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2008 Report: Communications and Outreach

Hoover’s communications and outreach team connects the Institution with interested publics: lawmakers, policy and opinion leaders, news media, universities, and think tanks. It advances the fellows’ ideas and scholarship, publicizes library and archival holdings, and promotes the Institution’s mission.

Click the links below to see a slideshow of different Hoover visitors and events.
2005–2006 Photographic Timeline
2006–2007 Photographic Timeline
2007 Photographic Timeline

During the past decade, the Institution’s communications and outreach efforts have been expanded and honed, not only because of Hoover’s growth in size, reputation, and influence but also because rapidly changing technologies are allowing it to reach audiences in new and more efficient ways. The scholarship of the Institution is disseminated to broad and varied publics, and the intellectual products are distributed via attractive, enticing, and accessible formats.

In short, whether the vehicle is print, broadcast, or specifically web based, all platforms are part of a dissemination strategy. For example, video and audio were formerly the unique domain of broadcasts. Now they are also produced with webbased uses in mind (such as podcasting and webcasting). Likewise, most Hoover publications—books and journals—are available in part or whole on the web and are often excerpted in Hoover journals. All vehicles and efforts cross-promote one another to the fullest extent possible.

hoover’s web presence

screenshot of Hoover web site
Hoover' newly designed website—more colorful, more vibrant, more timely, and with more interactive features and functions—is launched.

Hoover’s website, www.hoover.org, continues to be sought out by a growing clientele, having evolved from a handful of text-only pages that simply reproduced published information about the Institution to a dynamic site consisting of more than 12,000 unique web pages linked to Hoover’s publications and videos. Users can download or link to audio and video podcasts of Institution programs, events, and interviews featuring fellows, authors, media fellows, and distinguished visitors.

Users’ accessing Hoover’s homepage can obtain information on the library and archives, research programs, and events; watch or listen to episodes of Uncommon Knowledge™ (Hoover research fellow Peter Robinson serves as moderator-interviewer; those programs use web and nonweb video as well as podcasting); browse Hoover Digest; purchase Hoover Press books; take a virtual tour of exhibitions in the Herbert Hoover Exhibit Pavilion; and engage in an in-depth review of a public policy issue covered in one of the Institution’s topical subject pages. The site also offers an extensive archive of articles published in Policy Review® and Education Next.

facts on policy™

screenshot of Facts on Policy web page
Facts on Policy™, a semimonthly offering on the Hoover website, is launched in October 2006. The series presents relevant data, succinctly and graphically, on current public policy issues related to economics, demographics, health care, and politics. Providing readers with data—not commentary—Facts on Policy equips readers to engage in informed discussion on policy issues.

The Institution continues to expand its Internet offerings with the addition of Facts on Policy™ (www.factsonpolicy.org), which debuted in 2006. It appears twice each month, highlighting facts relevant to current issues of public interest, adding context to the world of opinion, commentary, and policy dialogue. The site is intended as an objective provider of factual information that allows interested browsers to become better informed on contextual facts that relate to public policy concerns.

focus on issues

During the last several years, the Institution and a number of its fellows have explored the ever-expanding world of weblogs (or blogs, as they’re better known). As the “blogosphere” has grown in numbers and breadth, it also has grown in terms of importance, particularly in the realm of opinion shaping and public policy. Blogs are playing an increasingly visible role on the leading edge of today’s new media.

Hoover’s entry into this arena, Focus on Issues™, was recently launched as a weekly offering. It addresses one specific issue at a time, providing a brief outline of the chosen current event, examining pertinent data, and, more important, linking to what Hoover fellows have written or said about the prevailing issue. Like Facts on Policy, Focus on Issues is intended to provide information to those interested in current affairs as part of an analytic perspective on important issues of the day.

