Press, Radio and Television

The number of identified mentions of the Armagh Observatory and its staff in various mass-media has increased from 11 in 1994 to 233 in 1999. Whilst many of these `media mentions' (about 30%) are in the local press (e.g. the Ulster Gazette, Armagh Observer etc.), some of which have among the highest local impact factors in the UK, a substantial number of reports occur in specialist and technical magazines, on radio or television, or in the national and international press.

Table 1: Breakdown of known media citations for 1999. The 233 identified citations include 30 reports in UK national newspapers (e.g. Times, Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express, and corresponding Sunday papers); 18 in Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland national newspapers (e.g. Belfast Telegraph, Irish News, Newsletter, Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Tribune); and 22 UK local radio stations (e.g. Radio Ulster, Radio Foyle, Downtown Radio and others in Britain) and Republic of Ireland stations (RTE and local stations). The Observatory was featured 14 times on UK and Republic of Ireland national television news and documentary programmes (e.g. BBC1, BBC2, ITV3, ITV4, Channel 5, Sky, RTE), and 9 times on UK national radio (e.g. BBC Radio 4 Today and PM programmes, and Radio 5). The figure of 2 citations on foreign television is obviously an extreme lower limit, due to under-reporting.


Programme or Medium	Citations

UK and Republic of Ireland local newspapers	71
Popular astronomy and specialist magazines	33
UK national newspapers excluding Northern Ireland	30
UK local radio and Republic of Ireland radio	22
Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland national newspapers	18
UK and Republic of Ireland national television	14
UK national radio	9
Foreign newspapers	7
Northern Ireland local television	6
Foreign radio	3
Foreign television	2
Miscellaneous items	18

The number of identified media mentions is sufficiently large that it is of interest to consider the breakdown versus type of publication. This is shown in Table 1. Many of these newspapers and radio or television programmes reach millions of people simultaneously, and it is clear that many tens of millions of people must have been exposed to `Astronomy in Armagh' during 1999.

The Observatory also issues press releases on various meteorological and astronomical topics of local or general interest, and on news items that specifically concern Armagh Observatory staff or their research results. In 1999, the Librarian and other staff produced 42 such media releases, of which at least 40 were published in one form or another in the local or national press, an exceptionally high `hit' rate. In addition to media releases, astronomer Gerry Doyle published a series of 11 articles in the local newspaper `The Ulster Gazette', while Bill Napier's novel Nemesis, a fictionalized account of a threat asteroid, published in paperback on December 1999, has sold a total of 50,000 copies. The book has now been translated into German and Japanese, with sales of a similar order expected in each of these countries.

The Librarian (and occasionally other staff) also regularly answers questions from members of the public on different aspects of astronomy, the list for 1999 extending to 265 distinct enquiries.