Thread by @People_Of_Space

For my final thread of Mars-related stuff today, I wanted to talk about how it – and the question of life, obviously -- has been been reported – and to share some brotherly love with the hacks in the trenches 👋 #countdowntomars #Mars2020
@howellspace @AlexMartin @drdwhitehouse

One thing which I was always impressed by – way back when – and more so now is the openness of JPL in letting reporters in and to do their job – even during the bad times, and heaven knows there have been enough of those

In the sixties, the lab launched six straight failures in the Ranger series. Even then – with a Congressional investigation pending – the lab played straight. Painfully so, at times.

In the early days, there was opposition to letting reporters in: my good pal Al Hibbs – who was the lab spokesman – recalled one manager saying: “If they let the cameras in, they’ll just want to show us picking our noses”

And the same occurred recently when the social media team wanted to do live webcams from building the latest Mars rovers. The minute the assembly was shown, the world reacted. They liked what they saw: and the engineers also enjoyed the interest.

It proves something I always thought, even before I became a writer and journalist: let the people know what they are getting for their money and remember it’s their money, not yours.

In the Viking days, reporters were allowed in to scientific planning meetings at JPL on background. That is, as the project manager, Jim Martin said; “You don’t talk, take notes, photographs, recordings and most of all you don’t talk.”

That openness has rarely been replicated elsewhere, proof that nobody who ever reports from JPL will ever get snowed - even when there have been losses and you can see that the engineers are clearly distressed

I come from a country where as ridiculous as it seems weather forecasts were once classed as military secrets and government press officers spent all their time denying they – and the organisations they worked for – actually existed

In the nineties a lot of that changed - not necessarily for the better. Instead of greater openness, all that happened was people started to clog the journalistic food chain with sillier job titles and bigger offices to make access even harder

Are things better today? I will leave that for current reporters to comment (they might be busy). I am impressed by the range of material they produce: here are some of the greats who are all on Mars duty today @alexmartin @howellspace @brendanbyrne @alexwitze @emrekelly

So: how has reporting Mars and space changed? Is it any better – or more accurate? And – what you might call the origin sin for space – do people act as shills for hype merchants? undark.org/2021/01/18/ast…

I don't propose to answer that question now - will be back!

So with an hour to go...... going to look back, not forward.....

@howellspace
@search_mars

My first book in 1988 was with Independent Television News (ITN) where I got to work with one of the more accomplished journalists who ever covered space, Frank Miles, now in his nineties

Frank left school at 14, started as a copy boy and worked his way through various newsrooms to become chief writer at ITN. In early 1969, he went to the editor and asked to work on Apollo coverage. Why? “Because it is the greatest story of the age.”

And so he did and started the Space Unit which covered those missions – for Apollo 11, ITN got three times the audience than the BBC did, a minor detail which rarely gets mentioned (here is Dick Gordon dressed as an English gent)

So why did they win the audiences? Because Frank – and on screen reporter Peter Fairley - knew how to tell a story – and, crucially, that the audiences wanted to hear the astronauts talking and not have someone talk over them as the BBC always seemed to do

For that, they had a secret weapon – title file, a character generator, which meant they could generate captions in real time. Revolutionary at the time, as ridiculous as it now seems

Frank Miles got so good at understanding how the landing would take place that he actually alerted NASA JSC to errors and inconsistencies in their Flight Plan @poppy_northcutt

He learned it backwards so could prompt production assistant Hilary Deed to call up prepared captions – a kind of low tech version of twitter as he listened in, thus telling the audience what was happening

At the very instant Buzz Aldrin said “Contact Light”, Hilary typed in “Touchdown” – and it appeared on screen. When Neil said “The Eagle Has Landed”, those words were on screen even before he finished saying them

So age 23, when I worked with him, I was a typical smart alec graduate who thought he knew it all, who had certainly spent too much time around academics pontificating what they thought the media should do. What did I learn from him?

Utter fearlessness – that is, there is always room in journalism to ask big names difficult questions. They are spending your taxes, not their own money. They need to be held to account, not lionised.

Attention to detail – if you take the time to learn about something, your interviewee will sense that you have done your homework. They might not like your questions, but they can respect you have done the groundwork

And don’t be scared of pointing out that The Emperor Wore No Clothes – if something looks ridiculous and it won’t work, point this out. If a grand name pontificates, tackle him – always him, pop pickers – and so it probably continues today

And always find the right word – not necessarily the last word, but the one that works. And finally – as I would have written when I was in newspapers – today is going to be a busy day for JPL

And a final word: today is about the people doing the work, not those sitting gawping and tweeting ironic apercus like me. So I will shut up and watch NASA TV. Enjoy everyone!