New Harvard Features Service Goes Online

When a front-page New York Times article reported Harvard Professor Judah Folkman's promising research on two anti-cancer drugs, reporters around the world rushed to follow the story.

But not William J. Cromie. Cromie, the Gazette's longtime science writer, had reported on Folkman's research in a front-page Gazette article on Feb. 13, 1997 -- nearly 14 months before The Times' May 3, 1998 story.

"That sort of thing happens all the time at the Gazette, and especially with Bill Cromie's stories," said Editor-in-Chief John Lenger. "Just in the last couple of months, we've been first with stories about new statistics showing that we're winning the war on cancer, and about an undergraduate who figured out what limits running speed. That's why we think the relatively new service we've set up, the Harvard Features Service, is so valuable. People want news about scientific discoveries right away, and now we're giving it to them on a Website."

The Website -- http://www.news.harvard.edu/science -- is the latest addition to the Harvard Features Service, which was set up a year ago to make Harvard science stories available to newspapers across the country. Every week, Gazette stories about science, medicine, and technology are e-mailed or faxed to about 150 U.S. daily newspapers. "Publications are given the right to reprint stories," Lenger said. "All we ask is a credit line. Reporters and editors also can use our stories to supplement their own reporting. Some of these researchers are almost impossible to get on the phone -- they don't want to talk to 100 reporters. But they'll talk to us."

The Website makes the stories accessible to publications around the world, and to readers who want to keep up with science and medicine. It is updated every Thursday when the Gazette is published, and contains an archive catalogued by subject. The site also contains high-quality color and black-and-white photographs to accompany the stories. Unlike most images on the Web, these photos are high-resolution, so they can be printed in newspapers and magazines. "All you have to do is download them," Lenger said.

There is a chance that in the future, all Gazette stories and photos will be made available for reprinting. "We started with science because we think that's in the greatest demand," Lenger said. "But we also do stories about professors who do lots of other fascinating work. In the meantime, anyone who wants to can read about them in the Gazette on-line at http://www.news.harvard.edu."