PACE Resources

 

Building a Section Media Network
by Christopher Currie

Section media-relations programs should be an important part of the Institute's external-communications efforts in this era of localized mass media. This presentation discusses methods that can be used to publicize section activities to the general public through electronic and print media. Major topics include the following: building the section media network, types of messages, methods for delivering the message, and maintaining the network.

Introduction

The late Speaker of the House Thomas "Tip" O'Neill used to say, "All politics is local." The same could be said today of news. No matter where you live, most of the news and information you receive is from local media sources, whether it's the hometown daily or "Eyewitness News." And local media are focusing increasingly on local news — the events that most closely affect the day-to-day lives of readers, viewers, and listeners. Even national and world events are explored from a regional perspective.

At the same time, we live in a society that's more and more connected to the media as a tool for understanding the world in which we live. As we Americans have become plugged in to ever more media outlets — first newspapers and magazines, then radio, broadcast and cable television, now the Internet and its World Wide Web — we have found that the mass media not only interpret life experience for us but actually supplant it. Today's students, for example, spend more time watching television than in school. As Marshall McLuhan predicted, the medium has become the message.

What do these trends mean for members of IEEE sections? Two things, in my opinion, both of which show the importance of building section media networks.

First, for many people today, if it's not in the popular media, it's not real. Surveys consistently show that young people most often aspire to professions like law, medicine, sports, and entertainment — because these are glamorized in TV, movies, newspapers, and magazines. On the other hand, the work of engineers is often misunderstood or ignored by the public. As Sen. Conrad Burns said at a recent IEEE-USA technology-policy conference, it's hard to sell the American electorate on the need for R&D investment because few people are aware of the process of technological development, except in very dramatic cases. Consequently, today's electrotechnologists need to make themselves and their work real to others through use of the media.

Second, the best way to gain access to local media is through "grass-roots" media relations. While IEEE-USA's external communications efforts are often effective when dealing with media organizations with a national audience — such as The Wall Street Journal, CNN or Electronic Engineering Times — journalists at regional newspapers, television studios, and radio stations usually prefer to work with experts who are also neighbors. In the same way, conferences in Washington rarely interest reporters at The Arizona Republic — but a workshop in Phoenix might. Even when we get media queries about national issues, the reporter often asks if we can provide a local spokesperson who knows the subject or is personally affected by it. In your section, you can take advantage of the media's hunger for local angles and stories by setting up your own external-communications program.

Establishing a media network can also yield tangible benefits for your section. Having your positions, programs, and participants featured in your local media helps you recruit new members, instill pride among your volunteers, interest members of the community in participating in your events, and generate goodwill in your area for the profession and the Institute.

Perhaps your attendance at this workshop indicates you have already decided that beginning or improving your media network is a good idea. What you need is a blueprint for action.

Fortunately, working with the media is not as mysterious as it may seem to the uninitiated. The most important point to remember is that the media are interested in whatever interests its consumers, the public. In our case, the public's interest is not in the engineering profession but in the ways it affects their lives. You will find that you will "connect" with journalists if you can show that your message is not only sensational, controversial, or entertaining, but practical and relevant. Try to focus your message on the impacts of technology that most matter to people: jobs, health, lifestyle.

For example: Reporters might turn a deaf hear to your message that the threatened shutdown of a local federal lab will stifle progress in a certain arcane technology. But they might express keen interest if you told them how many jobs might be lost to the region or how the competitiveness of important local industries would be affected.

Not everything you do as a section will capture the media's attention, of course. But consider some of these activities as media opportunities: technology fairs, student contests and National Engineers Week events; awards presentations; job fairs, consultants' workshops, and other career-related events; and major technical conferences being hosted locally.

Some of your opportunities will be of a reactive nature, as well. Be alert for issues and events being covered in the media that involve technology, technology policy, or professional careers. Often, reporters are receptive to local sources who present a credible expertise in any of these areas. Op-ed pages and letters columns are also fertile ground for an engineers' perspective on issues of the day.

We've now identified some possible messages. But every message needs a sender, a receiver, and a mode of communication. From your end, it helps to have an individual or a committee of volunteers designated to develop and maintain your media-relations program. In any of your communications, there must be at least one contact person whom the reporter can reach for further information. In addition, the section media liaison(s) should identify others in the section who are able and willing to serve as spokespersons for various events and issues. You might even consider compiling an experts guide for local reporters — similar to the IEEE Technical Experts Guide.

