As a scientist your communication of your work to the public will often be mediated through the press. These interactions could range from a journalist writing a story about your work to a radio interview to a documentary filming you in the field, but no matter how it is happening it is still important to be prepared when you work with the media. The AAAS offers a great guide for Working with Journalists that covers everything from thinking about your audience to how to be interviewed. If you are looking for something more in-depth Michigan News offers in-person media training, as well as their own set of tips for any academic about to interact with the media. It is also worth keeping your eye on the calendars for your schools and departments as they will also sometime offer media training.There are also many option for scientist media training outside the University of Michigan from groups like SciDevNet and First Create the Media.
While science communication is often mediated by the press, if they never hear about your work they will never know to reach out in the first place. This is why it is important for scientists to know how to publicize their work to the media.
The primary way of doing this is via a press release. While writing a press release is not a glamorous task, it is a great way to make sure people learn about your work. The European Space Agency has a great guide for how to create a science press release and COMPASS spoke with science journalists about what works and what doesn't work in press releases.
Sometimes the press release is not the right tool for engaging with the media, for example if the research is still in progress or it is a more personal story. In this case you can, and should, reach out to science journalists personally to pitch them the story. COMPASS again has a guide for how to best pitch a story to a journalist. As for who to pitch, your best bet is to find a similar story you enjoyed and reach out to the person who wrote or produced it. Do no worry that you are bothering a journalist by doing this, they are always on the look out for a great story. Just make sure you understand that once you hand off a story to the media it becomes theirs to tell and it is very unlikely you will be able to review it.