By Tara Haelle
If you’ve followed our earlier tip sheet for preparing to cover a medical conference ahead of time, you’ll already be on top of your game when you arrive. Here are additional tips to keep the actual conference reporting moving efficiently as well.
1. Wear comfortable shoes.
As health journalist Karen Blum noted on a previous post about preparing for a conference. “Those convention centers are huge, and you will spend a lot of time walking around and standing on your feet during poster presentations,” she wrote.
2. Familiarize yourself with the convention or hotel space, press room, press release schedule (if there is one) and press officers.
Indeed, not only are meeting centers typically large, they can be labyrinthine as well. It’s a good idea to spend some a few minutes studying a map of the hotel or convention space soon after arriving to attempt to orient yourself.
Find the press room first: It will likely become your home base. Most press rooms offer complimentary Wi-Fi, coffee, water, other drinks, occasional snacks and plenty of outlets and desk space. Some conferences provide come-and-go or buffet-style breakfasts or lunches, too, (potentially freeing up your expense allowance for a nicer dinner). If they do, ask the press officers when meals are available; sometimes the food goes quickly once available.
3. Speaking of which, use the press officers!
Press officers can be amazingly helpful resources, and it would be foolish to waste time trying to chase down information they may be able to help you find. They can track down presenters, help you find outside sources, get early copies of abstracts, look up disclosure information, etc. Get to know them as soon as you arrive and find out where they can help. Also find out if any press conferences or announcements, round tables, Q&As or similar events are planned for researchers or highlighted research.
4. Familiarize yourself with presenters’ past work.
This excellent suggestion, from Aaron Levin on a previous post about preparing to cover a conference, can be done ahead of time and on-site: “Go to PubMed ahead of the conference and look up the presenters’ recent work to get some background for the forthcoming talks.” This suggestion not only helps you understand how the current presentation fits into the researchers’ overall work, but it may trigger some questions for getting a sense of the bigger picture, making it easier to provide readers with useful context about the research.
5. Bring and use a good quality recorder — ideally not your phone.
Although smartphones often have excellent recorders, I always bring a separate digital recorder. First, it’s challenging to type everything you hear, or even just the most important points, while also reading slides and simply taking in what is typically dense material. Having a recorder is invaluable for going back later and hearing what you missed (and confirming great quotes you may not have copied down incorrectly).
Second, while smartphones often have excellent recording apps, they rarely record distant speaking well (unless you sit beside the speaker) and the recording can drain battery power. I use my phone for so many functions during a conference (such as the conference app) that I can’t afford to risk running down the battery by recording. Further, if it’s a conference where they don’t provide you the slides or handouts, you may need your phone to take photos of the slides. Finally, sometimes you want to cover two simultaneous sessions: If you have a separate digital recorder, you can leave one in one room and then use your phone to record the one you’re attending. (Just don’t forget to go back and get it!)
6. Arrive at sessions and posters early when possible.
Arriving early can offers opportunities to strike up conversations with attendees who may be able to provide quotes afterward or to get business cards from presenters before the session starts. There’s also a better change of snagging a better seat for taking photos and recording. “In oral sessions, sit as close to the podium as possible,” recommends journalist Alaric DeArment. “This way you can rush the stage before anyone else.”
Similarly, “if you have time, case the posters before the actual poster presentation times, so you have quiet time to review them, take pictures on your cell phone or pick up printed copies and prioritize which stories are most newsworthy or whom you want to interview,” Blum advises. “Once the session is on, it’s a mob scene.”
7. Seek diverse experts for outside comments.
It’s important to get different perspectives on presentations and the quality of the evidence, including how it might apply to different populations. At conferences with a strong international presence, reach out to attendees from different countries and world regions. Look for diversity in age, race/ethnicity, experience, institutional affiliation, region, gender, specialty, etc. When covering an OBGYN conference, I specifically looked for African-American clinicians to interview after one presentation because I noticed the population studied (on a particularly important topic) was nearly all white, so I wanted to know whether outcomes were necessarily generalizable to other populations. A non-white clinician was more likely to have perspectives on that question.
8. Exercise news judgment as a session is occurring.
Perhaps you showed up to cover the first abstract, but it’s denser than you expected, or the clinical significance is weak, or their final analysis didn’t reach statistical significance and negative results aren’t appropriate for your coverage. However, the third presentation ends up piquing your interest — or garners many more questions than the others. Don’t feel tied to the research you planned to cover if something else becomes more interesting or worthwhile (unless you’re following strict assignments, in which case it’s worth discussing with your editor). Also consider your audience (trade or consumer, for example) to determine whether a particular abstract or presentation merits coverage.
