The challenges of liaising with the media are in knowing what the media want, and in helping them to present images, ideas and information accurately and fairly. The news media can't be controlled - they have the ultimate control over whether the news angle you put to them is of interest to them, and in turn, to their audience.
The two main advantages of news coverage over advertising are:
There is more credibility in positive news coverage than with paid advertising due to the implied third-party endorsement of the journalist or quoted person.
The cost of coverage in the news media is substantially lower than the cost of advertising
The media are fundamentally in the business of sales. They sell their audiences to their advertisers and program sponsors as potential buyers of their products and services.
Newspapers package the news into the blank spaces that are left after the advertisements have been placed. They want the news material you supply them to be sufficiently interesting to help them increase their circulation. They stand to gain financially from the price paid by the people who buy their newspaper as well as from the advertisers who have bought space.
Television, radio and the Internet-based media use news as a drawcard to attract a bigger audience. In turn, this makes them more attractive to potential advertisers and program sponsors than alternatives.
Best practice guidelines
Too often, communicators try to create good news coverage for the sake of creating good news coverage without any real thought about the strategic potential of the news coverage. Instead, best-practice media relations activity involves a clear, strategic link to your organizational mission and goals. Key elements of strategically based media relations are:
Your media strategy is documented and implemented according to principles agreed between public affairs and senior management.
A media policy is drawn up with responsibilities, profiles and positioning as defined and agreed between public affairs and senior management.
Media activity is planned to reach target audiences in direct support of your organizational mission and goals.
Media contact is broadly divided into proactive (planned) and reactive (opportunistic and defensive) activities.
Systematic use of consistent messages is made (eg. about organizational performance, issues, use of new technologies and corporate behavior including environmental policy, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility);
Spokespersons’ roles are documented, communicated and supported (training, advice, background information).
There are clear triggers for engagement as part of the issues management/stakeholder relations process.
Decisions are agreed beforehand on the follow-up activities after media coverage (interview, survey, discussions with key opinion leaders).
However, it is more valuable to think strategically about whether to respond, and if so, when the best time may be to respond. Selective engagement can be far more effective than knee-jerk responses:
Always focus on your communication goals.
Write them down and get the organizational spokespersons to use them as guidelines.
Keep messages focused and consistent.
The more focused your organization’s messages, the more focused the debate will be. Don’t allow your messages to be hijacked into non-productive areas. Solid information simply presented is a key ingredient for success. Most news items during high-profile incidents are repetitive and trivial only if they are allowed to be.
Concentrate preparation only on the toughest questions.
In any situation, there will be only a limited number of core questions. The process of developing answers to those responses will help your spokesperson to handle virtually all other questions. Trying to learn all responses under pressure will be too difficult and will divert from the main issues.
Critics, victims, media and others tend to focus on the inconsistencies. The result is unnecessary questions and a perception of untrustworthiness. So, stick to the script – a plain language explanation supported by two or three relevant stories and examples. Avoid negative words and phrases (eg. “No.”, “That’s not right.”, “We didn’t do that.”, “I didn’t say that.”). Such words and phrases tend to legitimize the question and become the headline and the focus of the story: “The company today denied …” and “Today the Minister refused to rule out…” Positive language is the most powerful relationship-managing tool.
Communicate directly to stakeholders, not through the media.
Talk to people directly rather than indirectly through the media, if given a choice. News media are appropriate only when it is difficult to reach stakeholders directly. This was the policy of the most admired business leader in the world, Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, who believed it was more valuable to spend time with employees than with reporters and financial analysts.
Always let opponents and critics speak for themselves.
Critics need aggressive responses to generate the energy necessary to keep their ideas in the news. There is no obligation to respond to what they say. Letting them speak for themselves usually becomes repetitious and boring to the media and the public. And they will often show themselves up as being unworthy to be listened to.
Doing nothing can be a powerful force.
A delay in response can occur for various unintentional reasons, but can often be the best response to help diffuse the initial media and critic interest. You should mention the strategic option of delay or doing nothing and should explore the benefits of doing so. If you don’t, someone else invariably will.
Respond to media enquiries only when the needs of those directly affected have been attended to.
Fundamentally, other stakeholders are usually more important than media. It is not a crime to attend to the stakeholders first. If the needs of stakeholders are attended to, especially in an emergency, there is less for the media to seize upon.
Top10 strategies
http://aboutpublicrelations.net/uctomic1.htm
or
http://www.brand.uottawa.ca/media-relations-guide.html
or
http://www.eilerpr.com/pr-media-relations.htm
or
http://mediavantage.com/blog/media-relations-strategy-do-you-have-one/
