At the BIO 2005 conference earlier this week I participated in a panel discussion entitled "Guerrilla Media Tactics: Getting MORE Media Attention Without News." Part of the Public Relations/Investor Relations track, this session probably flew below the radar of most scientists attending the conference. But there were plenty of corporate communication- and PR-types in the audience.The panel, consisting of yours truly plus writers and editors from Fortune magazine, the Wall Street Journal Online, Red Herring, and the Forbes/Gottlieb Report, each weighed in on how best to pitch a story to a news organization, what works, what doesn't, pet peeves, and so on. The panel member's statements held no surprises really. Case in point: You'll get a better reception if you pitch a story directly at the magazine, for instance, rather than sending some generic boilerplate text. (In other words, don't send The Scientist a story idea about particle accelerators, because...

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