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Why Media Coverage Matters Maremont told me that if he hadn't already read Lie and Heron's paper, he might not have taken a closer look in 2005, when the SEC investigated a company called Mercury Interactive Corp. for its abuse of stock options. "When Mer- cury Interactive all of a sudden got rid of three top execu- tives," he says, "I thought, 'Holy cow! This is real!'" This is a dramatic example of the impact that great busi- ness school research can have on business practices. But for a study to realize that kind of impact, journalists must be aware of it—more important, they must understand why their readers need to read more about it. "Thousands of papers published throughout the year may be good papers, but they're not interesting from a journalis- tic perspective," Maremont says. If business schools want to make a greater impact on business practices, they must know what it takes to make academic research interesting and use- ful to business journalists. What Makes It 'Interesting'? I spent ten years working as a journalist and another 11 years as a public relations consultant helping business schools, liber- al arts colleges, universities, medical centers, think tanks, and foundations enhance their reputations and visibility. In that time I learned that, when it comes to garnering media cover- age, it doesn't matter how well an academic study is done. If it's not connected to mainstream interests, its findings won't make it into mainstream media. Whether a business school wants to capture the attention of a potential Pulitzer Prize winner, or just find a larger audience for its faculty's best work, it first must identify, package, and pitch research-driven stories in ways that are compelling to journalists. Counterintuitive findings, for example, are more interesting to reporters than those that empirically prove what's already considered conventional wisdom. Studies with provocative "punchlines" get noticed. Findings that reflect current trends, such as the mortgage crisis, or that impact a large number of people, such as individual investors or employees, are more likely to make it into a story a reporter is already writing. "Interesting" research is in the eye of the beholder, however. For The Wall Street Journal's Maremont, it's this: "Either it breaks new ground or it potentially uncovers wrongdoing," he explains. He adds that the most newswor- thy research highlights something "that's a little question- able about how corporations or financial institutions work." Louis Lavelle, an editor at BusinessWeek, has written exten- sively about corporate management and now spearheads the magazine's business education rankings. He has a slightly dif- ferent definition of "interesting" when it comes to business 48 BizEd MARCH/APRIL 2009 The higher up the publica- tion food chain a business school goes, the harder it becomes to get a nibble. But when the media does bite, the payoffs can be huge. Through increased, improved, and properly leveraged media coverage, a school can: n Build its local, national, and global reputation. n Reinforce what rank- ings are measuring: the quality of students, fac- ulty, programs, and career services. n Establish more credibility than it can achieve with any advertising, brochure, or in-house newsletter. n Strengthen ties with key stakeholders, including alumni, faculty, students, and donors. A story means more to a school's key constituents when they read it in their local newspapers or The Wall Street Journal. n Boost fund raising. What donor prospect wouldn't be impressed when the school that just approached him for a gift is featured in a story in The New York Times? n Demonstrate relevance, especially to practitioners in the field who are far more likely to read about research in mainstream or trade media than in aca- demic journal articles. That last advantage G is becoming increasingly important. In its accredi- enerating media coverage is not easy. tation process, AACSB International now consid- ers how well business schools connect their research to their missions. Although BusinessWeek doesn't weigh research relevance in its rankings, it evaluates the volume of faculty research that appears in 21 business journals. Those two factors make it even more essen- tial for schools to develop more sophisticated media outreach strategies. "We also count up reviews of faculty books," says Louis Lavelle, who heads the business school rankings team at Business- Week. "The more that you get into those, the higher your score." In all, he adds, the research volume variable counts for about 10 percent of the rankings for full-time MBA programs. Even with the advan- tages it brings, such exposure is not expensive. Increasing media cover- age is one of the most cost-effective ways for a business school to mount a "guerilla" marketing campaign. A school can run a marketing campaign by using in-house staff, hiring an outside vendor, or blending a combination of the two. Nine Key Questions Whatever methods a business school chooses, here are some questions its administrators can ask to