CHEMICAL AND ENGINEERING

NEWS WALTER J. MURPHY, Editor

The ACS JVewM Service

I WENTY-EIGHT years ago the AMKRICAN <*HEMICAL SOCIETY established a new activity designated a s the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY'NCWS Service.

With this pioneering step, the Society embarked upon an organized program of public relations which, directly and by example, has been a major factor in the development of public appreciation of the scientist, and his work.

From the start, the ACS News Service has emphasized the task of reporting and interpreting to the public the con­tinuing advance of chemical science and technology. By explaining chemical discoveries in terms of their meaning in everyday life, the News Service helped to convince American editors that science need not be fantastic to make news.

Today the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, now the world's largest professional association of scientists with over 60,000 chemists and chemical engineers on its rolls, engages in a broad public relations program which covers radio and television as well as the press, and extends into many foreign lands.

The heart of this program, however, is still the diffusion of scientific information—one of the basic purposes of the 73-year old Society as stated in the federal charter con­ferred on it by Congress in 1937. Papers presented a t national meetings of the Society are publicized in the daily press, technical and trade journals and general maga­zines, as well as on the radio. The press room operated by the News Service a t each national —reeling enables general reporters as well as trained science writers to obtain ac­curate, intelligible data concerning the most formidable scientific topics discussed.

Similar treatment, though on a somewhat less elaborate scale, is given to special symposia conducted by the So­ciety's scientific divisions, such as the Division of Rub­ber Chemistry, and to regional meetings. Important papers presented a t sessions of the 129 local sections of the Society arc publicized whenever possible, and newsworthy articles appearing in the Society's journals arc summarized in nontechnical language for the benefit of the general press.

Elections of officers by the Society, divisions, and local sections; medal awards and other honors accorded out­standing chemists and chemical engineers; prize contests for students—all provide material for News Service use in winning public recognition for the chemist and chemical engineer.

Nor does the News Service neglect the important task of making known to the public the viewpoint of the chemist and chemical engineer on current issues affecting the chemical profession. During World War II , the Society took the lead in protesting the waste of scientific talent by the armed forces, and the success of the N e w s Service in dit ec ting public attention to the draft policies under criticism was of no small value in forcing their revision.

Abroad as well as at home, the story of American chem­istry is told to millions of persons each year through the efforts of the ACS N e w s Service. Besides sending "spot"

news stories to European and Latin-American editors and the foreign departments of the press associations, the News Service supplies comprehensive bimonthly reports on American chemistry and chemical engineering to the Committee on I n ter-American Scientific Publication, sponsored by the State Department, which in turn makes them available to editors throughout the world. Com­menting on this service recently, the British weekly, The Chemical Age, asserted that the average Englishman hears as much about the work of American chemists as he does about British achievements.

Additional information for foreign countries is provided through cooperation in the State Department's "Voice of America" broadcasts, the ACS News Service frequently arranging to have chemists and chemical engineers appear on these programs, and often writing the script?.

In the radio field a t home, the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY again has been a successful pioneer. The News Service has developed its own weekly news broadcast, en­titled "Headlines in Chemistry," which, in cooperation with local sections of the Society, is now presented live on 56 stations, many of them major network outlets.

Press releases and radio broadcasts are not the only means employed by the Society to disseminate scientific in­formation to the public. Recognizing the magnitude of chemical contributions to atomic energy development, the editors of I&EC and C&EN, immediately after World War II , designed and built a $12,000 nuclear energy exhibit, which has been presented in some 25 cities throughout the United States and also in Canada.

This 13-panel display, dramatizing the impact of atomic power in peace as well as in war, met with such prompt and widespread acclaim that i t was shipped to Paris, a t the re­quest of the State Department, to be shown at the first general conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Mil­lions of people have seen the exhibit in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and thousands have received copies of a booklet describing i t in popular language which has been distributed in connection with the showings and to schools when requested. The exhibit and the booklet consti­tuted the first real effort in this country or abroad to edu­cate the public in the problems posed by the atomic age.

The importance of the varied activities of the News Serv­ice is indicated by the recent appointment by its director of a 12-man News Service Advisory Board consisting of outstanding public relations executives in the field of chemi­cal industry and a cross-section representation of the So­ciety's membership. (See page 1274 of this issue.) The adoption of the pattern of advisory boards assisting the editor of Analytical Chemistry. CHEMICAL A N D ENGINEERING N E W S , and Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, now incorporated in N e w s Service activities i s one more forward step in the Society's endeavor to pre­sent the chemist and chemical engineer to the public in a dignified yet effective manner.