Media and Messaging Training

Media and Messaging Training

April 14th, 2007

Orlando, Florida

Trainers:

Trish Riley, Independent Journalist:

Stacey Gonzalez, Center for Health, Environment and Justice:

Next Steps:

Trish Riley will consolidate the extensive media list that she created for the launch of the Disney Go Green campaign. She will make this available to all participants. If people have additions/changes to the list, she will take them and include them in the master.

Media and Messaging Resources and Alternate Media Outlets:

• Green Media Toolshed
• Spin Project
• Smart Meme
• Alternet
• Podcasting

Elements Covered in the Media Training

Components in the Success of Media Coverage:

Timing of your media hit – Is it relevant, is it building on some other issue already in the news, is it competing with a major event (such as a political scandal, natural disaster, etc.). Some of this you can control (try not to release a report around a major election, the day after a natural disaster strikes, etc.), some of it you can’t.

The Quality of the Reporting

-Reporter’s schedule, and interest in your issue (laziness, busy, disinterested, burnt out, etc.)

-Voice of the Opposition – who has more credibility in the eyes of the reporter (ie. Disney or CHEJ?)

Fulfilling Your Role
- Provide reporters with as much information as possible, but in succinct, “sound-byte” ready statements. Your group has discovered through a Freedom of Information Act that 80% of the schools in your district have tested positive for having a mold issue. The reporter will not read your documentation! Write in simple, concise statements what you have found and what you want done about it. And who is responsible. Give all of that to the reporter in a press packet, and after your press event, make it available on your web, or fax/e-mail it to interested reporters.

- Provide a Press Release packed with quotes that reporters could use in their story. Vary up the quotes from individuals that are respected on the issue. An ideal Press Release is one in which the reporter could use and write an entire article from. Trick is, it shouldn’t be more than two pages. Your press advisories should be less detailed, and no more than a page.

- Have your spokesperson contact information available, visible and printed on every piece of information you give to a reporter. Two phone numbers are ideal, as they often work on deadline and after hours.

Finding the Right Media

Identifying and Pitching Your Story to the Right Media

I.D. which “desks” would likely cover your story – think outside the box. If it’s an environmental issue, but has an impact on business, or health, or education, consider sending the press advisory to a few different desks at the same media outlet.

Once you get confirmation from someone at an outlet – DO NOT send additional advisories to other desks at the same outlet. If the outlet is covering it from one angle, that will be it.

Identify who will likely cover your story – is there an image fit for T.V., such as a protest at city hall, a rally, or other event? Fit your message and your messengers to the appropriate media outlet. Can you get a child to deliver a key message for any radio coverage? The child’s voice would be much more impactful, and draw a mental picture for listeners, than an adults would.

National or Local Coverage?

Your press event is announcing the release of a new study on children’s health impacts from living near coal-fired power plants.

National or Local?

-If it’s national, your group should connect with coal-fired power plant groups in other states to help pitch the story and be interviewed by press. In this case, your media outreach should be to major national media outlets, such as the Associated Press. If one reporter at the AP covers the story, it is likely to travel the AP wire, and get “picked up” (reprinted) by other media outlets nationwide. Likewise, seek outlets that have city specific papers, such as the Business Journal. If one Business Journal reporter covers the story, it’s likely to be picked up by all the other BJ papers across the country. Local groups with local stories should contact their local media outlets.

-If it is a local issue you want to highlight, your group should focus on a local coal fired power plant fight – one with a name and a community face of opposition or who has been harmed. You will often get more, and more in depth media coverage by focusing locally. In this case your target media is in the surrounding area.

Types of Media:

-Radio

-TV

-Print (newspapers, magazines)

-Alternative Media: Alternet, Podcasting, blogs.

Nuts and Bolts of a Good Press Conference

Elements of a Strong Press Conference (these points assume you already have done thorough media outreach through press advisories and media follow-up calls the week prior to your event)

-Set up is controlled – the leaders of the event are composed, on top of things, not rushing around at the last minute

-There is some visual to be used in Print (photography) and TV (video)

-Some level of entertainment could be introduced to mix it up with the “facts” (i.e. spoofs on the opposition)

-Shows a conflict – highlight a conflict between your stance and that of your opposition, or better yet, within your opposition itself (ie. Disney uses green cleaners in three hotels and in Animal Kingdom to protect the animals. What about the rest of the parks, hotels and restaurants to protect visiting children?)

-Shows the solution you are proposing

-Makes it easy for the reporter to cover the story

• Include Press Packets with a press release, which should include quotes from key leaders that the press can simply drop into their article. Include printed campaign materials, background information on the issue, and easy to digest information that illustrates your point.
• In the press packet and on the press release, have a contact name, phone number, and if possible alternate phone number so they can call you.

-Have a sign in sheet for reporters so you can follow up, so you know who came, so you can add them to your media list for future events, and so you can look in those media outlets to see if they ran the story

-Can host a “teleconference” after the live press conference to read the press conference script over the phone to reporters that are out of town. Basically the same structure but over the phone. If there is technical capability, someone can upload a picture from the live press conference onto the groups’ website before the teleconference. The out-of-town press can then download that picture for their use.

Script – Key Elements:

- Should last no more than approximately 7 minutes, and should be followed by reporter question and answer session. The entire event should be within ½ hour.

-First paragraph – what is the issue, why are you having this press conference?

-What is the “Ask” – what do you want to see done? The ask should be no more than a simple bulleted list or a single statement.

-Intersperse creativity, humor, drama, vignettes, other speakers into the script to break it up.

-If running a positive campaign, give credit to the opposition on where they have succeeded, and then ask them to go further, setting them up to be a leader.

-Highlight the conflict in the story

-Anticipate the response from the opposition, and pre-empt their responses in your statement

-Support your Ask with facts – back up the campaign. Keep the facts simple, succinct and believable.

-Gear the message to the type of reporter you have invited to the press conference. Is it the environment reporter? The business reporter? Health? Tourism?

-Use the appropriate messenger – a Doctor? A Child? A Teacher? A character that will be the mascot of your campaign?

-Stay on Message – repeat your singular, succinct, believable and understandable message throughout your script and throughout question and answer.