Media Relations Handbook
Ch. 1 First Steps
1.1 Introduction
- Sectors in PA have the rare position of supporting a mission, a cause or individual, and advocating those ideas using their communication skills
- PR specialists are a crucial link in the chain of communication between leaders and citizens
1.2 Matching convictions with a job
- Goals: grow professionally, do an effective job for the organization or individual you rep, and feel that your work has some meaning
- Share some common beliefs with those whom you represent
- Find a functional office - good internal communication among staff is solidly managed
- When you attach yourself to an individual or organization, you're attaching your reputation as well
1.3 Getting to know the principal
- Leader: chief spokesperson for the organization - can be called: member of Congress, president of the association, executive director of the agency
- Most communication will flow through one person: the principal --> you create the voice of the organization through the principal
- Must develop trust and confidence, identify the strengths and weaknesses of the principal, develop a strategy to improve their skills
1.4 Assessing your Strategic Position and Historical Record
- Figure out where you are before you plan where you are headed
- Your predecessor can outline your new boss' strengths and weaknesses, tell you which reporters are smart and which ones are dangerous, and outline the basic terrain of the internal office politics --> his work is one of the standards you will be judged by
- Do internal polling: one of the few quantifiable measurements or our craft
- It can also help clarify public opinion on primary issues, suggest strategy and language that resonates with audiences, and is invaluable in creating a communication plan
1.5 Strategic Goals
- Translate the goals into communication themes
- Communication professionals have a responsibility to point out opportunities and even to suggest strategic initiatives
- Press secretaries are responsible for translating policy into message, which means sometimes we must tweak the message to be salable to the media and public
1.6 Assessing the issue train
- SWOT analysis
- Organizations usually try to build their goals around environmental opportunities
- Communication threats often come in the form of political opponents, organizations that oppose your mission, or even reporters bent on drumming up news
- By anticipating potential threats and preparing for them, your org and boss will be in a much better position to handle adverse events
- Get to know your friends and allies --> learn how to connect with allies and use their strengths
1.7 Conducting a Resource Assessment
- Prospective employees should inquire what resources they will have in order to accomplish their job
- An operation is a budget --> negotiate budget before you accept a position; it's tougher to ask for things afterwards
- Raise issues related to resources in the interview process
- Communication professionals should be more functional than current
1.9 List Building
- Press list: pure definition of your target audience --> should be up to date, complete, comprehensive, and in an electronic format that can be used to create letters, send out emails and faxes, and rapidly make phone calls
1.12 Getting to Know your reporters
- Crucial people = the reporters who cover your office --> keepers of your reputation and building a good relationship with them will be one of the key criteria you'll be judged by
- Must understand which reporters have the greatest reach and which have the greatest impact on your target audience
- To get to know reporters: do a "media tour" by setting up appointments and visiting them
1.13 Internal Politics
- Questions to consider:
1) who should have input
2) who thinks they should have input
1.14 Creating a Communication Plan
- Drafting a communication plan: first consider the message you want to convey, the strategic goals of the principal or organization, the history of communication on the issue, and the tools you have to communicate with
Ch. 2 Tools of the Craft
2.4 Press Release
- Primary goal: to convince reporters to do a story
- Should tell a reporter on one or two sentences whether the story is worth pursuing --> headline and lead are very important
- Headline can be up to ten words
- Use summary lead, one or two sentences and no more than three or four lines in length --> summarizes the overall thrust of the story and should be rigorously edited
- Use inverted pyramid as a guide --> most important info first and then descending in order underneath
- Include a quote in the second paragraph --> should convey emotion or opinion, not fact
- Fit on one page
- Must end with "# # #" or "-30-" centered on page
2.7 Press Advisory
- Goal: to notify the media of an event or occurrence that you wish them to cover
- Key information: event, time and place, content of subject of event
- The challenge: to provide enough information to entice coverage, but not so much so that you end up scooping yourself
2.9 Backgrounders
- Provides detailed background information on a particular topic
- Such as: statistical information, chronologies of events, or contact information and sources --> all help reporters fill out stories
- Avoid using quotes
- The most successful backgrounders appear as complete objective reference tools that reporters sometimes will use without attribution
2.10 Op-eds
- One of the most effective and persuasive tools in a press secretary's toolbox
- It can be a policy pronouncement by a public official and make news all by itself --> policy argument without tangible people connected to them are distant and often weak
- It can be s defensive piece to explain a policy position
- It can be a persuasive piece meant to move public opinion and change public policy
- They should strive to be timely and to add value to the debate or controversy
- There's comfort in numbers
- Tell someone's story and wrap the policy argument inside it
- These are the complete argument in the court of public opinion, not just a snippet or portion
2.11 Letters to the Editor
- Keep the letter short --> no more than two or three paragraphs / 100 words
- Focus on the facts, not the messenger
- Make the letter self-contained --> explain and refer to a previous article that relates to the letter
- Send letters quickly --> the same day if possible
- Use letters to correct inaccuracies
2.12 Speeches
- Learn how to craft a speech in the "speaker's voice"
- First, determine audience needs and desires
- Have goals for the speech --> most basic is to impress an audience and gain their support. Then to motivate them to action.
