Scientists' Institute for Public Information

March 28, 1979, marked an important turning point in the development of relationships between scientists and journalists. On that day, the United States suffered its most serious nuclear accident at the Three Mile Island facility. In the end it was determined that no release of radiation to the public occurred, but in the early days of the event, the public, the government, and the media were all frightened and basically did not know where to turn.

This event made scientists realize that the media were going to write about science and science- and technology-related events anyway, whether the scientists cooperated with the journalists or not, and everyone, including the scientists, was much better off if the cooperation occurred.

As a result of 84 news organizations calling the Scientists' Institute for Public Information (SIPI) looking for sources of information who could tell them what was going on at Three Mile Island and [Page 780]the subsequent story about that day that appeared in the New York Times, SIPI was able to attract funding for an idea that its vice president, Fred Jerome, had developed to organize a referral service for journalists seeking scientific sources. SIPI's Media Resource Service (MRS) was born.

SIPI's roots can be traced to organizations started in 1947 and 1948 that expressed concerns about the uses of science in the research efforts that had led to the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Following those organizations were others whose guiding principle was informing the public. In 1958 and later, organizations called Committees for Nuclear Infor mation, later becoming Committees for Environmental Information, were formed with the purpose of informing the public about the dangers of radioactive fallout and, later, about other environmental issues. SIPI was formed in 1963 as the coordinating body of 23 such local organizations. By 1974, most of the local committees had disappeared, and SIPI began organizing a series of task forces to inform the public on a variety of issues, including nuclear power, pesticides, health care, genetics, and others.

A new chapter in SIPI's history began in 1979, the one that most journalists at that time knew or knew of. By 1980, funding from the Ford Foundation—to be followed in later years by support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and others—had been secured, and the MRS was launched. Most journalists at that time simply said, “call SIPI” when asked how to find scientific sources.