Late last week, a headline from our local “Patch” news service caught my attention – Police: Group of Teens Cause $1,500 in Damage at General’s Ridge Golf Course. I opened the story expecting to find names and ages attached to the accusation, but there were none. In fact, other than a description that the [...]]]>

Late last week, a headline from our local “Patch” news service caught my attention – Police: Group of Teens Cause $1,500 in Damage at General’s Ridge Golf Course. I opened the story expecting to find names and ages attached to the accusation, but there were none. In fact, other than a description that the individuals were shirtless and had a dog with them, there were no other details that had been confirmed. The perpetrators haven’t yet been identified or caught. So how do we know they are teenagers? They could be 20 years old – or 40. For that matter, how do we even know the dog was a German Shepherd? Yet these details were reported as fact. Is there any danger in assigning an age label to crime suspects when they haven’t yet been caught, let alone accused? Would it have been just as acceptable to report their race or religion?

It’s been quite a few years since I matriculated from Penn State with a journalism degree, but I still remember the endless days of sitting in class picking apart real headlines and leads for any sign of bias. Not only did we look at our own work, we examined the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Sometimes it seemed impossible to find ethics issues in products from such venerated media outlets, but we dug until we did. Now I don’t have to look far at all for instances of ethical breaches and bias, and I often feel very alone in my need to pay attention to such details. Does the rest of the world just accept this new era of “anything goes” reporting?

A recent after-work viewing of Page One: Inside The New York Times cemented the nagging feeling that it’s not  just newspapers that are disappearing, it’s the care and commitment to accurate, factual reporting that they represent. From All the President’s Men to The Paper, our culture has tried to emphasize the importance of getting it right, even at the expense of getting it second. Now those films, and that sentiment, seem naive and nostalgic. I mean, we’re all reporters, right? I can post whatever I want on Facebook or Twitter, and it can be seen around the world in a matter of minutes. Of course, if we could count on each other for accurate, first-person accounts, it would mean that Natalie Portman, George Clooney and even William Hung are all dead – because Twitter said so.

This month, the practice of journalism was further rocked by allegations that NewsCorps-owned outlets invaded the voicemail accounts of several British citizens, including a young murder victim and relatives of fallen soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is plenty of outrage around the situation, but will it finally wake up the public enough to demand a return to the ethics and standards that were once a hallmark of reporting?

The irony is not lost on me that I am writing this piece as a public relations professional rather than a currently working journalist. Like so many of my wide-eyed fellow journalism graduates, my picture of traveling the world to uncover scandal and save lives was far from the reality of fast-food wages and hours spent rewriting stories on a local fight over back lit awnings. However, I’ve never set aside those basic journalism ethics in my PR work. As a communicator for social change, I often have an opportunity to pass along critical information that can help reporters investigate their own stories. I know it’s in my and my clients’ best interests for those journalists to be fair, accurate and unbiased – even if the results are not as flattering as I would like. I know that once the line is breached – whether or not it’s on behalf of my cause – it’s hard to cross back to the other side.

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In the public relations world, we’ve always known that being responsive to hot stories is a great way to get your issue, organization or idea out there. While the old rules still apply, the game changed a little in 2010. Responsiveness still reigns supreme, but with a twist. The faster we respond with bold, sensational commentary, the more [...]]]>

In the public relations world, we’ve always known that being responsive to hot stories is a great way to get your issue, organization or idea out there. While the old rules still apply, the game changed a little in 2010. Responsiveness still reigns supreme, but with a twist. The faster we respond with bold, sensational commentary, the more likely we are to make it into prime time.

With political discord reaching new heights from coast-to-coast in this election year, the media proved that the old rules regarding responsiveness are important. Stories evolved quickly to incorporate new elements and points of views. But these days, it seems cable news and online channels are giving the most attention to those who can yell the loudest. Whether an opinion is sane, sound, or evidence-based seems to be of little interest. Death panels come to mind. If a pundit or a pundit-in-waiting rants about something remotely relevant, they get the top spot on evening broadcasts and homepage treatment on conservative and liberal blogs alike.

It sounds like a scary world out there in the media. I won’t lie, I’m often afraid – terrified, actually - of what constitutes news today. But I think we can learn something from these ravenous ranters in punditville.