Next, you'll need an accurate media list to target the appropriate press contacts for your various messages. You might be able to obtain one from a convention or civic center, Chamber of Commerce, public library or local public-relations agency. Include on your list newspapers, local magazines, television and radio stations, employer newsletters, and state or local bureaus of national wire services such as the Associated Press. Typically, you should include names, phone, fax and/or e-mail information, and addresses for editors for the following "beats": business, metro and city desk, technology or science, education, community events or calendar, photo, and assignment (for TV and radio stations).

Just as important as targeting the right recipients for your messages is knowing the appropriate vehicle for sending them. The best mode of communication depends on the type of media and the type of message. Think first about how your targeted media might use your message. Take, as an example, one of IEEE-USA's technology-policy positions. A smaller newspaper might cover the position in detail; a business journal might report on the position in conjunction with other organizations' views; a TV news show might feature an IEEE spokesperson in a short "sound bite"; and a radio newscast might quote more than one IEEE spokesperson on the same issue at different times. The end use of your message could well determine whether your initial communication with the news outlet is written or oral, or whether it's delivered by mail or fax machine.

Different types of messages also call for different delivery strategies. This calls for more common-sense analysis. A breaking news event with a technology angle would probably elicit your phone call with the offer of a spokesperson. A planned section event would require a news advisory mailed out as much as a month in advance to calendar editors, at least a week in advance to beat reporters, and faxed a few days before the event to your local Associated Press daybook. A new policy position or an awards presentation is a good subject for a news release. Letters to the editor and op-ed articles are excellent vehicles to respond to current issues or events in the news. Career messages can be worked into an engineering-careers supplement with the assistance of the advertising department of your local newspaper.

Of course, you can often combine different vehicles to create a multifaceted media strategy to present a single message. For example, let's say your section is sponsoring a technology fair at an area shopping mall. First, you could send a news advisory to calendar editors, community events, education and technology reporters, TV and radio assignment editors, and the AP daybook. Then, you might follow up just before the event with phone calls to reporters and assignment editors. On the day of the event, you would distribute informational press packets to journalists in attendance and arrange interviews with section spokespersons. Afterward, you could send a news release, quoting attendees and your spokespersons, to local print media. If you had a photographer at the event, you could also send photos with captions to selected print media — this tactic often will net you coverage even when other methods fail.

No matter how you deliver your message, you need a familiarity with the basic press materials in order to present yourself credibly and to meet the essential informational needs of journalists. Let's look at each of them:

The News Release/Advisory. There is no high art to writing a press release. Here is the format:

• Section letterhead, or special section news-release letterhead,
• Name and daytime phone number of the section contact person,
• Release date (usually "For Immediate Release" — though this line is considered superfluous by many practitioners today,
• Headline, centered and in bold,
• Dateline (city, in caps, followed by date of release),
• The "who," "what," "when," "where," and "why" of the story, and
• Symbol marking the end of the release (e.g., # # #).

For a news advisory, which is a type of short (one page!) news release announcing an upcoming event, you would substitute the words "News Advisory" for the release date, and center all of the essential information (the five "w"s) in bold right below the headline — so it could be quickly scanned by a reporter or calendar editor.

The Press Kit. Press kits can be mailed initially as your form of introduction to your targeted media contacts. They should also be assembled for each of your events to which you have invited the media. They give reporters all the background they need to cover you and your event. Use your creativity, but keep them from getting too thick. Try to include these elements:

• Two-pocket folder, perhaps embossed with your section logo,
• Card with the section media liaison's name and contact information,
• Agenda or media advisory containing essential information about the event,
• Flyer or fact sheet about the IEEE and your section,
• News release on the event, if available beforehand,
• Biographies of principal participants, and
• Photos of principal participants (optional, for print media).

Press kits accompanying an event should be distributed at a press registration table by a media liaison who can also assist reporters by handling their inquiries and facilitating interviews with spokespersons.

