The recent issue of Science has an article about

Interactions with the Mass Media
Science 11 July 2008, Vol. 321. no. 5886, pp. 204 - 205

which summarizes the result of a survey of 1354 researchers in the United States, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, and France. The results show that media contacts of scientists in these top R&D countries are more frequent and smooth than was previously thought.

In all five countries, the biggest part of scientists who had contact with the media in the past 3 years rated the impact of those contacts on their careers positively: 46% of the respondents perceived a “mostly positive” impact, whereas only 3% found the impact to be “mostly negative”. Overall, 46% of the respondents perceived a “mostly positive” impact of their interaction with journalists. 57% of the respondents said they were “mostly pleased” about their “latest appearance in the media,” and only 6% were “mostly dissatisfied”.

I find it interesting but also slightly worrisome that such a large fraction of scientists considers media contacts to be beneficial for their career. It would be good to know whether the perceived benefits are actual benefits.