Articles
Huge congratulations should go to Engineering UK for its organisation of the Big Bang young scientists and engineers fair, which has grown to become a really significant annual event.
This year’s extravaganza, which took place across three days in the middle of March at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre, attracted a staggering 75,000 schoolchildren, many of whom went away dreaming of a career in Stem. But it wasn’t just youngsters who filed in through the doors in good numbers: media organisations were also there in abundance.
BBC Breakfast did several live broadcasts on the opening morning of the event, as did ITV’s Daybreak programme. Television crews from BBC West Midlands, ITV Central and Newsround also transmitted pieces to camera.
Meanwhile, light entertainment interest came from the likes of the Alan Titchmarsh Show and Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch.
These broadcasts delivered the same upbeat message directly into millions of homes throughout the UK – namely that Stem learning doesn’t have to come from textbooks, it can be imaginatively and informatively hands-on.
And such positive coverage helped to remind youngsters that, with the right qualifications and experience, Stem subjects can lead to exciting and rewarding careers.
The Big Bang fair showed that positive media coverage can be achieved, as long as attempts are made to reach out to news-gatherers and to provide them with the sort of editorial content that they need.
That’s not to say that some parts of the media aren’t still guilty of lazy mis-portrayal from time to time. Take the recent storm damage to railway tracks in the South West. Network Rail’s orange army of track workers performed a Herculean task under extreme weather conditions to bring the line back into operation faster than had been expected. It was crucial work, worthy of our respect.
But they weren’t ‘engineers’, as labelled across a host of news bulletins, newspapers and websites, more likely highly competent Network Rail technicians. It can be rather frustrating.
Despite such occasional lapses, in the main engineers are getting a more accurate press. It helps that, in addition to top-line efforts in this area by organisations such as Engineering UK and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, a new breed of young media-savvy engineers is starting to coming through.
As our feature on page 40 shows, these rising stars are comfortable using social media sites such as Twitter to raise the profile of what they do. That in turn is helping to create a more accurate portrayal of the engineering profession for a new generation who use the internet as their first port of call for media consumption.
So where might this lead? Hopefully to a better-informed media which appreciates the true nature of an engineer’s role and continues to reflect the profession in a more accurate light. And, who knows, one day we might even see an engineer appear in a non-factual programme such as a drama or a soap opera, rather than the usual roll-call of teachers, doctors and nurses. Now wouldn’t that make a pleasant change?
Contact Lee Hibbert, PE Editor, at Unit G4, Harbour Yard, London SW10 0XD. lee.hibbert@caspianmedia.com