On-line press releases

Several organisations allow working journalists to sign up to receive press releases, or lists of press releases that you can retrieve or have sent to you by email. 

A growing feature of these services is the ability to specify the subjects monitored for you, and how often they send an alert. The best send a list of new releases and then offer an option to have the item mailed to you. Some insist on a visit to their web site.

A growing number of organisations have also started email lists for their releases. We will list here any with special appeal to science writers. If you want your organisation to appear here, send a note to the address listed on the left.

AlphaGalileo

AlphaGalileo is Europe's own "press office" for science. Essential reading for all science writers.

EurekAlert!

A child of the AAAS, EurekAlert! can be a bit daunting to navigate and is swamped by American research and has a heavy dose of medical material.

Newsdesk

Given a new look, and customisation options, in August 2001, Newsdesk is one of the biggest of the commercial operations. You can set up 'profiles' for particular subjects or companies. there are also all manner of delivery and schedule options.

Newswise

Newswise, comes in three different flavours — science, medicine and business. Mostly American.

Quadnet

"QUADNET was the first news distribution service to employ the power of the Internet to deliver the science, technology and medical news of universities, research societies, national labs, foundations and industry. It's email based distribution delivers news exclusively to a list of reporters who have requested this information."

Organisations

ESA

It took a lot of people a long time to persuade the European Space Agency to make press releases available as ordinary text. So we should all let them know how much we appreciate it by signing up to the agency's email service. It comes in various flavours and languages. Look for the ''Subscribe" link on the home page.