Hungry for media attention: making your agency's message public takes creativity and control.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MoDNR) never thought that sending out a routine press release on a simple community program would get them featured on the local news. But their promotion of gun safety by giving away gun locks landed them a prime spot with the nightly news on Springfield, Mo's KY-3 TV.

At first glance, this press release was on the low to average end of newsworthiness. However, in the previous year the viewing area had seen three separate incidents involving a child accidentally killed by another child who discharged a firearm. Because the child deaths occurred due to improperly stored firearms, the newsworthiness of the press release increased dramatically.

In this case, the MoDNR program had a significant connection to the viewing area. Coverage of the program was not just a video clip of park rangers handing out gun locks but an illustration of the critical role park and recreation agencies play in communities.

This is just one example of how a news release turned into valuable coverage of a park program. Being able to pitch a story to news media takes only a little patience and appropriate execution.

The Media

Although the park and recreation profession recognizes the benefits of public park and recreation services, recreation professionals must realize that sometimes the media doesn't understand. Unfortunately, park and recreation professionals often do not effectively interact with local media to successfully gain positive publicity for their agencies' image, programs and special events.

The first step in securing positive media coverage for an agency is to establish relationships with media personnel. Taking time to invest in these relationships is critical to the success of any publicity plan. This can provide free coverage for programs and events, opportunities to communicate and document the benefits of parks and recreation to the public and to other stakeholders, fair and unbiased coverage during crises (such as recreation-related injuries and deaths), and access to residents who do not currently use your agency's services.

It is important not to hound employees for free coverage when establishing and maintaining relationships with media personnel. It is even more important to visibly show your appreciation for any coverage that you do receive. When requesting free media coverage, be selective. Don't call or send releases on every event. In addition, park and recreation professionals should follow up the submission of a high-quality press release with a phone call to the assignment editor to confirm that the press release was received, and to demonstrate a willingness to provide whatever other information or details that the assignment editor may need.

Clatsop County Parks in Oregon recently had its revised master plan featured as the top story on the front page of The Daily Astorian in Astoria, Ore. Park representative Steve Meshke says getting media coverage just takes persistence. "In addition to our master plan, we recently were given a number of grants. As projects like that progress, we tend to keep the media informed and often they'll follow the story," he says.

Being media savvy means remaining confident, conversational and welcoming when approached by media organizations, regardless of the circumstances. Park and recreation representatives should take advantage of opportunities to introduce themselves at public events. If a park and recreation agency puts a staff member who speaks well on camera, a news station will be more likely to run that clip. When addressing the media, it is important to avoid using generic answers, which could result in a lost chance to receive media coverage.

Remember that first impressions are critical and mending fences is very difficult in the fast-moving world of media. When you call to establish a relationship with a news organization, you are requesting coverage. Any advocate within a news organization can be used to the advantage of a park and recreation agency. In effect, the more media savvy a representative from a park organization can be when interacting with news professionals, the more likely an assignment editor or reporter will go to bat for your agency when the news team is deciding which stories to cover each day.

The ideal situation for media coverage is to achieve a news story "package," where a reporter shows up on the scene for a story, rather than doing a voiceover to video. If a reporter comes to an event hosted by your agency, your event will most likely gain more in-depth coverage and the story will more than likely be placed higher in the newscast. Once a reporting team covers an event or program, the producers make a decision to edit the story and where to place it during a newscast.

Market size is a huge factor concerning your organization's chances of being covered by the local media. Market size is the number of viewing households within a television station's viewing area. Market size affects whether or not your agency gains media coverage through press releases, because larger markets (such as New York, N.Y.) have a larger volume of organizations competing for coverage.

On the flip side, requesting media coverage in small markets (with populations up to 250,000) will enjoy more success with gaining free media coverage. In fact, many of the park and recreation stories covered in small markets (e.g., the county fair, giveaways and children) would likely not be covered in larger markets.

Taking Action

Before a park and recreation professional can gain positive media coverage for their agency, they need to understand how to write newsworthy press releases and how the news coverage process functions on the floor of the newsroom.

Press releases are written notices for free coverage that detail the agency requesting coverage, the program or event to be covered, as well as the date and time of the event, contact information, and most importantly, why the event should be covered. On an average day, news organizations can receive hundreds of press releases from public and non-profit organizations wanting free media coverage for their events.

Most of the time, press releases do not get coverage because they are either not newsworthy, not timely (i.e., too early or too late) or it is a busy news days and there are too many newsworthy press releases to be covered. The quickest way for your press release to get sent to the trash is to submit generic events which are not newsworthy. This means many park and recreation events will not be covered.