- Enhance key points and in a voice that the speaker wants to convey
2.13 Press Conference/Events
- Create engaging events based on visuals available, and script the participants as much as possible
- Have your own crew cover the conference as well
- Provide all the key details of what reporters can expect to cover if they attend
**See page 35 for Press Conference Checklist
2.15 Photography and Video
- Avoid the smiling at the camera hand shaking shot
- A good video can bypass the media filter and reach your audience directly
2.16 Direct Mail
- Best ones are targeted to a specific audience, with content tailored to their interests
- Clear topics, sharp opening lines, bullet points and a PS
- Include call to action
2.18 Newsletters
- Targeted to specific audience --> often sent to audience who already somehow have agreed to receive the newsletters
- Identify reader's interests, newsworthy items that occurred since the last newsletter, and present it in an interesting way
- Include call to action
2.19 Radio Feed
- Created with broadcast-quality equipment
- Create a 90 - 120 second feed to deliver to stations
2.20 TV Feed
- Create raw footage of the boss commenting on some aspect of the public policy and provide it to TV stations
- Interviews, video to accompany the story, and cutaways
- Simply creating raw material that someone else can use to cover the story
2.21 Video News Release
- Similar to TV feed
- Do not oversell the story
- Must appear objective
- Often use equipment that smaller news stations do not have access to
2.22 Public Service Announcement
- These 30 - 60 second please for some cause are excellent ways for communication professionals to completely control their broadcast message and advance an altruistic goal of the principal of organization
- Helpful to have additional footage and to always look professional
2.24 Teleconferences and "Telephone Town Halls"
- Typically requires a moderator, 3 - 4 screeners, and someone to serve as the liaison
The Practice of Government PR
Ch. 3 Media Relations
PR Strategies, Tactics, and Objectives
- (PA director) Communicate superbly your agency's policies, positions, and regulations to the diverse audiences that you must confront with your information
- Good agency comm strategies and tactics require an agreed-upon approach with your top administrators of how you are going to act in both planned written and interview media opportunities and in unplanned sudden critical situations
Control of Interactions with the Media
- Caveat: If your agency in a particular circumstance is embroiled in a major crisis, controversy, or scandal, the media at your agency level will pull out all investigative resources to report on it and try to outflank the competition
Guidance on Responding to Media
- When they ask you a specific question on a specific issue, they already have researched information about their query and may be looking for verification and to test your personal and agency credibility
- Rule of Thumb: If the criticism is valid, factual, and may have "legs," respond right away to get your agency position in the middle of the report, to contradict the criticism, and to muddle the overall effect of the story so that the reading or viewing public will not be able, for the most of these complex and complicated pieces, to conclude clearly and unequivocally that the agency media criticism is in fact valid --> disprove that your agency is "wrong"
- If a hurtful claim is true, best decision may be to not respond at all and to let it play out in the media and let is be superseded inevitably and quickly by a host of other major government and private sector news stories and controversies, foreign and domestic
- Off the record: Cannot be named or discusses, written, or broadcasted in the media
- Background: Source (agency) can be named but not the specific devision
- Deep background: Source (agency) cannot be named but the information can be broadcasted
- You are under no obligation to the media to volunteer additional agency information that is not specifically requested --> your loyalty is to your agency, not the media!
Crises, Crisis Management, and Damage Control
- Offices should have written crisis plans for distribution to all top officials that anticipate possible emergency situations
- Whatever the media devices used, two areas will define your role and potential success in limiting the crisis - credibility in responding to media and public criticism and the drawing up of as many positive p pints as you can muster to neutralize and mitigate the crisis when the criticism is valid
Leaks and Leaking
- Battle: information that is top secret and/or classified
- Leak types:
1) Ego Leak - to give importance and self-importance to the individual via name recognition and publicity
2) Goodwill Leak - to gain favorable coverage and personal mention from the selected media on a future occasion
3) Policy Leak - to associate an individual with the accepted final decision on an important policy made public; or alternatively, by a disgruntled official who disagrees with an agency final decision and feels this is the only way to make public the "minority" report that he/she supports
4) Animus Leak - to get revenge on a coworker and make him/her look bad
5) Trial Balloon Leak - to see if an issue or position will fly or fall flat in public opinion
6) Whistle Blower Leak - to expose agency corruption, deceit, or "misguided" behavior; sometimes motivated by getting a substantial reward for saving the government lots of money in any settlement
7) No-Purpose Leak - for "honesty" or personal satisfaction without regard for any publicity or money
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