the oft-repeated ideas that come from research being misconstrued. For instance, family businesses fail at a horrific rate, but so do all businesses. Ultimately, I want what I say to be true.”
“I also want to be careful about what I become noted for,” he says. “I became an ‘expert’ on family business loans from one article I did.”
And there are outcomes you can’t anticipate. “When I did the Marketplace story on lending to family members, a childhood friend who hadn’t seen me in years heard it,” Bryck says. “He didn’t know it was me until the end of the interview. He told me, ‘I thought this person really knows what he’s talking about.’ And then, he asked me for money.” The good news? He was kidding.