EE and The Media Gazette,

Organizing the Ideal Media Committee

  In this section...

  You will learn how to create a media committee, who coordinates it, who speaks for it and how to keep it together.

• The Media Committee
• Media Committee Coordinator
• Recruiting and Keeping Committee Members
• The Committee in Action

Why Organize?

In order to optimize success during an environmental education (EE) media campaign or public awareness drive, the EE campaigners should consider organizing key supporters into an effective, structured and goal-oriented media committee.  Within an existing or newly formed campaign group, the media committee's role would be to generate, design, manage and implement media efforts and outreach strategies.

 

The Media Committee

A media committee's role and its make-up would be established initially by its function   (its purpose) and secondarily by specific tasks to be performed either by a committee individual or an assigned committee "task group".  Successful media committees often include a chairperson, an individual assigned to handle print media, an individual to work on broadcast media, a member responsible for writing tasks and a member to train the spokespeople.  All cooperative efforts are to accomplish the goals as detailed in the committee's media action plan /timeline.

 

There are many essential tasks - such as developing a Public Service Announcement program or monitoring radio, television and newspaper coverage of the environmental education issue - that must be accomplished to get your group’s messages out in a timely and appropriate way.  The work requires project "task groups" composed of volunteers.  Each task group has a specific role and assignment, and is headed by a member of the committee who has specific expertise in the task being undertaken. 

 

The size of the task group would depend on the project being executed.  If there is only one radio station and one weekly paper in a given media market a small task group (or subcommittee) of only one or two individuals may be sufficient.  If the media committee functions on a statewide level or a specific campaign grows, the group size may include many people working within a given media market, or consist of many groups (or subcommittees) spread across a region and engaged in similar tasks.  For instance, instead of a single press secretary for the statewide environmental education media outreach effort, a more ideal arrangement would be to have many individuals or subcommittees working with the press in each media market.  In this instance, a statewide media committee would be an optimal way for coordinating and facilitating local press activities.

 

Media Committee Coordinator

A media committee should have a designated coordinator or chairperson to oversee the committee, any task group’s media work and serve as the official liaison between the media committee and the rest of the organization.  The coordinator must work with the organization's other leaders, especially those managing the research, membership recruitment, fundraising and program activities.  Close coordination coupled with fast, clear and frequent communication among the media committee members and the EE organization leadership will help ensure that the media effort is in alignment with the overall organization or campaign.  The coordinator's tasks can be many and varied - from press contact (press secretary) to volunteer coordinator. As new volunteers join, they must orient, train, supervise and assign them jobs according to the committee's need and their skills.  The coordinator should also maintain the committee's files of lists, records and materials of media resources.  Essentially, when there is a task to be performed, the coordinator must see that it gets done.  As described below, the prime directive for a media coordinator is to delegate and then make sure that the task or function that was delegated actually gets done correctly and on time.

Recruiting and Keeping Committee Members

Donald Ross, the former director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, once suggested that there are three key things to do when one is organizing: delegate, delegate and delegate.  With that in mind, it is important to recruit interested and dedicated people with the “right” expertise for the media committee.  Within your community, region or state, it is likely that people with valuable skills can be found and solicited to join the committee or contribute to its work.  Such experts may include former or current journalists, local high school or community college debate coaches, university communications professors, advertising executives, public relations consultants, freelance writers, local radio talk show hosts or producers, and others with journalism, media, campaign or grassroots organizing experience. 

 

When inviting people with these types of skills to join the committee, provide as much structure and leadership as possible.  The more specific you can be with requests for their involvement, the greater the likelihood that they will agree to volunteer.  Use of creative “teambuilding” activities will help build a sense of group commitment and engagement, so, when appropriate, mix in fun and socializing (e.g., provide refreshments) at committee meetings.  Most importantly, always thank people for their contribution.  Discover how your committee members like to be thanked and/or rewarded and act on that information.

The Committee in Action

Gaining positive news and editorial coverage is  the most important type of “free" (as opposed to paid advertising) media that a volunteer committee can regularly garner.  It requires timing, respect and a reputation for reliability and credibility over time.  In some media committees, the contact who works directly with reporters and other journalists is ideally  not  the official spokesperson, but rather a “press contact” or press secretary appointed as the go-between for the group’s experts and leaders.  It has been shown to be an efficient practice to have the person who is listed as the contact on press releases and advisories be an individual other than the spokesperson who is quoted in the release or mentioned in the advisory.  Also this approach not only allows for informal relations to be established between the press secretary and individual reporters, but the press will perceive the group as being more than a “one person  band”.

 

Authorized spokespersons that talk to the press must be made aware of what to say, when to say it and to whom to speak.  To handle a flood of press attention the press secretary should write out a clear message or outline “talking points” and give a copy to each spokesperson so that the message is consistent and the spokesperson stays on point.  (Talking points are simple, concise sentences, easily remembered, that capture your important message points.   

         

The press secretary should help shape the public image of the group as determined by the media committee and the group’s leadership.  It is this person’s job to promote the group, its goals and its spokespeople, thereby increasing the organization’s visibility among the public and EE policy decision-makers.  When working with the media committee the press secretary should set up interviews (with experts and leaders), the occasional news conferences and other media events.  They should write press releases and promote stories through "informal" conversations with journalists.  One of the most important aspects of the job is keeping reporters, editors, talk show hosts, producers and other journalists educated about and interested in the EE issue by maintaining relationships via informal roundtable discussions, breakfast or lunch briefings, letters, regular chats, drinks and meals together.

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