MEDIA RELATIONS

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MEDIA RELATIONS
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What is media relations?

• Media relations targets audiences through media
  coverage
• Can be either responsive or proactive
• No direct cost for receiving coverage
• But there is some loss of editorial control

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Value of media relations(versus ads and other
media)

• Credible
• Third-party endorsement
• Cost-effective
• Objective and trusted

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What media relations can do

• Influence your audiences towards action
• Enhance your organization's reputation
• Promote your organization's services
• Provide third-party endorsements
• Make your organization the "go to Resource
• Establish positive relationships that can "smooth
  over" difficult times

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Types of Media Coverage

• Print
• Television
• Radio
• Web and Other New Media

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What makes a story newsworthy

• Relevance
• Proximity
• Timeliness
• Occurrence-based
• Calendar-based
• Uniqueness
• Human Interest
• Entertainment Value
• Celebrity
• Controversy

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Building Better Media Relations

• Conduct research
• Who cover industry
• What angle
• What kind of reporter
• Respond to calls
• Prepare for interviews
• Maintain ongoing relationships

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Creating a SuccessfulMedia Relations Programs

• Involve internal media relations personnel in
  strategy
• Develop in-house capabilities
• Use outside counsel sparingly

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Online Media Strategy

• The powerful internet
• Expansion of power to individuals
• Do not discriminate legitimate and phony news
• Monitoring content
• Web-based communication platform
• Blog
• Handling negative news

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Role of the news release

• Summarizes the story by answering
• Who
• What
• Where
• When
• Why
• How
• Written just like a newspaper article

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Pros Cons of News Release

• Pros
• Traditional and expected media tool
• Provides crucial information in written form
• Con
• Has become spam
• Too often places organizational priorities above
  those of target audience
• Individual pitches may be more effective

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Top 10 media tips

• Know your media
• Be prepared
• Make it easy for reporters
• Youre always on the record
• Its okay to not have all the information
• Give up editorial control
• Dont ask to see a story in advance
• Media relationships are symbiotic
• Respect deadlines
• Respond NOW

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Media Interview Tips

• Keep answers short
• Avoid No comment! response
• Listen to each question
• Use bridging to move closer to your objective
• Use anecdotes, analogies, simple stat
• Keep body language in mind

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WRITING FOR THE MEDIA
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WHAT IS NEWS??

• French term du jour of the day
• News value decline as a function of time
• Significant and interesting to all
• when dog bites man, thats typical. When man
  bites dog, thats news
• News is s/thg new, up to the minute, unusual,
  sensational or s/thg which will affect many
  people and is therefore in the public interest\

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KEEPING IT SIMPLE

• Understood b average person
• Use short sentences. Use short paragraphs. Use
  vigorous English, not forgetting to strive for
  smoothness. Be positive, not negative.
• Writing simply is extremely difficult

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KEEPING IT SIMPLE

• Fog Index by Robert Gunning to measure
  readability/simplicity
• Sample -100 words. Count the exact no
• Divide no of words by no of sentences
• Count the number of words of three or more
  syllables
• Step 2 step 3
• Multiply by 0.4 to calculate your Fog Index
• If 10 readers at least year 10. If above
  12, writing will reach only highly educated
  audience. Above 15, most likely dont have
  audience

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KEEPING IT SIMPLE

• Over use of words
• Lower socio-economic group the poor
• Prior to the commencement before
• We anticipate we expect
• The fact that that
• Microprocessor-based computer
• functions
  functions

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KEEPING IT SIMPLE

• What, where, why,how,when,who
• Print/electronic almost every story answer
  these 6 key points
• What happened
• Where it took place
• When
• How
• Why it occurred
• And to whom

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TIMING

• Deadlines the latest possible time at which the
  media can accept material
• Most morning n/paper put together between midday
  and around 10pm. Completed by 5pm
• 6 pm TV news by 4 pm start editing and putting
  together the news
• Embargo giving the time b4 which the story
  cannot be published/broadcast
• Embargoed until 9pm, Wednesday, July 6

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TIMING

• Note key periods of days (Hari Raya, Chinese New
  Year, Deepavali, Christmas)
• Not advisable to release major new stories
• Sunday announcement/ news events receive major
  coverage on Monday media
• Use facsimile or e-mail to send material.
  Follow-up by phone

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• Media style familiarize. Placing material
• Intro / lead - lt25 words, news comes first,
  active voice
• Built for just RM10,000, a mini-jet aero
  plane will be given its maiden flight over KLIA
  next Sunday by a 21-year-old apprentice engineer
  who constructed it in his backyard
• Tense use media reporting style of everything
  in past tense except direct quotes within
  quotation marks

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• Attribution all statements to the media must be
  attributed
• , president of the YXZ organization,
  En. Ali said.
• The XYZ organization has warned that if .
• Editorialising stick to facts and attribute all
  comments to a source a named person or the
  organisation
• Elegant variation dont dress up simple ideas
  with mumbo jumbo

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• Abbreviations use all titles and terms in full
  on first usage subsequent references can be
  abbreviated
• Cliches dont use cliches. Be original
• leave no stone unturned, put our shoulder to
  the wheel
• Tautologies watch for repetition
• new innovation, hasten quickly, new
  initiative
• Ambiguity watch for in joining up sentences and
  paragraphs
• Newspaper advertisement
• For sale, bulldog. Will eat anything. Very
  fond of children.

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• Punctuation dont over punctuate. Avoid colons
  and semi-colons and use commas only where
  necessary
• One idea to one sentence, and one main point to
  one paragraph.(25, 15-40)
• Quotable quotes look for simple, down-to-earth
  direct quotes to use in your media statements.
  Quotable quotes are picked up and used