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Building Your P.R. Toolkit WORKING WITH THE MEDIA Presented by: Lori Greiner, Communications Manager College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Virginia Cooperati ve Extension
Building Your P.R. ToolkitWORKING WITH THE MEDIA
Presented by:
Lori Greiner, Communications Manager
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Virginia Cooperative Extension
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Why Bother ?
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Communication is a scarce resource Expensive Limited opportunities to engage Short attention spans Competing messages
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Noise
“The average American is exposed to more than 3,000 marketing messages a day.”
Dawn Hudson VP, Strategy &
Marketing Pepsi-Cola Fast Company,
April 2002
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Why us?
Awareness and education Advocacy and positioning Accountability
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Awareness and education
People need reliable information.
Programs benefit from publicity.
News can educate — to a point. News can help set the social agenda.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Advocacy and positioning
We need to be an advocate: for science, for our discipline, and for our institution.
Strategic communications effects change and helps you reach the people you care about.
Reputation counts. Media can help brand your program.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Accountability
Public’s right to know Impact
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
What is news?The compelling C’s
Crisis Catastrophe Crime Conflict
Change Corruption Color (human interest)
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
What is news?
Timely, immediate — not history. Affects many people in some way. Innovative — what we can do now that we couldn’t before.
Interesting — unique look at life or new angle on an old story.
What journalists decide as news.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Who are journalists?
Short on time. Friendly people who are not necessarily your friend.
Smarter than you think. And less knowledgeable.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
What do journalists want?
A good story — as many of the elements as they can capture.
Good quotes. The feeling that they understand the issue after 20 minutes as well as you do after two years.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
What do journalists want?
Your respect, not necessarily your affection.
Recognition. You to be open and honest. To catch you if you lie.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
What do reporters really want?
NEWS
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
What’s not news?
Most grant and award stories are not news.
Agency cooperation and people working together are not normally news.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
What’s our best news?
A good land-grant news story positions the expertise of the institution or the individual to address a topic of public interest.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
What’s your news?
Write down what you are an expert in.
Describe in a sentence why someone should care.
Try to tie it with a newsworthy issue.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
How do we get in the news?
New releases Pitches Reporter queries Periodicals Video Releases Radio spots
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Earned vs. paid media
Earned media Paid media
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Getting in the news
Helps us with our land-grant mission.
Isn’t easy — we have competition.
Positions the organization as a source of expertise.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Get to Know the Media
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Why build relationships with reporters? It’s an exchange of value. You want a mention in their publication or broadcast; they want news from someone they trust.
Good relationships = better communications with your ultimate audience.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Do your homework Make yourself media savvy — listen, watch, and read.
Find out what stories are being covered so you can offer related stories.
Read the paper and identify special sections or columns you can tap.
Learn the names of local reporters and the subjects they cover.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Who is the reporter?
Don’t assume reporters know the background.
Agriculture may be covered as a beat or by the science or business writer.
Get to know other reporters.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
The first meeting
Find out how a reporter likes to get news and tips
Tell reporter how you can help them
Bring resources. No agenda (story pitching) the first time.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Follow up
The best gift: call with story tips.
Invite reporters to an event where they can make contacts or get story ideas.
Comment on a story they’ve written/produced.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
What reporters want is pretty simple… They want their calls returned. They want a quote for their story.
They want to do their job and go home.
Don’t make your relationship more complicated.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Seven positive pitching actions Think beyond your own news. Target the right reporters. State the facts. Time it right. Offer photos, charts, and other resources.
Follow-up. Get excited.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Products that add value
Provide a list of contacts in each county office with areas of expertise.
Offer fact sheets with basic background.
Provide photos or ideas for illustrating the story, especially for TV.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Professional courtesies Offer story ideas, rather than waiting for reporters to come to you.
Learn the best time to call: newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations differ.
Honor exclusivity or advance notice agreements.
Consider all remarks as “on the record.”
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
How local news becomes a national story The Associate Press sends its stories to news organizations worldwide.
Gannett owns local papers as well as the USA Today.
Stories often get picked up from the newspaper and reported on the radio and TV.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Third party resources
Virginia Tech News Bureau Bacons State-by-State listings ProfNet Burrelles Clipping Service Online resources
Virginia Cooperative Extension
WORKING WITH THE MEDIABuilding Your P.R. Toolkit
Successful media relations can pay off