The Phone Call. Reporters are busy professionals facing constant deadline pressures; they don't like to be bothered needlessly. Therefore, call only when you have something significant, timely and relevant to say to them — and make sure you make it short, sweet, and to the point. If you do, judicious phone calls can be your most productive media communications. Here are some key ingredients for the phone "pitch":

• Be sensitive to journalists' schedules (for print media, it's usually best to call between 10:00 a.m. and noon);

• Identify yourself and your affiliation with your IEEE section;

• Ask if the reporter has a minute to speak with you;

• Make your pitch in 30 seconds or less, giving all necessary information and a compelling reason to cover your activity or message;

• Always be honest, consistent, and noncondescending;

• Be aware that anything you say is probably considered "on the record";

• Ask if any further information is required; provide by fax what you can't answer on the phone; and

• Offer to put the reporter in touch with the appropriate IEEE spokesperson, if helpful.

We should note, in our examination of these tools, that the electronic-communications era is changing and expanding our methods of media relations. As a society of electrotechnologists, we are uniquely equipped to take advantage of opportunities afforded by the new technologies. You can emulate in your section media networks some of the techniques we are already applying at IEEE-USA. News advisories, for example, can be sent by e-mail to reporters who are on line. You can also disseminate news releases by e-mail and post them on your section World Wide Web site. Instead of phone calls, you can communicate with some journalists in a less intrusive way through e-mail (you might find this more effective than voice-mail in getting your messages returned!). You can even use on-line services like DataTimes EyeQ to monitor your coverage in newspapers, magazines, and trade publications. Electronic communications, in short, can make your media-relations program easier, faster, cheaper — and more effective.

Mastering the fundamentals of these communications tools is not difficult. But learning when and how to use them takes practice, patience, and persistence. If you are willing to put forth the effort and can handle rejection and even occasional rudeness, you will find that these methods will reward you eventually with the satisfaction of a media network that truly works — for you and your section.

Good media relations is a cumulative process. It's about building awareness through continuing communications and developing productive relationships with the people who bring us the news. Both are nurtured by persistence and continuity. Here are a few things you can do to maintain and expand your media network over time:

• Update your media list periodically by consulting current directories, phoning list members (and, perhaps, polling them as to their preferred vehicle of receiving your communications), or sending a mailing;

• Send your media contacts a list of current section officers and issue experts, or a section year-in-review report;

• Mail a section press packet to new media contacts;

• Get together for lunch individually with a few of your best media contacts; or, in larger metropolitan areas where journalists are more overburdened, consider maintaining some "personal" contact through e-mail;

• Send a short, appreciative note to a reporter after you receive good coverage;

• Read, watch and listen to your media contacts to familiarize yourself with their work; mention and compliment them for their recent stories when you have occasion to speak with them;

• Don't be afraid to correct a reporter politely for erroneous coverage — but restrict yourself only to cases of significant errors, not minor mistakes; and

• Maintain a clip, transcript, video and audiotape file to help you analyze — and celebrate — your media efforts.

My earnest wish is that this outline will prove helpful to you as you build your own section media network. Certainly there are many issues that we haven't yet touched on or treated in depth. While I hope to answer some of your questions today, I ask also that you look to IEEE-USA Communications as a continuing resource for your section's media-relations efforts. In addition to providing updates to the IEEE media-relations and technical-experts guides that we are distributing today, we can also send you sample press releases and advisories, provide media-training tips for spokespersons, suggest resources for developing media lists, and provide expert advice for your specific projects as well as problems you encounter. The IEEE-USA Communications Department staff of five, headed by Associate Communications Director Pender M. McCarter, has more than 50 years' combined experience, and we're at your service. We look forward to helping you help us spread the word about the Institute and the electrotechnology profession!

IEEE Corporation Communications has created a useful 24-page Publicity Guide for IEEE Sections, Chapters and Branches offering guidelines and tips on how to obtain publicity for IEEE activities and member accomplishments using basic public relations tactics. It includes sample news releases and and other tools which can be adapted for local use. The Guide is also available on diskette. For a free copy of the video or the publicity guide, please contact IEEE Corporate Communications with your name, complete postal address and preferred format at (phone) 908-562-6820, (fax) 908-981-9511or by e-mail at corporate-communications@ieee.org.

About the Author

Christopher Currie has served as IEEE-USA's External Communications Coordinator since January 1995. Prior to joining the staff, he assisted IEEE-USA's public-relations efforts as a consultant, beginning in November 1992 during the Institute's lead sponsorship of National Engineers Week 1993. For more information about developing section media-relations programs, contact him by e-mail at c.currie@ieee.org or by at phone at (202) 785-0017, ext. 342.

Updated: 15 May 2007