The Way I See It: Why Rice needs the national media

The Way I See It:
Why Rice needs the national media

I’m the new associate director in Rice’s Office of Public Affairs, hired to promote Rice faculty and staff to the national and broadcast news media.  The other day I was asked, “Why does Rice need national media attention?” It was a question that I’d heard before at the Big 10 school where I worked previously, and it is an especially important question for Rice.
 
Among the goals of President Leebron’s Vision for the Second Century are the establishment of Rice as a leading research university, the strengthening of our graduate and postdoctoral programs to attract and recruit high-caliber students, researchers and faculty and the development of Rice as an international university.

DAVID RUTH

To help meet these goals, we need to tell Rice’s story outside the Houston city limits and outside the state of Texas. The best way to do this is to get our faculty and staff in front of national and regional print, radio and television media to share their deep expertise and insights on the issues of the day.

How will more national and international media attention benefit Rice?

For researchers, your willingness to take time to talk to the news media can raise your visibility and prestige, resulting in more well-deserved recognition by your peers and possibly helping you obtain more research grants. The national exposure also can help recruit talented students and faculty.

For students, raising awareness of Rice as a prestigious university surely will help that already impressive resume when you move on to your graduate studies or career. 

For alumni, a more visible and respected Rice raises appreciation of your academic credentials and gives you a sense of added pride in your university.

Potential donors may be more inclined to contribute to Rice when they see all the wonderful research and education their gifts will support. It’s one more way we can show potential donors how Rice is making a difference in the world.

As part of the News and Media Relations team, I will be pitching research and story ideas and offering our experts and expertise for news-of-the-day stories to national and international media. Faculty experts can play a big role in this effort by making time to accommodate requests for interviews and by keeping the media relations professional who serves their department or school informed of their special areas of expertise, research findings and upcoming studies or books.

If you don’t know who to contact in News and Media Relations, call 713-348-6774 or e-mail jbob@rice.edu. I will be working with other members of the News and Media Relations team to get Rice’s name “out there.”

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. Last week when national sports headlines were focused on a pro football team allegedly spying on another, we pitched Jason Sosa from the Kinesiology Department as an expert who could comment on cheating in sports — from steroid use to stealing opponents’ play signals.

Jason did an awesome job and conducted 13 radio interviews, including CNN radio, KNX in Los Angeles and WCCO in Minneapolis, among others. Just the CNN interview alone reached 2,500 affiliates across the country. We could have done nearly 20 more interviews if Jason had had the time. Jason’s expertise was my first media pitch at Rice, and I hope to tell your story with the same or even better results.

Rice has the potential to reach many more media outlets — and the readers, viewers and listeners they reach — as we promote our experts in engineering, natural sciences, architecture, music, humanities, social sciences, business, athletics, public policy, continuing studies and the wide array of other institutes and centers at Rice. Rice may be a small university, but it has many big stories to tell. I look forward to sharing them with the world through the news media, and I appreciate your help with the effort.

David Ruth
Associate Director for National and Broadcast Media

–“The Way I See It” is a special guest column written by faculty, staff and students at the invitation of the Rice News.