Many nonprofits think long and hard – and then think some more – about what they want to say, how they want to say it, and where it’s safe to say it. In the mean time, it’s already being said by those ravenous ranters, and likely in a way that isn’t very flattering to the issues that matter so much to all of us working hard to change public discourse.

For the sake of our credibility, we want to be sure that we only craft messages based in fact and driven by sound advice, rather than emotion. But let’s resolve in 2011 to be more prepared to respond quickly, with bold, relevant ideas that can compete with some of the death-panel-proponent types on the six o’clock news. Let’s make social issues a prominent part of the real-time, 24/7 news cycle.

In March, I wrote about the phenomenon of people using Twitter during natural disasters to share updates and insights from the ground and let the world know that they are okay. It seems that more and more, we are turning to Twitter for the latest news and events around the world.  As was recently [...]]]>

In March, I wrote about the phenomenon of people using Twitter during natural disasters to share updates and insights from the ground and let the world know that they are okay. It seems that more and more, we are turning to Twitter for the latest news and events around the world.  As was recently announced by Twitter itself, Twitter is a place for information and news, not a social network.

We continue to hear the latest news via Twitter before traditional news outlets pick up the stories. Tools like TweetDeck and HootSuite allow us to follow the hashtags attached to these tweets to listen in on the entire conversation happening about that particular event.  During the recent Discovery Building hostage situation, for example, the hashtags #discovery and #hostage were being used frequently, allowing people to monitor news as it unfolded.

Even public safety officials are using Twitter to stay on top of the latest developments. According to a story on CNN, “Heading off disaster, one tweet at a time,” Russ Johnson of the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) is trying to make information garnered from social media useful for first responders.

“Public safety officials are still trying to get their heads around social media. They are trying to catch up,” Johnson says. “What do you do when the social media knows more than you do?”

To help government officials, ESRI takes info from social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr, and inputs the data onto maps for first responders.

“The data is really unstructured — when you wrap it around a map suddenly you have a micro and a macro view,” Johnson said. “All of a sudden social media is a really relevant piece of data that can increase situational awareness.”

We know that the public, first responders and journalists are using Twitter to learn about the latest breaking news happening in their area, but how can PR professionals use this to their advantage?

A lot of us use TweetDeck or HootSuite to search for our client’s names to monitor any conversations happening on Twitter, but we should also be looking at the latest trending topics and hashtags to follow breaking news as it happens. One way to stay on top of breaking news related to your clients is to set up searches on Twitter for general topic areas related to your client’s work.  For example, set up a search for “mental health” and “health” in addition to your client’s name if their work is in the mental health field. While it may not catch all of the latest news, you may see a few tweets relating to a breaking story that you can start to follow.

We all know that one way to effectively pitch our client’s story to a journalist is to make a connection between what you have to say and a current topic or news event. This can instantly make your story more “newsworthy” and hopefully lead to the coverage that you and your client are looking for.

Right now there is no better source for breaking news then Twitter, and PR professionals should be using this to their advantage whenever possible. You should keep your tools for monitoring Twitter open all day and check it regularly because you never know when the perfect opportunity for your client will come up.

When USA Today launched in 1982, it heralded a new era for print journalism, featuring briefer articles and more colorful designs, photos and illustrations in newspapers. Twenty-eight years later, the second most widely read newspaper in the U.S. is changing the game again.

Recently, USA Today announced a reorganization of its newsroom, eliminating 130 jobs [...]]]>

When USA Today launched in 1982, it heralded a new era for print journalism, featuring briefer articles and more colorful designs, photos and illustrations in newspapers. Twenty-eight years later, the second most widely read newspaper in the U.S. is changing the game again.

Recently, USA Today announced a reorganization of its newsroom, eliminating 130 jobs and restructuring how the paper will cover the news. The reorganization will shift USA Today’s emphasis towards its digital media operations to capitalize on readers’ interest in online and mobile content, reflected in the decline of the paper’s print sales.

USA Today’s predicament is shared by other papers on today’s newsstand. Since hard economic times sped the descent of print and advertising sales of national, regional and community newspapers, publications such as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, and Charlotte Observer are also exploring new business models.

