In the midst of a media frenzy!

Since the start-up of the LHC in September last year there has been a tremendous increase in interest from the world’s media in CERN and the LHC.

CERN and the LHC have found a place in popular culture where articles, TV and radio programmes about anything from new technology to banking troubles — and even Dilbert cartoons — mention us. Hollywood invaded the CERN site in February in preparation for the Angels and Demons film premiere and scientists mingled with A-list Hollywood actors Tom Hanks, Ayelet Zurer and director Ron Howard. Even the inevitable doomsayers predicting the end of the world by black-hole consumption are providing a unique opportunity for CERN to spread information about particle physics, the real nature of black holes and antimatter. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart recently aired an hysterical report on the LHC’s unlikely black-hole threat with CERN’s John Ellis demonstrating a great sense of humour (watch the clip here).

On 10 September, the LHC’s First Beam Day, there were 100 million visits to the CERN website, representing 0.35% of web traffic in the world. Google created an LHC inspired logo for the event and CERN appeared on approximately 2500 evening news programmes reaching close to 1 billion viewers. AlpineKat’s famous LHC rap has been viewed over 5 million times on Youtube to date and has in turn inspired a remix and other language versions (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM). The media frenzy centering on CERN and the LHC has been likened to that of NASA and the Apollo missions during the 1960s.

The intensity of media interest heated up after the start-up, which was followed by the official VIP inauguration ceremony of the LHC, the 20th anniversary celebration of the World Wide Web, and updates on the status of the LHC repairs. From September 2008 until the end of June 2009 21,470 articles were published about CERN, including the LHC repairs, presidential visits, our management strategy, movie reviews for Angels and Demons, and CERN as a vacation destination. (such as http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lafalot/travelisfun/1245805779.html). Each week the notice boards near Restaurant 1 showcase the latest articles about CERN, the progress of the LHC and the stories of the physicists searching for new particles and answers to questions about the moments just after the Big Bang.

The US media has published 11,193 articles, the largest number of articles about the LHC and CERN per country. The high demand for interviews by US media has resulted in Fermilab creating a US-CERN liaison post, currently held by Katie Yurkewicz. An example of how CERN has slipped into popular culture in the US is a new TV programme called Flash Forward, which is scheduled to premiere in the autumn. Based on the novel by Robert J. Sawyer about how something unexpected happens at the LHC and everyone blacks out for two minutes and has a vision of where they will be in the future, it is hyped to be the replacement for the very popular US show Lost. And an eagle-eyed physicist in the US even spotted the CERN accelerator complex in the background of the Navy Criminal Investigating Service (NCIS) TV show, episode 6 - Cloak (http://www.cbs.com/primetime/ncis/). We really are everywhere!