Media Advocacy: Creating News Stories the Media Wants
Learn how to create news stories, releases, and notices that will have maximum media appeal, together with strategies for gaining media publication or broadcast.
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WHAT IS A NEWS STORY?
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WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF USING TV, NEWSPAPER, AND RADIO STORIES?
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PROVIDING NEWSWORTHY STORIES
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HOW DO I PRESENT MY STORY IDEA?
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CHOOSING GOOD MEDIA OPPORTUNITIES
How many times have you heard a radio or TV reporter say something like “Next, we hear about a woman who started her own business while she was homeless”? How about a newspaper headline on the order of “Teens Take on Trash and Win?” The chances are you said to yourself, “That might be interesting,” and stayed tuned in or continued reading. Those stories might have come not from a reporter’s digging, but from an organization or initiative like yours.
Organizations involved in advocacy, whether that’s their primary purpose or simply a way of gaining support for the work they do, often pitch stories to the media. Placing news stories can be the cheapest and most effective means of getting your message to the public, and, through them, to policy makers and funders. This section provides some guidelines both for recognizing or creating news stories related to your work that appeal to the media and the public, and for persuading the media to publish or broadcast those stories.
WHAT IS A NEWS STORY?
A news story is a written or recorded (or, occasionally, live) article or interview that informs the public about current events, concerns, or ideas.You don't usually write the story – though sometimes local media will use exactly what words you give them – but you provide story ideas to journalists who then flesh out your idea to create the story as it appears.
A news story can be:
- Long or short, depending on its newsworthiness (we’ll discuss this more later) or interest to people who watch TV, listen to the radio, or read the paper.
- Written, recorded, live, or taped, depending on the medium you use and the timeliness of the story
- Hard - full of important facts and news items, or soft - focusing on the personal, more human side of a news event or situation. An example of a hard news story is an article on the alarming rise of HIV cases in heterosexual women. A soft news, or feature, article would be a story about a man in a wheelchair overcoming architectural barriers in town as he moves through his day.
More.
Access Checklist, Examples & PowerPoint.