Specialists in Media Relations, Public Affairs, Campaigning,

Stakeholder Engagement, Events, Crisis and Change Management

MEDIA COVERAGE REPORTSEPTEMBER 2010

This excerpt only covers topic of dog bite prevention:Txt by Felicity Porrit, shortened by KM.

Background

The World Safety Conference takes place every two years. For the first time Safety 2010 is being held in London. More than a thousand delegates from around 130 countries are to attend. Safety 2010’s sponsors include WHO, Departments of Education, Health & Transport and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Conference is being organised by Liverpool John Moore’s University’s Centre for Public Health, which is a WHO Collaborating Centre.

Safety 2010 was to be launched on 21st September with support from BlueCat Communications. Injury as a subject is notoriously difficult to get media coverage.

Objectives

  1. To get across the Conference’s key messages: that injury and violence are preventable; burden falls disproportionately on poorer communities, and; to share learning so only what works is put into practice.
  2. To target the BBC for media coverage as WHO in particular values BBC coverage, and other ‘serious’ news media.
  3. To press release Safety First – a book to be launched at conference, which includes interviews with key people from the world of entertainment, sport and politics talking about their personal experiences of violence and injury (it was recognised the book was unlikely to obtain wide media coverage).

The Conference’s abstracts – 1038 in total – were scanned for their potential media interest. WHO Euro and EuroSafe were both launching reports. WHO Euro prepared their own press release and would launch to the media through WHO Euro comms. EuroSafe’s report on depression and suicide as well as a set of fact sheets on interpersonal violence was to be included in BlueCat’s media work.

Three subjects were highlighted from the abstracts as being of potential media interest:

  1. Road Traffic Accidents – the dangers of wearing headphones while crossing the road, graduated driver licensing and 20mph zones.
  2. Dog Bites – research showing young children mistake a snarling dog baring its teeth as smiling. An interactive DVD for children to understand how to behave safely with dogs ‘The Blue Dog’ shows children can change their behaviour very quickly if educated.
  3. Alcohol – call for all alcohol to be served and sold in pastic instead of glass vessels, and; the inclusion of EuroSafe work on interpersonal violence.

Implementation

Briefings:

As the BBC and serious media were highlighted as important for coverage, advance briefings were held with key editors and correspondents the week before the Conference. The aim was to ensure the Conference was included in forward planning news diaries.

Pre-Activity:

The week before the Conference we gave all embargoed press materials to a small number of health editors/correspondents, including the BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, Times, Independent and the Press Association.

Press materials included a general release, highlighting that a book – ‘Safety First’ – compiled by Liverpool John Moore’s University, which included interviews with key people from the worlds of entertainment, sport and politics, would be given to all delegates. The general release was sent out under embargo, virtually a week before the Conference started (Wednesday 15th September).

All other releases were then sent out on general release twenty-four hours prior to the embargo ie the day before. There were four releases:

  1. Monday release embargoed 0001hrs Tuesday 21st September: Accidents – this was designed to coincide with the opening of the Conference as road traffic accidents were highlighted as the biggest cause of preventable injury nationally and globally. The release included three interventions, pulled out of the abstracts because of their potential for gaining media attention: ‘tune into traffic’; ‘graduated driver licensing’ and; ‘20mph zones’. The individuals involved in each of the interventions were quoted within the release (Manpreet Durroch; Dr Sarah Roberts and; Dr Rebecca Steinbach & Professor Sir Michael Marmot, who was one of the plenary speakers on Day One).
  1. Tuesday release embargoed 0001hrs Wednesday 22nd September: Dog Bites – this coincided with a speech being delivered by a Lincoln academic, who was to draw attention to new findings that showed young children mistook a dog baring its teeth for a smiling dog. The academic was also to discuss an intervention called ‘Blue Dog’. The academic was quoted in the release, along with a Belgian vet who had been integral in the making of the Blue Dog DVD (Dr Kerstin Meints and Dr Tiny De Keuster).

Media Coverage

Dog Bites

Wednesday 22nd September

BBC Online

BBC Radio 1, 5Live (Breakfast & Drive), Scotland (Drivetime)

Sky News, Thomas Moore, Health Corresondent

LBC Radio

Heart Radio

Lincolnshire Echo

Telegraph Online

Blogs/Other

Contact: Felicity Porritt, Director, BlueCat Communications

Email Telephone +44 (0)7739419219