Media Coverage

The Observatory is a principal point of contact for astronomy amongst the mass media (press, radio and television), and plays a major role in the promotion of astronomy and public understanding of science both locally (i.e. within Armagh City and District and Northern Ireland) and abroad. Astronomers at Armagh receive (and deal with) numerous questions from the general public, and are often invited by the national and international media to comment on recent research results or discoveries. These contacts lead to articles or citations in the national and international press, and to sound-bites and media clips on radio and television.

The number of identified mentions of the Armagh Observatory and its staff in various mass-media has increased rapidly during the past few years, from about 10 in 1994 to more than 230 in 1999 and 2000. During 2000, the Observatory was noted in one or another of these mass media at least 234 times, and from this point in time it was decided not to attempt to improve this figure arbitrarily. In other words, the target for media citations involving the Armagh Observatory or Armagh Observatory staff has been fixed at 200 media citations per year. This, it must be emphasized, has been achieved with extremely limited resources: the Observatory does not employ a press officer or public relations agency, nor does it have access to a cuttings service. The good results under this aspect of the Observatory's programme of public outreach have been obtained merely by encouraging staff to be proactive in presenting their work to the general public and by being available to the press and others on request for comment or questions.

Table 4: Breakdown of known media citations for 1999-2003. The 225 identified citations for 2003 include 17 reports in Astronomy Now and Astronomy & Space, the two leading commercial amateur astronomy magazines in the UK and Ireland respectively; 19 in Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland national newspapers (e.g. Belfast Telegraph, Irish News, Newsletter, Irish Times); and 19 in UK and Ireland local radio stations (e.g. Radio Ulster, Radio Foyle, Downtown Radio etc.). The Observatory was also featured 18 times on UK and Republic of Ireland national or regional television news and documentary programmes (e.g. BBC1, BBC2, Sky, RTE, BBC Northern Ireland, UTV). The known citations in foreign newspapers and on foreign television are obviously extreme lower limits due to under-reporting, but are known to include virtually every country in the world, for example reports on the BBC World Service and on BBC World TV News.


Programme or Medium	Identified Citations
	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003

UK and Republic of Ireland local newspapers	72	82	82	92	80
UK national newspapers excluding Northern Ireland	31	12	16	8	3
Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland national newspapers	18	26	18	18	21
Popular astronomy and specialist magazines	34	31	63	52	38
UK local radio and Republic of Ireland radio	25	22	17	26	19
UK national radio	9	4	3	0	1
UK and Republic of Ireland national television	11	14	17	4	5
Northern Ireland and UK local television	6	9	6	11	13
Foreign newspapers	9	3	17	1	1
Foreign radio	3	6	5	0	1
Foreign television	2	1	7	2	2
Miscellaneous items	18	24	51	53	41
Total	238	234	302	267	225

It is noteworthy that many of these identified citations (some 25-30%) 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. However, a substantial number of citations are also in mass-media such as radio and television, and the national and international press, while others are in specialist or technical magazines, and on the internet. The breakdown of known media citations versus type of publication is shown in Table 4. Many of the newspapers and radio or television programmes that mention astronomy at Armagh reach millions of people simultaneously, and it is clear that every year many tens of millions of people are being exposed to Armagh Observatory or its research.

In summary, the Observatory appears to be successfully reaching a huge number of people, certainly as many as can be reasonably expected for an astronomical research institute of its relatively small size, and there are no immediate plans to alter what it is currently doing in this area of activity. The number of known media citations in 2003, namely 225, comfortably exceeded -- for the third year running -- the target of 200. The list of identified media citations for 2003 is provided in Appendix F.