|
|
Everybody knows the media is important. It may be the most effective way of getting the attention of the board you are working on and the public. And whether you want attention or not, the way you come across if the media does cover your story may be the most important factor in whether you get the policy or not.
Dealing with the media effectively means planning what you do and acquiring some basic communication skills. This section covers some of the basics on both of those things. For more guidance, there are usually several good books and websites on dealing with the media available at any time.
The basic goal for all your dealings with the media should be to get your messages about the policy out to your audiences (the board and its constituencies). It is not to explain or justify LGBT people to the world generally, it is not to answer whatever questions you are asked, and it is not to get your picture on TV so that you can wave to Mom.
Never lie to a reporter. If you are found out (and you will be most of the time) you'll lose all your credibility with the reporters (and the public if the lie becomes a part of the story). Better just to say you don't want to talk about something.
Gross exaggerations are as bad as lies.
Don't try to use media to advance a side issue, or carry out a vendetta against some person or organization. Reporters are likely to see what you are doing, and, again, your credibility will be shot.
Don't say anything to a reporter that you don't want to read about in the paper or hear about on TV. Commenting "off the record" frequently blows up in your face, if for no other reason than that people are often able to correctly guess where the comments come from. If you don't want a message attached to the campaign, don't deliver it.
You need to have either a person or a small committee in charge of coordinating your media operation.
At the start of your campaign, put together a list of all the electronic and print outlets that reach any significant part of your audience. Your list should include when each outlet appears (or broadcasts) and what the deadlines for each are. You can usually get deadlines by calling and asking. You need them for announcements, and, most important, for scheduling events and press conferences. Your list should include the names of reporters who cover the board you are working on, and the editors who supervise them. Some outlets list reporters' names and beats, sometimes you can figure it out by reading the papers or listening for a few days. As you go along, you'll be able to refine this list. Include on the list any columnists or public affairs shows which any of the audiences you are trying to reach pay attention to. Get their individual deadlines if you can. Get your list organized so that it will be easy to call, email, or fax the outlets and let them know when an important event is about to happen.
You should select designated speakers and have them do all or most of the interviews and media appearances for the campaign. Your coordinators don't have to be the same people as your designated speakers. The coordinators need to be good organizers. The speakers need to be comfortable speaking, and they need to be able to follow some basic guidelines on how to speak to the media (those guides may seem straight foreword, but most people find them difficult to put into practice). Your designated speakers represent the campaign, so they should project the image you want people to have of it.
You also may want to have speakers who, by their very presence, will help answer some argument being made against the policy, or will help with an organizing problem.
Once you've got your speakers, train them. Put together the tips in this section with ideas you get from the media books, articles, etc. If you can get someone who is an experienced spokesperson, ask him or her to design and run a training. If you can't, have your media coordinators and your speakers do it themselves.
Make sure that some or all of your coordinators, some or all of your speakers and some policy person from the campaign are set up to act as an emergency response team if something unexpected which needs an immediate response comes up. The members of the team should be able to get in touch with each other quickly at any time.
The first tip is almost too obvious: make friends with reporters whenever you can. Be friendly, and do what you can to make their jobs easier, especially by telling them about events ahead of time, and by making the materials you give them as useable as possible.
If a paper or an electronic outlet either ignores the LGBT community, or if much of the coverage seems based on outdated ideas about LGBT people, you may want to try to meet with the editors. First, decide if the problem is with the outlet's news stories or with its statements of opinion, or both. Usually, different groups are in charge of news and opinions (usually called editorials). Editorial pages often reflect the views of an outlet's owner. Editorial editors are more likely to have a strong ideological position on civil rights for LGBT people. If you have a problem with news coverage or with both news and editorial, you are more likely to make progress if you can meet with the news editors apart from the editorial editors.
News coverage is more important than the editorial page for a single reason: many more people read the news pages. But don't give up on editorial editors. Local political leaders often follow editorial pages closely, and getting the support of editorial editors (and the implicit support of the paper's top management) can often help improve news coverage.
