Note: This section is a product of the CBPP's communication's staff.
Over the years, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has honed a set of practices for generating media coverage of its analysis of budget and tax issues that may be helpful to policy groups seeking wider dissemination of their work. In a number of important respects, establishing a successful approach requires repeated effort. Trust between reporters and a source develops over time, as does a sense of when one issues a report to receive the most media attention. Active "press lists" also grow and improve over time, and require updating. In addition, the more reporters regularly read your reports, the more they become comfortable with your organization's work.
Generally, Center reports released to the media fall into two broad categories: timely analyses of legislative and budget issues released in the middle of public debate to inform daily media coverage, and longer, broader reports encompassing a major policy issue - trends in income inequality or the treatment of the working poor, for example - released to generate news coverage of their own.
While successful media work varies enormously on a case by case basis and is influenced by each organization's personal press relationships, we can identify a few critical steps in the release process:
- Plan a release date.
If the report addresses specific legislation or executive rulings, at what point in the lawmaking process will media coverage have the most impact? Are there major speeches, conferences, Presidential or other events related to your issue that will draw press (who will be looking for related stories) and that you can use as a "hook" for releasing your report? Does your report relate in any way to stories sought by the media at specific times of the year? For example, in the United States, newspapers run education-related stories when students go back to school, and stories about the poor during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons.
Your list should include reporters and broadcast journalists with a general interest in the issues covered in the analysis, reporters who have covered the issues previously or are considered friends, and important contacts. The compilation of this list usually involves research. Check with the news editors that assign reporters to stories. Review clip files. Depending on the computer technology available, update or build a database of press contacts as you go forward. If you lack a database, keep a permanent notebook of reporters and broadcast journalists at various media outlets.
This can be done by distributing a written advisory or making a series of phone calls, depending on the size of your press list. A media advisory announces the report by providing the who, what, when, where and why of the release and is mailed or faxed to the targeted list and backed up by phone calls to the reporters on the list. Of course, pay priority attention to the most influential reporters. For a smaller press list, a phone effort alone is sufficient. Generally reporters only need a few days notice, unless the release is judged to be a major news event. If so, provide notice of about a week and if possible make a second round of reminder phone calls the day before the release.
In the United States media industry, national and regional wire services provide hundreds of newspapers and broadcast outlets with ongoing, continuously updated schedules of upcoming press events. The editors of these daily schedules or "daybooks" will generally post information about your event or press release if information is provided at least a day ahead of time. However, one must be confident that your release date will not be changed, your information is accurate, and the promised report and experts will be available.
Reporters usually lack the time and/or specialized knowledge to absorb and synthesize a long policy analysis or research product. Leave out the detail and provide a shorter document that answers the "who-what-when-where-and-why" of your report and features its newsworthy findings at the top of the document.
One of the most complex problems in releasing a report to the media is devising the best logistical approach to making the document available early on the promised day of release. Distribution usually includes a combination of the following.
If press contacts are local and/or work in a central office, reports can be delivered by hand. The media advisory can mention that copies are available for pick-up at the office. The report can be posted on an organization's web site on the day it is released, if possible. Shorter reports can be faxed to selected key reporters on the targeted list. If the report is to be circulated to a large list, ensure that more influential daily media contacts receive the report first. After this is done, distribute the report to weekly and monthly publications the day following your release. This ensures that reporters with shorter deadlines have timely access to your materials.
If the report is sent in the mail and could arrive ahead of the release date, or if reporters request advance copies, the report should clearly display notice that it is embargoed - not for publication - until the day of the release. In fact, using an `embargo' strategy is fairly common practice at the Center and similar policy groups.
For longer or book-length reports, consider giving the analysis to reporters an additional day or two before the official release date. This gives them additional time to absorb the material and plan the story they will write, without feeling rushed or that other reporters will beat them to the story. Almost every reporter or producer will honor the rules of an embargo and use the additional time to prepare a more in-depth story. If no specific time for the embargo is set, morning newspapers may run a story to appear the morning of your release day, since that day begins after midnight when papers are being published. To avoid this potential problem, it is best to set a time to lift the embargo after morning newspapers are published. One should generally not provide embargoed copies more than two or three days before the release date, as this provides too much temptation for some reporters to leak or use your findings ahead of time.
Press conferences are generally not essential to the successful release of a report. They are labor-intensive. Planners must ensure they have a convenient location to the press, a sufficiently large number of reporters interested in the report, enough advance notice of the press conference, absolute confidence the report will be ready on time and a clear "message" that can be delivered in a brief presentation. Even if all these factors are in place, breaking news or scheduling conflicts can result in light attendance. However, if one is confident of a report's newsworthiness and a high degree of interest from reporters, holding a press conference can increase media attention and broaden coverage. One proven approach for drawing media is to have a high-profile newsmaker or luminary join the press conference and endorse your findings.
Identify a priority list of influential reporters to call for further discussion and explain the report's value. However, one should be careful not to intrude upon a reporter's time. It is likely that previous contact will have established which reporters are interested in the report and wish to pursue it. Some reporters will indicate that they will call back if they wish to pursue. Others will be more amenable to a phone conversation. Repeated callbacks are generally unproductive.
No matter how thorough one's planning, the real world can change the news agenda on the particular day of a release and force interested reporters to set aside your analysis. Often, they will return to the analysis when they have time. A report will often get coverage later or when the issues surrounding it become newsworthy.