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Inside the Pluto Public Relations Machine
An anonymous reader writes: They knew it was going to be huge, but even the communications team — which had spent months planning for the event — was surprised by the magical atmosphere and worldwide excitement surrounding NASA's New Horizons Pluto flyby. The communication needs were monumental and required good planning, a ton of teamwork and attention to detail. This is how they made it happen.
The Simpsons had it right... all that equipment is to measure ratings.
Just can't help themselves and yes I am aware of that.
the magical atmosphere and worldwide excitement surrounding NASA's New Horizons Pluto flyby
It sad to know that a large section of the press would have been happy to ruin the moments the pictures came back (and shit on the public's excitement) by trashing one of the scientists, just because a women he was friends with made a shirt that pissed off a few ideologues. I'd love to hear what the Horizons PR team thought about that, when it happened to the ESA mission.
Pats on the back from the PR team to the PR Team...
"The communication needs were monumental and required good planning,"
Talk up the PR persons job, its not about scheduling press conferences and writing press releases, no sir, its a monumental job. Some people couldn't believe we'd manage it, but somehow those press releases got emailed and those youtube videos posted! Good work everyone!
The Pluto fly by was so unimportant that he confused it with the comet landing probe! I think his comment sums it up.
And if he does derail this article so what! Its an article about PR people putting out press releases! They didn't "make it happen", if the entire PR team of New Horizons had been fired, the office secretary would have organized the press meetings, interviews and emailed the team updates out.
They claim "newspaper articles" as success, but the *content* of the *fly-past* got those newspaper articles, not the PR team sending the press releases out!
They go "we had 783,000 plays on our TV stream.... and 9.9 million page hits on the website".... and, thats funny cat video levels!
I remember when Bob Smithers, uploaded his "Cat Hates Bath" video, and posted his Facebook item on it, and it went viral.... his PR team sent out press releases claiming it as *their* success, ... said Mr Abraham Suit "it took a lot of planning and it was a difficult job, but fluffy couldn't have done it without me"
hand in hand we stand..... see you there...
If you want to hold a massive press conference about space exploration, of course you have to planet.
The pictures are indeed remarkable. But the science team clearly and jealously held them for too long before releasing them to the public.
The adults are trying to have a conversation here.
The best pr is actually "propaganda" but most people don't really know how that works. The best propaganda is something that ALMOST nobody believes. It's ridiculous. But there's got to be a hook, a hint of a kernel of truth. When the propaganda is opposed with facts or laughter or whatever, the kernel comes out on it's own. It's like crowd sourcing. People will be like "oh, jews don't have CLAWS, of course, but many banks ARE owned by them". It's too easy.
With pluto it was as easy. Just inflame to planet dwarf/planet thing. You dont' even have to pick a side, just say "nasa has too big/little a budget" and you'll get PR from people discussing that. Now that you know the secret, off you go, to ignore or fan the propaganda of your choice. Remember, it falls on ordinary citizens to spread the really ridiculous stuff, because the oligarchy can't be seen to actually do it. Brilliant, right?
The scientists and ops team rehearsed the data processing schemes for years to get the images that the PR teams got to play with. And all the social media stuff during the press conferences was entirely NASA's (bad) idea.
Why all the excitement? It isn't any more interesting than you typical asteroid flyby.
When you don't have a real space program anymore, you need to maintain the momentum and funding via Public Relations.
According to Fran Bagenal talk at Denver Astronomical Society. She could not present much new data in her talk. http://www.denverastro.org/das...
...to Uranus!
"First, the reporters later told us that they had never had such good access to scientists, and it made their jobs easier and their reports better. Second, this set up gave our communications team more time to solve problems, plan and react to news, and maintain stability at the center – instead of racing to fill reporter requests."
mfwright@batnet.com
And, the fact that they Photoshopped Disney's Pluto into the Photoshopped image of the fake planet, also accounts for their budget excesses, as now they not only need to pay Adobe, they also need to pay royalties to Disney.
Between that and the "SEX" in the clouds in the latest image of the round Earth (which must be a lie, since Neil deGrasse Tyson now says the Earth is "pear-shaped" in an attempt to account for the extra land found in the southern regions -- it can't be both pear-shaped, and round in past images!), I am really surprised that NASA continues to fool millions.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I could not stand the news sessions -- so much self-congratulatory fluff, a waste of time. However, their mini-show "Pluto in a Minute" was very nifty.
Was it written by a precocious ten year old? It osunds like something from a school essay about One Direction.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it