Editors may resist requests to meet. A supporter, a helpful politician or a community group which has a relationship with the outlet may be able to set up a meeting for you. Approach a meeting with editors the same way you would approach any meeting with an important local political player. Be calm and use reason. If you have complaints about coverage, be specific and be ready to show plainly why the stories were inaccurate, etc., or why similar events got covered when LGBT events did not. If you are going to try to convince the outlet to support your proposal, be ready to make the same arguments you would to a board or a community organization, and be ready to prove your points.
It may be well worth the trouble to establish relationships with local columnists, especially those who write about civic affairs or gossip columnists. They are often more influential than editorials. Again, if you know someone who knows the columnist, use your contact. If you get an appointment, be prepared to make your case the same way you'd make it to a board member.
The best way to get your message across through the media is in news coverage. Many more people follow it than read guest editorials or listen to public affairs or public access programs. It has more credibility than plainly partisan letters or public service announcements.
The first tip may again seem too obvious. If you know that a potentially newsworthy event, like a public hearing or a vote, is coming up, make sure the media knows about it in advance. Fax or email announcements, and call reporters and editors you know, especially sympathetic ones. If you think you may be able to get a supportive editorial, make sure the editorial editors get a separate announcements and calls. If a newsworthy event is being sponsored by an official board or by a neutral community group, try to have it put out the press announcement. Media outlets which are not particularly interested in your campaign will be more likely to come.
If you have any role in scheduling an event, whether a demonstration or a hearing, or in setting its agenda, keep the various media deadlines in mind and make sure that the message you want to put out gets effectively conveyed when the media is present.
If a potentially galvanizing event occurs, like a vivid example of discrimination, call the reporters and editors you know, tell them about it, and offer comments. If you have time, put a press briefing together. Make sure you explain the tie between any event and the policy. If you call reporters about an event that is not local, make sure you explain the local angle in your call or release. The local angle can be the policy, but be as specific as you can about how the event relates to it.
Put together a press packet to give to reporters each time one begins covering the campaign, and to give out at major events. The packet could contain a copy of the proposed policy, your basic pieces explaining the case for the policy, your answers to the opposition, and lists of your endorsers, and the announcement and or the release for the event in question.
Press releases are model stories; they should include everything you might want to have a media outlet cover. Press announcements, or media advisories, are designed to get reporters to come to an event. They should say when and where the event is, and give a brief description of what the event will be about. They should not include the whole story, because busy reporters will be less likely to come if they do. For most events, you should do both. Send the announcement out in advance. Hand the release to reporters who come, and email or fax the release shortly after the event takes place to the outlets that didn't make it so they can cover the event.
Try to write your releases like stories, not like the "puff pieces" a public relations officer might write. Your sentences should be short. Write in active voice. Avoid adjectives. Don't exaggerate. Put in useable quotes: short, pithy statements that sum up your position, not long expositions. Remember that news stories aren't written like essays. They begin not with background, but with the core, the most important, exciting part of the story. They should then go from the most important details to the least. They don't have conclusions.
If you have time, attach a written statement from the campaign to the release, since some reporters don't like working off releases. This can be written like a statement of position. Any quotes you put in the release should be in the statement.
Letters to the editor are probably the best read part of most editorial pages. If readers are writing in about your campaign, be sure that you respond. At times you may want to respond officially on behalf of the campaign, say for example if a letter makes a charge against it. But letters from individuals usually stand a better chance of being printed, so have campaign volunteers write as well.
Letters can also be a way to get your message out if you are having trouble getting coverage. Most papers will print only short letters, and will edit long ones to get them down to size. Try to keep control of the content and avoid being edited. Watch the column to see the average length which the paper prints, and write to that size. Write letters like you write releases. Put the core up front, be terse and direct.
Many newspapers print guest opinion columns on their editorial page or the page opposite it (the "op-ed" page).
Whether you see guest pieces in your local paper or not, call the editorial editor and ask if guest pieces are ever used, and if so, how long they should be, if there are other requirements, etc. Guest editorials can be more formally written than releases and letters, but complex, stodgy writing is the reason most people avoid editorial pages. If you really want to have an impact, keep your sentences short, write in the active voice, and use simple, direct English. Start with something exciting. With guest editorials, it often helps to be pushy. Try hand delivering it. Ask if the paper will print it. If the editor is discouraging, ask what you could do differently which would give it a better chance. Then go do it and hand deliver it again.
