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Effective media outreach is essential to raising the visibility of the campaign on campus and in the community. To get you started we recommend the following three-step approach. We have also provided some practical suggestions and hints to help guide your outreach with the media. Keep in the mind that your goal when communicating with the media is to consistently promote the campaign’s key messages.
STEP ONE: DEVELOP A MEDIA LIST
First, contact your school’s public affairs office to see if they have a media list to share. If this is not available to you, take the following steps to develop an effective media list:
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Learning From the Left, Right and Center in Florida
Florida Campus Compact along with National Campus Compact and Miami-Dade Community College will co-host the 2nd COOL Student Summit: Learning the Lessons from Social Movements as part of Raise Your Voice—A Week of Action. The Summit will focus on how young people have worked for positive social change throughout history. Workshops will focus on: The Civil Rights, Women’s, Environmental, Student Service and Service-Learning Movement and Immigrants’ Rights movements, as well as U.S. Political Movements. For more information on how to bring speakers and trainers to your campus click here.
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1) Identify relevant media outlets and reporters who cover education, metro/city news and community events. You can use the Yellow Pages at www.yellowpages.com to locate contact information for local news media outlets. State newspaper and journalism organizations are also good outlets from which to obtain free or low-cost media directories.
Additional resources that can help you identify media outlets include the following. These resources are, unfortunately, not free. However, they can sometimes be accessed through local libraries and university offices.
• Bacon’s Media Lists: A database of 60,000 media outlets and nearly 400,000 editorial contacts at magazines, newspapers, broadcasters, and wire services. The lists are based on a daily-updated computer file and are available in the form of custom-selected lists on labels, diskette or e-mail. www.bacons.com
• All-in-One Directory: A compact directory of 23,000 listings for daily and weekly papers; radio and television, business and trade magazines; etc. www.gebbieinc.com/aio.htm
• Burrelle’s Media Directories: Directories include more than 30,000 United States contacts arranged by daily and non-daily newspapers; news services and feature syndicates; magazines and newsletters; radio and television stations; and local cable systems. www.burrelles.com
• CorporateNews.com: A Web-based directory of 30,000 on-line and off-line media outlets from daily papers to e-zines. Listings are regularly updated and include e-mail addresses. www.corporatenews.com
(For a listing of more Publicity Media Directories, including some state-specific ones, click here.)
2) Call each news organization – or visit its Web site – to confirm or add names of journalists who cover education and community issues.
3) Organize contact information for each reporter in an Excel database, including the reporter’s name, title, address, phone number, e-mail address, fax number and deadlines. This will allow you to reach appropriate contacts in a timely manner.
4) Update your list on a regular basis to ensure the information for each contact is correct. As you develop your list, note how each journalist prefers to be contacted (i.e., e-mail, telephone or fax).
Once you have developed a list of contacts, follow the stories they write closely. Observe their point of view and biases. This will make it easier when it comes time to promote your story to them, as you will be familiar with their style and their body of work. Be sure to pay close attention to journalists who consistently write on youth activism and consumer issues.
Don’t Forget the Wires!
Be sure that your media list includes contacts for the state and local wire services. Wire services provide media content to a large number of print, broadcast and online outlets. By placing one story with a wire service, you can reach people across the state or even the country. The following will help you identify contacts at the major wire services:
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