However, these new content strategies should give communicators some cause for concern. USA Today described its new arrangement as “a new way of doing business that aligns sales efforts with the content we produce.” Such close collaboration between editorial and sales departments will change what news is covered and how, making it even more difficult for hard-sell social issue stories to get published.

In 2006, The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that with the advent of online news content and 24/7 TV news cycles, the public’s newspaper section preferences were changing. According to the study:

Nine-in-ten people (91%) who say they often or sometimes read a newspaper spend at least some time on news about their city, town or region, but 88% say the same about national news stories, and 84% spend time reading international news.

Three sections of the newspaper have grown significantly more popular since 1985: business and financial news, news about religion, and articles about food, diet and cooking.

The study also discovered that younger readers, under the age of 30, expressed little interest in newspaper editorials and opinion pages, 35 percent either skip the editorial pages entirely or 17 percent just glance at
them. Only 15 percent of 18-29 year old readers spend time reading the op-eds.

So what do Pew’s revealing findings mean?

The statistics reinforce USA Today’s conclusions: the way people receive their news is changing. Readers no longer need to rely on morning newspapers for yesterday’s news. Instant access to real-time news and opinion on the Internet means they can follow today’s news right now. Also, it indicates new business opportunities for advertisers who are promoting products related to those content areas.

As a result of this trend, newspapers are responding and taking steps like USA Today to reorganize and develop new ways to deliver the news and capitalize on new sales markets. These changes will make it harder for communicators to get soft news pitches in print. However where there is a will, there’s a way.  Just as newspaper publishers are discovering new ways to reengage readers, perhaps communicators should take heed, too, and find new ways for soft stories to be newsworthy…and marketable.

On Wednesday, the Associated Press (AP) announced the appointment of former Jerusalem bureau chief Steve Gutkin as their new “Oil Spill Editor.” According to a memo sent to AP staff and released to the Poynter Institute:

The Gulf Oil spill has been an enormous journalistic challenge. A sprawling story, much of it occurring literally out [...]]]>

On Wednesday, the Associated Press (AP) announced the appointment of former Jerusalem bureau chief Steve Gutkin as their new “Oil Spill Editor.” According to a memo sent to AP staff and released to the Poynter Institute:

The Gulf Oil spill has been an enormous journalistic challenge. A sprawling story, much of it occurring literally out of sight beneath the water. Every day AP journalists in every format have risen to the story and kept us well ahead. It is now clear this story will be with us, and with the people of the Gulf Coast, for a good long time to come.

So we are taking steps to set up for this long haul. The first is the appointment today of an Oil Spill Editor to supervise the coverage and to keep us thinking of new and creative ways to cover this continuing and continually important story.

What does this say to communicators about how the news media is approaching the growing disaster in the Gulf?  Well,  if you’re pitching reporters about energy and/or environmental issues, you may need to take a number.

AP’s announcement illustrates that news outlets are expecting the oil spill coverage to continue for a very long time. Creating a dedicated editorial position to oversee content demonstrates their belief that the story will become bigger and more complicated as time goes on. Their decision also indicates that outlets are seeing such interest in the story from readers, viewers and listeners that they will invest in creating new roles and expanding coverage to meet that demand.

Satellite image of the Gulf Coast oil spill taken by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on May 24, 2010, the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this false-color, high-resolution view of the very tip of the Mississippi River Delta. Ribbons and patches of oil are silver against the light blue color of the adjacent water. Vegetation is red.

Happy 40th Anniversary Earth Day!

Twenty years ago, Vanguard Communications provided communications support for Earth Day 1990, culminating with the first national Earth Day rally in Washington, D.C.  With 350,000 attendees, it was an overwhelming success, and it began a tradition that continues to this day, with the Climate Rally on the National Mall, scheduled [...]]]>

Happy 40th Anniversary Earth Day!

Twenty years ago, Vanguard Communications provided communications support for Earth Day 1990, culminating with the first national Earth Day rally in Washington, D.C.  With 350,000 attendees, it was an overwhelming success, and it began a tradition that continues to this day, with the Climate Rally on the National Mall, scheduled for Sunday, April 25.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/ / CC BY 2.0

Publications across the country have showcased Earth Day op-eds and editorials today, with articles written by a plethora of authors, including EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. From these examples, we’ve culled three simple tips to make your opinion writing persuasive and memorable.