The risks of a stealth campaign are discussed elsewhere. But even if you decide to reject the Chicago strategy, there may be times when you will want to minimize a story. Before you decide to minimize a story, think about whether that is really a smart thing to do. If there is a part of your policy which could be very controversial, you may want to avoid highlighting it, but you should always be ready to defend it. If your opposition has made what seems a telling point in the press, running from the media will simply make it look all the more telling.
If you do want to minimize a story, pay attention to deadlines. Just as you can schedule things to get media attention, things scheduled after deadlines have passed, or late at an event when the media has gone, stand less of a chance of being reported. In most places, Friday and Saturday newscasts and Saturday newspapers get the lowest audience. Sunday and Monday are the reverse, and doubly dangerous because they cover slow news days, and small matters can get played up. Check the patterns in your local press.
Just as direct, vivid quotes tend to get used, long colorless statements tend not to. The least quotable answers are those which take no distinct stand (on the one hand...but on the other) and invoke no strong images. Qualifiers make bad quotes (sometimes, often but not always, etc.). If you don't pause in the middle of a comment, it will be harder to edit it. If you are going to refuse to answer a question, avoid saying "no comment" if you possibly can. It sounds as if you are hiding something. Say "that's personal," or "I need to check on that."
Use the LGBT press as a part of your campaign if you can. Use it to announce the campaign itself and campaign meetings, use it to help with lobbying, information gathering, and public events.
The LGBT press are newspapers, newsletters, and websites which are marketed to LGBT people. In some parts of the country, they operate state wide or regionally, in some places different cities have their own. If there is no LGBT press in your area, see if there is a "bar" magazine or newsletter (an informal gossipy publication usually passed out in bars, etc.) or a newsletters or websites for local community groups. If there is, try to convince its publisher to begin carrying stories and information about the campaign. Many LGBT newspapers started as "bar rags." If there are no potential outlets, think about starting a small campaign newsletter to be distributed in bars and other LGBT and friendly businesses. Or, create your own website for the campaign and promote it at community hangouts.
To work with the LGBT press effectively, you've got to give it the respect you give the mainstream press. It should get all the same announcements, releases, packets, etc. that the mainstream press gets. You should cultivate LGBT press contacts just as you cultivate mainstream press contacts.
To get the active support of the LGBT press, you'll need to get the editors and owners behind the campaign early. Contacts can be critical. If the editors don't know you, they are much more likely to hear you out if you come with someone they do know and respect. Don't assume that editors in the LGBT press will automatically support your effort. They might be fairly conservative (just like the editors of most mainstream media). Be prepared to lobby them as you would the editors of a mainstream paper, staying matter of fact, and proving every point.
Advertising isn't a practical tool for most campaigns. You won't be able to afford it. Even if money isn't a problem, advertising usually is not a very effective way of helping to get a civil rights policy passed. It is aimed solely at your secondary audience, the public, instead of at the board. Since everyone knows it is partisan and paid for, it has less credibility than any of the other forms of media. Moreover, selling ideas isn't like selling soap. Except in some initiative election campaigns, Americans generally don't rely on advertising much in thinking about policy.
Nonetheless, there are a few times when it makes sense to consider advertising. If you all else fails, you can use it to publicize your meetings, and, if you do a regular ad, to do some kinds of campaign education (names of members who need to be contacted, etc.). In some parts of the country, advertising is often used to publicize endorsements. In some places, it is widely used in local initiative and referendum campaigns.
Pay close attention to other local efforts to see if any use advertising, what kind they use and whether they use it successfully. Talk to local political pros about whether they think advertising is important. If you do use it, try to target your efforts on the groups you need to reach and who may respond. Campaign information to those who want it and can't get it elsewhere is more likely to work.
Use a pro with experience to help you design your ads, tailor the messages, and pick the vehicles. Advertising is too quirky and too expensive for amateurs.
>> Next: 14. Media Appearances
|
|
