Seeking a Missing Link, and a Mass Audience
It is science for the Mediacene age.
On Tuesday morning, researchers will unveil a 47-million-year-old fossil they say could revolutionize the understanding of human evolution at a ceremony at the American Museum of Natural History.
But the event, which will coincide with the publishing of a peer-reviewed article about the find, is the first stop in a coordinated, branded media event, orchestrated by the scientists and the History Channel, including a film detailing the secretive two-year study of the fossil, a book release, an exclusive arrangement with ABC News and an elaborate Web site.
“Any pop band is doing the same thing,” said Jorn H. Hurum, a scientist at the University of Oslo who acquired the fossil and assembled the team of scientists that studied it. “Any athlete is doing the same thing. We have to start thinking the same way in science.”
The specimen, designated Darwinius masillae, is of a monkeylike creature that is remarkably intact: even the contents of its stomach are preserved. The fossil was bought two years ago in Germany by the University of Oslo, and a team of scientists began work on their research. Some of the top paleontologists in the world were involved in the project, and it impressed the chief scientist at the Natural History museum enough to allow the press conference.
“We would not go forward with this, even in a hosting capacity, unless we had a sense of the scientific importance,” said Michael J. Novacek, the provost of science at the museum.
But despite a television teaser campaign with the slogan “This changes everything” and comparisons to the moon landing and the Kennedy assassination, the significance of this discovery may not be known for years. An article to be published on Tuesday in PLoS ONE, a scientific journal, will report more prosaically that the scientists involved said the fossil could be a “stem group” that was a precursor to higher primates, with the caveat, “but we are not advocating this.”
All of this seems a departure from the normal turn of events, where researchers study their subject and publish their findings, and let the media chips fall where they may. But this campaign is only the latest example of the scientific media blockbuster, of which the National Geographic Society has become perhaps the most successful practitioner. It often gives grants to researchers, with National Geographic gaining the rights to produce television shows and magazine articles related to any discoveries.
And these kinds of publicity campaigns can backfire. In 2007, for example, the Discovery Channel ran a documentary called “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” which had its share of detractors in the academic community.
Executives of A&E, which operates the History Channel, said they were mindful of that example, and were satisfied that the science behind the fossil discovery was solid. The media facets to the project began to coalesce last summer, when an A&E executive met in London with Anthony Geffen, a filmmaker and the chief executive of Atlantic Productions, who had been secretly working on the film with Mr. Hurum.
“I made the decision pretty close to on the spot,” said Abbe Raven, the chief executive of A&E Television Networks, which owns the History Channel. “Unearthing a piece of history like this is unbelievable. To do it on television is incredible.”
For almost a year, within the halls of A&E it was simply called “Project Y.” The company bought 51 percent of the film, giving it editorial control and the right to show the world premiere. (The film, a two-hour documentary, will be shown on Memorial Day on the History Channel.)
The BBC in Britain and ZDF, the German broadcaster, will show the film after the History Channel does. (A&E would not say what it paid for the film, but said it was the highest it had paid for a single documentary.)
A&E also took the project to the Natural History museum to arrange a big press conference, to be attended by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
A&E executives also approached the ABC News president, David Westin, and brokered a deal for exclusive access to “Good Morning America” (Wednesday morning the fossil will be in the studio), “Nightline” and “World News”; they helped line up a publisher for a book, which like the film is called “The Link,” being published by Little, Brown. The publisher shipped 110,000 copies, and sellers signed confidentiality agreements promising not to open the cartons before the publication date.
“It’s the most newsworthy and noteworthy special we’ve been a part of,” said Nancy Dubuc, the general manager of the History Channel. “We made a commitment early on to get behind it in a big way: to see it through peer review, and see that it is the media event it should be.”
The project had its origins in December 2006 at a mineral and fossil fair in Hamburg, Germany, where Mr. Hurum ran into a private dealer who, over fruity vodka drinks with umbrellas, showed him an image of the fossil, which had been found in a pit in Germany and lain in a collector’s drawer for about 25 years.
“It was incredible,” he said. “I could not sleep for two nights, just thinking about this specimen.”
Mr. Hurum then assembled what he described as a dream team of experts to study the fossil: B. Holly Smith, a dental anthropologist at the University of Michigan; Jens Franzen, a German fossil expert; and Philip D. Gingerich, the leading American primate specialist, also from the University of Michigan.
“I sometimes felt like a banjo player jamming with Pink Floyd,” Mr. Hurum said.
Most parties involved were required to sign nondisclosure agreements, including the two companies that the History Channel approached to advertise during the film. One of those, GMAC, signed on to publicize its rebranding as Ally Bank, though executives were not fully told what the subject of the film was.
Despite precautions, the 47-million-year-old secret broke early when The Wall Street Journal published a short piece about the find. The source proved to be Mr. Gingerich, who did not realize he was speaking on the record.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/busin ... ei=5087%0A 
