Research & Prof. Develop. 6 - The Abcs of Educating the Public via the Media
Sunday, November 20, 2022
8:00 AM – 9:00 AM EST
Location: Winter Garden/Palace, 6th Floor
Keywords: Career Development, Dissemination, Mental Health Literacy Level of Familiarity: Basic Recommended Readings: 1. McNally, R. J. (2011). Reflections on mentoring. The Behavior Therapist, 34, 100-104.
Professor Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts
Psychologists can perform a valuable service by educating the public via the mass media. Our role has become especially important in an age when facts must compete against massive misinformation. To be an effective scientific resource for journalists, we must remember our ABCs: accuracy, brevity, and clarity. The same principles hold when we write for the general public via Op-Eds, magazine articles, and trade books. However, the implementation of these principles varies as a function of the medium. Psychologists who work with the media have acquired considerable tacit knowledge about these practices, but there is no single source for younger professionals keen to share their knowledge with the public. Accordingly, as someone who has worked the media since 1985, I will share what I have learned about the risks and rewards of being a source for newspapers, magazines, authors of books, and the US Senate as well as appearing on radio, television, and in documentary films.
This session does not offer continuing education credit.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of the session, the learner will be able to:
Define the ABCs of working with the media.
Define the "curse of knowledge" and state how to avoid it.
Describe how to avoid being misquoted in the media.