9. Download slides when possible and take photos of them.
Many conferences make slides available on a conference app or from the website. It’s still wise to attend the talk for investigator/presenter quotes, outside expert quotes and updated information that may be outdated on the website/app slides. Downloading them ahead of time can help you figure out what questions you might have or look for discrepancies to pay attention to during the presentation. If the slides aren’t available online, ask the organization’s press officers if they’re available. Often the press officers can provide them to journalists upon request.
Taking photos of slides during presentations is also immensely helpful for updated information or for slides you cannot otherwise get. Nearly all conferences allow photos of slides for the purposes of reporting, as long as images of the slides themselves are not published (sometimes including on social media). Check with the meeting’s press policies to be sure you know the photography policy. (Some meetings allow journalists but not attendees to photograph slides. When this is the case, be prepared to show your press badge if questioned.)
10. Request a business card from every speaker and outside source you speak with and may want to quote or fully interview later.
Sometimes there isn’t time to ask questions at the moment for your story — others are waiting, a new session is starting, they have a meeting or plane to catch, etc. But you can also reach out later, even if the person is heading to the airport. I once stood near the door of a session that was ending just as a cocktail reception was starting and asked seven people for cards so that I was virtually guaranteed I could get a quote later. Even if you’re able to ask questions on the spot, ask for a card for follow-up questions or clarifications. If they don’t have a card on hand (surprisingly common), ask for their best contact method (usually email) and jot it down. It helps to have a dedicated place in your notebook (or phone app) to keep all these names and contact methods together.
11. Make notes on business cards.
It’s challenging to keep track of all the individuals you meet at a conference, and even tougher weeks (or months) later when you can’t remember why you have that person’s card. As soon as you get someone’s card, jot down on the card itself the date, the conference, some characteristic to help you recall who they are or what they look like and what you spoke about or why you took their card (or why they gave it to you). I jot down story ideas, notes about what someone wore or their hairstyle, where I met them (“awards dinner first night”) and other notes to help trigger my memory. In conference season when I attend multiple conferences in the same month, this strategy also helps me organize if cards from different conferences get mixed together.
12. Photograph name tags of those you interview.
It’s often hectic at the end of a session when trying to get outside comment from other attendees, so it could be easy to miswrite a name or mix up names and institutions or disclosures. For each person who agrees to answer some questions, I start my recorder and state their name before asking their degree(s), title, institutional affiliation and disclosures. Then I photograph their name tag so I can match up the name spelling and affiliation later as a backup.
13. Take advantage of inexpensive digital transcription services.
Multiple online transcription services allow you to upload an audio file and pay for a very inexpensive, fast transcription — a few minutes for presentations under 10 minutes and hour-long recordings often as quickly as 15 minutes. These are computer-transcribed recordings, so they’re far from perfect, and they don’t always do well with thick accents, distinguishing between different speakers (especially for voices with a similar pitch, such as two women of similar ages) and jargony language, but they usually include keyword searches that are adequate for finding sections quickly to re-listen to. Temi and Sonix are two such services, though others exist.
14. In the exhibition hall, remember you’re a journalist and be aware of exhibit hall policies.
Many exhibition halls do not allow photography, for example. While grabbing some free pens, stress balls or candy from booths isn’t going to bias your coverage or violate journalistic ethics; some booths pass out free product samples intended for physicians and other attendees, not necessarily journalists. Be transparent about being there as a journalist. If exhibitors ask to scan your badge, keep in mind they are collecting your contact information.
15. In a recent Shared Wisdom, health reporter and veteran conference-goer Alaric DeArment offers some especially helpful tips:
- Read abstracts, and make sure they’re the ones relevant to your coverage. Having general questions can help, but in my experience, researchers (especially doctors) REALLY appreciate it when they talk to journalists who know their stuff, ask informed questions and don’t have to get them to “dumb down” what they say.
- Go to poster sessions (even if you aren’t covering any posters). These are great if you need a few “on the street” comments, and the researchers are usually eager to talk about their work.
- Schedule sit-down meetings physically close to where you and the interviewee need to be. This goes a long way to minimizing travel time. If possible, schedule meetings about 10-15 minutes apart. That way, you have a little bit of wiggle room, and that’s enough time to walk fast at most convention centers. For example, it’s about a 10- to 15-minute walk between the press room and the exhibit hall at ASCO, held at McCormick Place in Chicago, North America’s largest convention center.
16. Finally, be realistic about being human.
Covering conferences can be exhausting, so plan breaks, take naps if you need to, and be sure you have both the downtime and the writing time you need to make it a worthwhile trip.
