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Traditionally CiB has concentrated on internal communications, but members are likely to combine the roles of internal and external communicator. Caroline Ling has put together her top ten tips for survival. 1. When responding to a journalist’s query, no matter how much of a rush they are in, give yourself five minutes to make a note of his/her key points and what you need to address in your answer. Then draft a short response from that. 2. Weekly and daily newspapers, specialist magazines, radio and television all have different deadlines, so bear this in mind when sending out news releases or making a big announcement. 3. Never lie to a journalist. You will be found out. This doesn’t mean that you can’t put a positive angle on a bad story. Also, check with the journalist what information he already has, so you don’t accidentally give him previously unknown damaging information. 4. Accept that occasionally you will be misquoted, or selectively quoted, in print. Minimise the potential damage by keeping a record of what you said so you have a defence with your boss. You’ll rarely get a retraction from a paper unless they’ve said something that could be libellous. 5. Communicate your external media work internally. Send a daily log of the media calls you’ve dealt with, news releases sent out, interviews held etc, to senior managers and key staff. 6. Make sure there is always someone qualified available to speak to the media – if you’re out to lunch and they want a quote, you’ll be in print or on air as ‘unavailable’ or ‘refused to comment,’ missing your opportunity to reply. Get a mobile and a pager. 7. Check that it’s relevant for you to give a comment to the media if they ask – are there legal constraints? Are police or fire involved? Is the story relevant to your organisation or is the journalist just being lazy and calling the first person he can think of? But never say ‘no comment’ - explain the reason why you can’t reply. 8. Anyone doing radio or TV interviews should be properly trained. There is a skill to doing both live and pre-recorded interviews. This also goes for sending out news releases, they are written and laid out in a particular way. 9. Make sure everyone in your organisation understands who the external communication team is and what it does, so they can come to you with positive stories and alert you to negative stories. Send out cards with your contact numbers to key staff. Send the cards to media as well. 10. If your organisation is doing something wrong, and the media finds out, even the best spin won’t make it better. You need to get the practice changed so it can’t happen again. Also, if you’re dealing with a reporter’s query and your company is in the wrong, apologise, and say what you’ll do to put it right. It works! Caroline Ling is a qualified journalist, who worked on weekly and daily newspapers for nine years before making the move into public relations in 1994. She worked for West Midlands Police as a press officer and then for Midlands Electricity as the head of communications, dealing with internal and external communications, including media queries, radio and TV interviews and crisis management. She now runs her own PR consultancy and media skills training business. |
