Winning Favorable Media Coverage
The news media help shape public opinion on most political and public policy issues. They play a vital role in congressional outcomes. A basic understanding of a reporter’s job and a few interviewing techniques can increase your effectiveness in communicating key messages in the interviews you might be called to. Reporters are not necessarily subject experts on the news they report, so they rely on people like you for facts and commentary.
Reporters often write under a tight deadline. Television reporters often get assignments in the morning to produce news stories for the evening news. This means less time to research stories, interview sources, and write.
The reporter’s purposes in an interview are to:
- Gain understanding of issues
- Collect relevant facts
- Obtain quotes from reputable sources
- Balance opposing views
Reporters are human and can have preconceived notions about the topics they cover. They also may be seeking quotes that support specific conclusions. If you find yourself pressed to give quotes you don’t agree with, make a case for your viewpoint. If the reporter doesn’t seem persuaded, decline to be quoted. The most important goal in an interview is to get your messages concerning homelessness across and not be quoted.
Local spokespersons:
- Remember to identify yourself as a friend of homeless persons when the reporter asks how you want to be identified. Getting the cause mentioned in news stories raises its profile and promotes your interests.
- When speaking on behalf of homeless persons, be sure to read up on and to communicate key messages contained in national or local homeless organizations’ policy statements, fact sheets, and talking points.
Interviewing Basics
- Never take the call cold. If a reporter calls, never agree to do an interview on the spot. Deadlines are tight for most reporters because news is valuable when it’s fresh. However, find out as much information about the interview as possible and set a time to do it later.
- Ask questions. Ask about the subject of the interview, who the audience is (and what type of media), who else the reporter has talked to, and when the story will run. Ask how long the interview will take; be careful with interviews that are scheduled to last longer than 20 minutes.
- Define your messages. There is only one reason to give an interview and it’s to communicate messages for the homeless cause. Those messages may be about facts from a new study, a public concern, a national crisis, your personal reputation. Regardless of the issue, before you agree to do an interview, you must clarify your messages and decide whether an interview is the best way to communicate them.
- Once you decide your main “take home” messages, identify a personal experience to support them, and a few statistics to accentuate your key points. During the interview, your primary mission is to deliver these key messages while answering the reporter’s questions.
Look for talking points and background materials online on a variety of homeless issues and learn them well. In addition, join the mailing lists of organizations that monitor news coverage nationally because often they can provide information of a wider scope or context.
Working with the news media can be challenging but is always exciting and a great way to raise public awareness of your issues.
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