Campus Events Generate Media Attention in 1997-’98

Campus Events Generate Media Attention in 1997-’98

RICE NEWS OFFICE
August 27, 1998

During the 1997-98 academic year, news about Rice University and its faculty,
students and administrators reached newspaper readers and radio and television
audiences across the nation and around the world.

Stories featuring or including the university appeared in prestigious publications
such as the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times of London, the
New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Dispatches were
filed from campus by wire service reporters from Reuters, the Associated Press,
United Press International, and Agence France Presse.

Radio and television journalists from the BBC, Arab Television, Reuters Television,
Television of Mexico, Dutch Television, German Television, Brazil TV, and French
TV visited campus to interview Rice faculty and administrators for stories about
research programs.

Faculty were linked by satellite from a campus venue to news programs for CNN,
NBC’s "Today Show," ABC’s "Good Morning America," "Fox
National News" and the "Lehrer NewsHour."

The news that novelist Kurt Vonnegut was going to deliver, and did deliver,
the 1998 Commencement address received the most media attention during the past
year, due in large part to the strategic placement of a news release last summer
announcing his decision to come here while controversy swirled around an Internet
report of a commencement speech at MIT supposedly delivered by Vonnegut.

The International Herald Tribune carried the news of Vonnegut’s decision to
deliver the Rice Commencement address last August. Similar stories appeared
in all major markets across the country late last summer. Another round of pre-commencement
stories appeared in April and May.

Coverage of Vonnegut’s talk was carried by NBC News, the Chronicle of Higher
Education, and the Associated Press, while daily newspapers around the country
and all local news media outlets covered the event.

Several programs and announcements brought national and international media
attention to Rice during the past year. The James A. Baker III Institute for
Public Policy produced an annual conference last fall featuring former secretaries
of state James A. Baker, III, Henry Kissinger and Warren Christopher, former
Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev and CNN senior news anchor Bernard
Shaw. C-SPAN covered the conference live, while reporters from the Associated
Press, Reuters, Agence France Presse, the Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle,
and from local radio and television news outlets reported on the foreign policy
debate in detail.

The media returned to campus in March when U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan
spoke to a crowd of more than 3,500 in Autry Court about the challenges facing
that world peacekeeping organization as the 21st century approaches.

The latest energy report produced by the Baker Institute supported by some
15 papers, many researched and written by Rice faculty, was covered by national
and international energy publications such as Oil and Gas Daily, Petroleum Argus,
Platt’s Oilgram, Hart Energy publications, the Houston Chronicle, the Washington
Post, and the Associated Press and Reuters wire services.

Designation of the $21.4 million Hobby family gift for improvements to Fondren
Library and the announcement that a branch of the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office will operate from the library–the first university library to receive
this designation in the country–brought media attention to Fondren.

Stories about the designation of the Hobby gift to Fondren ran in the Houston
Chronicle, the Austin American Statesman, on the Associated Press state wire,
in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Chronicle of Philanthropy and the
American Libraries newsletter.

The Patent Office announcement broke on the AP state wire and ran in papers
across Texas, including the Houston Chronicle, and on local television and radio
news broadcasts.

When Rice announced a partnership with Bremen, Germany, officials to create
a new private research university in Germany, stories were filed by the Associated
Press, the Houston Chronicle, the Austin American Statesman, the Dallas Morning
News, as well as newspapers and television stations in that country.

Features about Rice faculty appeared in a variety of publications, including:
Texas Monthly (Michael Carroll and Rick Smalley); the Houston Chronicle’s Sunday
magazine Texas (James Copeland); the Houston Business Journal (Malcolm Gillis
and Gilbert Whitaker); the Houston Chronicle (Gilbert Cuthbertson); and the
Texas Journal of the Wall Street Journal (Smalley and nanoscience and Whitaker
and the "new" Jesse H. Jones School).

Larry McIntire’s and Tony Miko’s bioengineering research was featured in USA
Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Atlanta Business Journal and the Texas Medical
Center News.

C-SPAN came to campus in September to record novelist Larry McMurtry’s speech
as part of the President’s Lecture Series.

Major features on alumni ran in the Houston Chronicle (Pam Nelson), San Jose
Mercury News and Business Week (John Doerr), and in the San Francisco Chronicle
(Teveia Barnes).

Even the newest additions to campus, Baker Hall and Dell Butcher Hall, received
media attention. Features on both structures&emdash;Baker Hall, home of
the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, and Dell Butcher Hall, home
of the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology&emdash;ran in the Christian
Science Monitor, the Houston Chronicle and Texas Architecture magazine.

In addition to the traditional media coverage of Rice, the News Office has
established contact–and stories have appeared–with online news operations,
including ABC News, CNN Interactive, the Houston Chronicle Interactive, and
the New York Times online edition among others.

The News Office Web site, operational for more than three years, has seen a
marked increase in visits from reporters, particularly on the news release and
Rice News Online pages. During the past year more than 29,000 hits were recorded
on the News Office’s front page (up from about 10,000 during the first year
of operation).

Also, with the support of the university’s Technology Services division, the
News Office is providing journalists real-time access to campus programs and
events through the Internet. During the past year, reporters, including a foreign
affairs reporter for USA Today who could not make it to campus, covered speeches
given by Gorbachev and Annan using the Internet connection.