1. Be personal. Look for the angle within your op-ed that applies to you. In other words, find a way of making a point that connects to your voice and your experiences. Adam Gardner from rock band Guster does precisely this in his post for Care2, focusing on the environmental impacts of touring and how his nonprofit organization, Reverb, has worked to address these challenges.  Focusing on an issue he’s intimately and implicitly familiar with gives him greater credibility and allows his message to connect to readers.
2. Have an opinion. It seems obvious, but making a strong point with a clearly defined point of view helps your message stick.  Take today’s post from Treehugger, which references a Salon op-ed from two years ago.  The original piece – which advocated renaming Earth Day – had an opinion unique enough that Treehugger not only remembered it, but was able to reintroduce it to new readers years after its original publication.
3. Call your supporters to action. The best op-eds ask readers to do something.  Take today’s piece from Grist, which uses Earth Day to discuss how quitting smoking can impact the environment and your health.  While it may be a bit of a leap, it piques reader interest and encourages further review.

From coverage of Cornell University’s response to six students’ deaths by suicide to reports of entertainer Marie Osmond’s teenage son’s death by suicide, recently reporters are writing and talking a lot about suicide.

While it’s great that news coverage is driving public dialogue about this often taboo topic, the news coverage does not utilize linguistically [...]]]>

From coverage of Cornell University’s response to six students’ deaths by suicide to reports of entertainer Marie Osmond’s teenage son’s death by suicide, recently reporters are writing and talking a lot about suicide.

While it’s great that news coverage is driving public dialogue about this often taboo topic, the news coverage does not utilize linguistically competent language regarding suicide.  As a result, it could hinder groups trying to support and help those impacted by these deaths.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skender/ / CC BY 2.0

In response to this suicide news story trend, Alicia Sparks – on her Celebrity Psychings blog – discussed how media can responsibly report on suicide. For example, instead of saying someone “committed suicide,” mental health consumers and leaders prefer to say someone “died by suicide” instead. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, American Association of Suicidology and Annenberg Public Policy Center provide tips to reporters on how to report on suicide without inadvertently encouraging  copycat actions.  Their research shows that the way suicide deaths are reported can impact whether suicide contagions occur or not. Word and phrase selection can be very influential. Overly dramatic headlines like “Do Cornell’s Gorges Make Kids Commit Suicide?” or “Does 6 deaths in 6 months make Cornell ‘suicide school’?” could hinder Cornell’s suicide prevention efforts.

Suicide is not the only mental health challenge or health-related issue to fall victim to the media’s inflammatory or linguistically incompetent phrasing. It’s not uncommon for reporters to say that someone is “schizophrenic” instead of “has schizophrenia.” Similar to how we speak about cancer, the medical illness, disorder or condition should not be an adjective describing people, but should be phrased as “has cancer,” instead of “is cancerous.”

While the media has been reporting about AIDS/HIV for more than 25 years, they still refer to people living with AIDS/HIV as “is HIV-positive” or “has AIDS,” not acknowledging how medical advances allow people to “live” with the disease as opposed to it being a death sentence.

As health communicators, we must make sure that our media materials use linguistic and culturally competent words and phrases to help the media start stories on the right foot. Competency in our communication can’t be limited to just being “politically correct.”  Instead, we must acknowledge the power (and influence) word selection has in impacting behavior change and engaging (and persuading) key audiences.

Last year, I drafted a media advisory referencing suicide and witnessed the power of words. Familiar with how suicide is discussed within the mental health community, I chose to use “died by suicide” in the media advisory. When the advisory was reviewed by one of the people highlighted in it, I received this email in response:

Bravo! Appreciate the use of “died by suicide” rather than committed suicide as a person who is surviving a sister’s death by suicide in 1995 and as a suicide attempt survivor. It’s language that brings dignity to families, friends and those of us who have struggled to survive and recover.

