Friday, December 14, 2018

Thank You Space Journalists & My List of Space News Sources to Follow




I have a great deal of respect for journalists and the independent press. I have admired journalists since childhood, watching Murphy Brown (don't laugh) and mourning the death of Daniel Pearl. I applaud Time Magazine's 2018 Person of the Year: Jamal Khashoggi, The Guardians, and The War on Truth.

In college when I was Editor-in-Chief of the student newspaper, I considered becoming a space journalist. But I am a very slow writer and I'm not great at the objective reporting writing style. I did get mistaken for a journalist twice at space events in college and grad school, paying attention and taking notes. Even now, I occasionally get mistaken for a journalist even though I'm just an analyst who is active on Twitter.

Upon creating my own company nearly 3 years ago, I realized my freedom to represent myself and to speak my mind had significantly increased. And not only did some people want to hear my opinions, a few were paying me for it. This gave me courage to create a professional goal: contribute to space news. At the time, I didn't know if that meant I should be writing articles myself, being interviewed, or contributing to stories in some other way.

I had done both previously, minimally. Once year or so I would be contacted for a story, leading to some cool opportunities such as being interviewed at HLN studios in Orlando for a piece on NASA's planetary science budget, being featured in Florida Today's One To Watch, and writing an op-ed in favor of a new Florida spaceport. I wanted to do more but I didn't know what or how.

I signed up for a couple databases that promote female professionals as sources, though nothing ever came from that. I subscribed to an email newsletter Help a Reporter Out (HARO) that sends me a list of requests for sources from reporters three times every weekday. Requests for space sources on HARO is rare, but I was able to connect with a few opportunities. I am not really sure how the ball got rolling, but one opportunity led to another and soon reporters were contacting me (usually on Twitter) out of the blue. It helps that I follow and interact with all my favorite reporters on social media.

I didn't realize the number of times I had been interviewed or quoted in publications this year until I tallied it up. In the first year of my company, 2016: twice. In 2017: 11 times. In 2018: 31 times as of today. And two interviews done this year should be published in 2019.

I've been asked which space news sources I follow. I highly recommend looking these individuals and publications up:

Print
Alan Boyle, GeekWire
Anatoly Zak, RussianSpaceWeb.com
Andrew Jones, The Planetary Society & Space News
Brian Berger, Space News
Bryan Bender, Politico
Caleb Henry, Space News
Chabeli Herrera, Orlando Sentinel
Chris Bergin, NASASpaceFlight.com
Chris Gebhardt, NASASpaceFlight.com
Christian Davenport, The Washington Post
Doug Messier, Parabolic Arc
Elizabeth Howell
Emre Kelly, Florida Today
Eric Berger, Ars Technica
Irene Klotz, Aviation Week
Jacqueline Klimas, Politico
James Dean, Florida Today
Jason Davis, The Planetary Society & Rocketgut!
Jason Rhian, Spaceflight Insider
Jeff Foust, Space News & The Space Report
Jonathan O’Callaghan
Keith Cowing, NASA Watch & SpaceRef
Kenneth Chang, the New York Times
Leah Crane, New Scientist
Loren Grush, The Verge
Marcia Smith, SpacePolicyOnline.com
Marina Koren, The Atlantic
Michael Sheetz, CNBC
Sandra Erwin, Space News
Tim Fernholz, Quartz

Podcast/Radio/TV
Anthony Colangelo, Main Engine Cut Off
Brendan Byrne, WFME Orlando & Are We There Yet?
Carrie Nugent, Spacepod
Chad Anderson, Space Angels
David Livingston, The Space Show
Emilee Speck, News 6 WKMG Orlando
Gary Jordan, Houston We Have a Podcast
Gene Mikulka, Talking Space
Jackie Wattles, CNN
Jake Robins, WeMartians
Jim Green, Gravity Assist
Joshua Santora, The Rocket Ranch
Mat Kaplan, Planetary Radio
Michelle Thaller, Orbital Path
Rachel Crane, CNN
The Orbital Mechanics (Ben Etherington, David Fourman, & Dennis Just)

A few weeks ago during Thanksgiving week, I posted a thank you on Twitter to our fabulous space journalists for the job they do and letting them know I appreciate them and their work. The response from one journalist: we don't hear that often! If you appreciate the space news you read every day, thank the journalists who do the work to bring you that news.

My top three tips to help a journalist who contacts you:

1) Say yes. It's frustrating for journalists (and analyst) to find a source, take the time to contact them, and have them decline.
2) Respond as quickly as you can. They are on a deadline.
3) Recommend other sources if you are able. Especially if you declined the interview.

Once again, thank you to those who cover the space beat. I look forward to working with you and reading/watching/listening to your work even more in 2019.

1 comment:

  1. There are a few new areas that are opening up the standard heirachy of NASA is ill-lucid in either fostering or denying. They are a course to both assembly workers in space that are not mission speclist or astronaut, which is a three month course on what this society does know, estimates on extraterrestials. The reason for this asked three month long course, has to do with the potential of meeting or encountering good, mediocre and potentially bad sorts of aliens. Rather than hiding this issue, lets bring what we know out into the open and at least adjust in preparation what these people will have to know. The last new category of personnel will be the space colonist. I feel though, that the underprivileged should also get a crack at this opportunity. I feel that in a program to come we will need population. The way the current space hierarchy is staffed, is not versatile enough.

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