Sign upUnderstanding How Media Works Will Help You Work the Media
In their focus on providing quality health care, health centers can easily lose sight of the need to nurture a strong relationship with local media. That would be a strategic error.
By learning a bit more about how the media work, health centers can craft compelling media messages and structure events with a powerful potential to generate local news coverage.
News coverage translates into greater visibility, public awareness, good will, and political and financial support.
What follows is a primer on working with local media.
PREPARING
- Develop a media list. Get names, addresses, phone and fax numbers for key editors and reporters who would routinely cover health care issues. Be accurate. Call the newspaper or TV news station and ask for names and spellings of appropriate people.
- Find out deadlines. Observe them in planning events or announcing news. Stories often don't get used because they are sent too late. Call reporters when they aren’t likely to be conflicted by deadline pressures.
- Prepare press kits (see details below).
- Identify space in your facility, or elsewhere, that you can use to stage a media event.
- Identify people who will speak on behalf of the organization with news media. Train them so they will know the answers, and how to anticipate and deal with difficult questions.
PLANNING & HOLDING A MEDIA EVENT
In advance of the event …
- Determine the significance of your news. Would a press release suffice to get the word out? Or is the news so significant that it justifies a press conference? Don’t organize a press conference for minor news, or reporters will come to disregard your invitations.
- Once you determine that you wish to hold a press conference, pick a site and time that is convenient for reporters. Mid-morning or early afternoon is good.
- Outdoor sites are attractive to TV crews because they don't have to bother with artificial lights, but weather and background noise can interfere with your event. Indoor sites let you control ambient noise and avoid weather issues.
- Determine who you want to invite. Your media list may include many people who would have no interest in, or ability to attend your event.
- Send reporters a summary advisory of your event at least three days beforehand. Rather than written narrative, provide them the essence of the event in bulleted form, answering these key news questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How.
- Call each reporter to confirm receipt of the release and ask if they plan to attend.
- For reporters who do not attend, arrange for speedy fax or hand-delivery of your news conference handouts after the event.
- Determine who will moderate the event, and who will speak. If appropriate, invite and include government or business people to address the topic.
- Prepare and have on hand extra copies of the press release associated with your event. It helps reporters, and helps guide the verbal presentation.
- Make sure people speaking at your event are familiar with the content of the press release, then have them speak from notes or highlighted sentences.
- Allocate time for presentations and follow-up questions. Five minutes is sufficient for opening remarks.
- Avoid dates that conflict with other major scheduled news events. In major cities, Saturday or Sunday press conferences can be especially effective. They are often slow news days.
On the day of the event …
- Well before the time of the event, arrange the room, leaving enough space in front and on the sides for TV cameras. Make sure you have enough chairs, tables, lighting, electrical outlets, a podium and microphone, if needed. Radio and TV reporters will want a place to anchor their mikes near the speaker. Make sure the room is open about 30 minutes early so TV crews can set up.
- Think in visual terms. Imagine how your news conference will look to a television viewer. Don't place your speaker in front of a sunny window; she'll appear as a silhouette. Similarly, don't camouflage the speaker against a distracting background. Do consider hanging your banner or sign behind the speaker to reinforce your identity.
- Moderator should begin the event with a welcome, and introduce speakers sequentially, if there are more than one.
- Open to questions, and select inviduals to pose questions.
- Close event at pre-determined time and offer to take other questions afterward.
- Make sure reporters get media kits before they depart.
PRESS KITS
Press kits can be handed out at a news conference or any other event when background information about the health center is needed. The kit can be a simple folder, ideally with the health center’s decal on the front if you have one. Contents should always be on health center letterhead with a contact name and phone number. The press kit may include some or all of these:
- A news release
- A copy of the spokesperson’s statement
- A fact sheet on the issue at hand
- An agenda of your event with correct names and titles of participants * Copies of any charts and graphs helpful in making the union's point
- A fact sheet on the health center
- Relevant news articles or other materials that will help the media understand the issue
- biographical paragraphs about the health center’s leaders or speakers