Nancy Mace Jackson, a public relations consultant with the Arketi Group in Atlanta, Ga., says that press releases need to have a clear message. "In terms of how you express information to media, a press release is very good to send out focused information. The news release needs to be very focused, concise, and attention-grabbing," she says. "You need to make sure that you're not repeating news that's already been reported. Only up-to-date information is relevant."

Determining Newsworthiness

Newsworthiness is the most essential factor in whether or not a story gets covered. The following factors increase the newsworthiness of a press release: 1) the number of people it will affect, 2) the news outlet's values (i.e., civic engagement, volunteerism), 3) uniqueness of event, 4) importance of the event, and 5) urgency. Although the event may be newsworthy to you and your agency, it is often simply not newsworthy to the broader viewing audience.

For example, a children's program, parade or fair may seem run-of-the-mill to media professionals. The key to writing a newsworthy press release is to articulate the significance or social relevance of the program or event. Only a lucky few releases that are deemed newsworthy will make it into the approximately fifteen minutes of air time that exists for local news stories on news broadcasts or in the limited space allotted to local news in the area newspaper.

"The number one thing we look for is contact information because we check sources, then a newsworthy reason to run it. If you're sending it to a newspaper, sending it a week prior to the event is good. You have to schedule pretty well ahead. It depends on the publication and you need to plan for the publication you're targeting it to," explains Daniel Goldberg, a health reporter for the Statesville Record & Landmark in Statesville, N.C.

The decision to send a reporting team to your program or event is a decision made by producers and assignment editors with the advice of the reporters. To determine newsworthiness, assignment editors sort through all of the submitted press releases for the day and set up a rundown every morning of stories they think could or should be covered. After sorting through potentially hundreds of press releases, the assignment editor may bring ten press releases into the daffy morning news team meeting for the news team to discuss each potential story and why it does or does not deserve coverage for the day. Only a handful will make it to the public.

Whether or not you submit a press release on a slow or fast news day is a critical factor that determines coverage of your event. The slower the news day, the better chance you have at getting your event covered. Slow news days often occur on the weekends when news stations will more likely be looking for stories to cover. Many of the larger markets will send a photographer out to smaller park and recreation programs and events to cover them as a voice over/sound on tape, meaning that a reporter does not accompany the photographer to the scene.

This kind of park and recreation coverage goes in either the "B" block (the second, less significant half of the program) or as the "kicker." The "kicker" is at the end of the news and it is usually a positive uplifting story to leave the viewers with a smile on their face.

Conclusion

Park and recreation organizations have a need to get their news out to encourage use of their facilities, but often the message is lost before it ever leaves the desk of a park professional. Press releases are a great way to get the word out. Finding a newsworthy hook and maintaining a working relationship with local media will get your agency the press coverage it needs.

Crisis Management

The last strategy to secure unbiased media coverage for your agency is to handle crisis situations in a professional manner that effectively uses the positive relationships that park and recreation professionals have already established with media personnel. The defining moment in a relationship between an agency and the media is in time of crisis.

How an agency's staff and volunteers react when the media shows up with their cameras after a drowning at your swimming pool or after lighting has struck a child on a soccer field is a true test of relationships with the media. Remember the type of stories that make the prime "A" block during newscasts are murders, deaths, negativity and politics. Thus, if a major accident or death has taken place at one of the park and recreation facilities or programs then the news station has a newsworthy story. Negative news sells to viewers and increases ratings, so news agencies will be on the scene.

The key for park and recreation professionals is to treat the news crew with respect and realize that they have a right to be on the scene, a need to do their jobs, and that the public has a right to know what has happened or is happening. Park and recreation administrators should be prepared to handle the media during times of crises. Directors of agencies should have established written media relations policies for staff, volunteers and board members. More importantly, staff, volunteers and board members should be trained on the agency's policies and understand how to respond when the media shows up on the scene during an incident, accident or death.

Instead of training staff and volunteers to avoid the media or say "no comment," park and recreation professionals should train their staff to direct media personnel to an established media contact that can officially speak for the agency. Be aware that anything a staff member, volunteer or board member says on camera can be subpoenaed and used in a court of law.

Your agency's goal should be for all of your staff and volunteers to follow the protocol of your agency, but to maintain a good relationship with the media. Shutting the media out may prevent the kind of positive coverage an agency needs in the future. Park and recreation professionals should understand that how they treat media personnel during a crisis could affect future coverage.

Nathan A. Schaumleffel, Ph.D., CPRP, and Tim Tialdo