British politician Pearl Strachan Hurd once said, “Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs.”  We want our words as communicators — and those of the media — to not only inform and persuade, but also offer dignity and respect to sensitive, intimate stories and lives we report in our materials and news outlets.

Personally, one of my least favorite school activities as a student was report card day. While I often knew in advance what the report card would say, I was always anxious about my parents’ reaction. Knowledge may be power, but I think we can all admit that sometimes there are things we wish our [...]]]>

Personally, one of my least favorite school activities as a student was report card day. While I often knew in advance what the report card would say, I was always anxious about my parents’ reaction. Knowledge may be power, but I think we can all admit that sometimes there are things we wish our parents didn’t know about our academic achievements – or lack thereof.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/amboo213/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Like our younger selves, policymakers don’t like report cards, but the tactic can definitely get an organization noticed in the media and the public. More advocacy organizations are using report cards — or scorecards — to draw attention to the performance (i.e. voting record) of Congressional and state legislators on a variety of policy issues.

Recently Environment America — a nonprofit, nonpartisan environmental advocacy organization — issued their annual Congressional scorecard. It identified members of Congress who are “Washington’s environmental champs” – policymakers who voted for the environment 100% of the time in the past 18 months on major environmental issues. The scorecard also called out policymakers who are “natural disasters” and did not support environmental legislation and/or issues. State affiliates of Environment America also replicate this approach and release scorecards focusing on their state’s representatives, as Environment Washington did in December.

Outside of the environmental movement, other advocacy groups also use the scorecard as a tool to bring awareness to and action on their issue. For example, the Human Rights Campaign issues a Congressional Scorecard each year to show how members of Congress have voted on equality issues. The Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law has an interactive Web site dedicated to their annual scorecards on how Representatives and Senators voted  on anti-poverty legislation. The Web site even allows visitors to compare legislators’ grades.

Federal and state policymakers don’t like their voting records publicized and publicly evaluated. Their constituents (policymakers’ “parents” in this metaphor) are often unaware of the voting behavior and legislative actions of their representatives, and a scorecard can provide them a new, easy to understand viewpoint to evaluate their representative’s performance.

Issuing scorecards can also open doors for organizations looking to build relationships and alliances with key policymakers. Media coverage resulting from a scorecard release draws attention from Capitol Hill and state legislative staffers to your organization and may inspire — or force in an election year like this one — legislators to change their viewpoint and voting record on an issue.  In addition, scorecards provide valuable, concise information and data to reporters covering that policy issue and will help position your organization as an expert and resource for future insights.

In spite of the discomfort it causes lawmakers, the scorecard/report card approach is an effective tool in the policy communications arsenal to expand an organization’s message exposure. Hopefully, it will reinforce supportive policymakers to continue championing the issue or pressure failing legislators to improve their grade and make the honor roll on their next report card.

According to a recent poll by AdWeekMedia and Harris Interactive:

Just two in five U.S. adults (43%) say they read a daily newspaper, either online or in print almost every day. Just over seven in ten Americans (72%) say they read one at least once a week while 81% read a daily newspaper at least [...]]]>

According to a recent poll by AdWeekMedia and Harris Interactive:

Just two in five U.S. adults (43%) say they read a daily newspaper, either online or in print almost every day. Just over seven in ten Americans (72%) say they read one at least once a week while 81% read a daily newspaper at least once a month. One in ten adults (10%) say they never read a daily newspaper.

The poll also found that the readership of daily newspapers is “graying.” Nearly two-thirds of those aged 55 and older (64%) reported that they still read a daily newspaper almost every day.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/drb62/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

So what does this new data mean for media outreach planning? Well, it demonstrates that when developing media strategies and particularly, media lists, we can’t rely solely on daily newspapers anymore. Instead, diversifying the types of outlets included in media outreach is key to expanding the reach of our messages, as well as connecting with younger audiences.

However, we can’t ignore daily newspapers completely. Daily newspapers continue to influence, and at times drive, the daily news cycle. Their value is no longer the size of their readership alone, but how their stories and coverage of issues are picked up by other media channels.

2009 was a rough year for the media business and challenges will continue this year. To keep track of how the media, especially newspapers, are fairing in 2010, follow TheMediaisDying on Twitter for daily updates about outlets closing and reporting staff changes.