“push” communications

Hoover’s communications team also reaches out to each of the Institution’s constituencies through messages that are actively “pushed” out to users. Foremost among these are Hoover’s web-based tools: The Daily Report (a daily e-mail compendium of news clips with Internet links featuring news stories about or quoting Hoover fellows as well as op-ed articles by Hoover fellows), What’s New at Hoover (a biweekly e-mail news briefing), Hoover experts lists, news releases (distributed to as many as twenty thousand news outlets per issuance), and the twice-monthly electronic newsletter.

hoover clubs in washington (and new york)

Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney at the February 2006
Board of Overseers meeting in
Washington, D.C.

The Hoover Clubs in Washington program brings Hoover fellows to Washington, D.C., three times a year for luncheon and dinner programs with Washington-based media fellows, opinion leaders, and policymakers. Recent club events have seen key representatives from government joining regular members of the clubs. The informal setting allows for open-ended discussions with Hoover fellows, covering topics that range from the war in Iraq to Social Security and tax reform to the U.S. Supreme Court. Like the Media Fellows Program, Hoover Clubs have proven successful in terms of both participation and impact. This effort has proven sufficiently successful that Hoover expanded its club program to New York City, allowing the Institution to reach its second-largest contingent of media fellows.

media relations and public affairs

The news media’s primary contact with Hoover is through its Office of Public Affairs, which also generates The Daily Report, an e-mail summary of news stories by or about Hoover fellows and the Institution, with direct links to the articles. In addition, lists of experts willing to discuss and provide background to breaking news stories are distributed regularly to news media outlets around the world. Public Affairs also writes and publishes the Hoover Newsletter and, with the assistance of the White House Writers Group in Washington, D.C., coordinates Hoover’s op-ed program, which is considered among the best in its peer group. More than one thousand opinion pieces by Hoover scholars are placed in newspapers and online annually. The e-mail offering What’s New at Hoover is also distributed by Public Affairs.

hoover books, periodicals and scholarly articles

Books

Preventing Surprise Attacks

The Hoover Press, a mainstay of Hoover’s dissemination efforts, publishes and markets books under the Hoover Press imprint. The press highlights the work of Hoover scholars, and publishes volumes related to Hoover’s institutional initiatives.

The press also works closely with the publishing firm of Rowman & Littlefield in copublishing its new series of single-author books, the Hoover Studies in Economics, Politics and Society. Although typically shorter (25,000 words or less) than the volumes commonly published, these offerings are approachable, timely, and accessible.

Within Our Reach

The press has also begun publishing books under its newest imprint, Education Next Books, which features works by Hoover’s Koret Task Force on K–12 Education. The first titles serve to further ongoing national and local debates regarding adequate school funding and the charter school movement.

Beginning spring 2007, the press issued its newest imprint, Hoover Classics. Repackaged and marketed under the new imprint, these timeless books continue to make a significant impact on public policy and are in constant demand. The first six titles in the Hoover Classics series are

  • The Flat Tax
  • Free Markets under Siege: Cartels, Politics, and Social Welfare
  • Anti-Americanism in Europe: A Cultural Problem
  • Property Rights: A Practical Guide to Freedom and Prosperity
  • Seeking Middle Ground on Social Security Reform
  • Remaking Domestic Intelligence

Periodicals

Policy Review, Hoover’s bimonthly public policy journal, continues to grow in terms of circulation and prominence. A “must read” within the Washington Beltway for many years, it provides in-depth analyses of politics, domestic policy, and foreign affairs, as well as incisive social criticism. It promises to continue as an influential source of deep thinking on public policy matters.

Hoover Digest
The Hoover Digest is recognized again for its
outstanding presentation and content; the journal
won three Gold Ink Awards

Another noteworthy publishing success for the Hoover Institution has been Education Next: A Journal of Opinion and Research. With Hoover’s Koret Task Force on K–12 Education serving as the editorial board, it is devoted to education reform issues.

As Hoover’s “flagship” publication, the Hoover Digest features selected writings of Hoover fellows and appeals to a general audience interested in a wide variety of public policy issues. When it first appeared more than nine years ago, the Digest consisted almost entirely of reprinted material. Today, approximately half of every issue is made up of original material by Hoover fellows. It also includes adaptations and excerpts from Hoover Press books and brief articles about various collections in the Hoover Archives.