Government and Media
Perception and Reality
Conference of the Federal Communicators Network
Thursday, October 26, 2006

BRIEF NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS
John Webster
USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion
 

Karen Hughes -- Keynote Speaker
Under Secretary of State for Diplomacy and Public Affairs
To be an effective communicator one must foster “common interest and common values,” what she calls the “Five Cs.”

1.  Clarity                     Be clear about your priorities
2.  Conviction               Mean what you say.  Link values to your programs
3.  Compassion            Show respect when working in partnership with media
4.  Credibility                For people to believe you, you must be honest.  Don’t “tolerate” but celebrate the richness of diversity
5.  Consistency Similar attributes as 4

The audience suggested that she add two more Cs:
6.  Candor
7.  Clarity

 

Pablo Sanchez
Producer
Univision Television
The government must remember that “reporting the news is NOT a social service.  The news is a business.”

Jill Olmsted
Associate Journalism Director
School of Communications
American University
To get your message out, place it with a beat reporter, not an assignment editor or bureau chief.

You can’t be a media bigot.  Always include the digital media.  One-third of the people get their news from the web.

“Agrigators” are those on the web who take your message and combine it with stories of interest to similar audiences. 

YouTube is 7 times larger than Google Video

70 percent of news reporters go to the blogs for newsleads.

Roxanne Russell
Professor
School of Media and Public Affairs
George Washingtion University

How do you get on a TV network?

  1. Create relationship with beat reporters
  2. Know the difference between “breaking news” and “beat news.”
  3. Slowness in response from government official will work against your story.
  4. You’ve got to develop a trust factor with the media.
  5. Develop B-Roll around your program.  Television needs video to tell your story.

 
Amy Morris
Executive Editor and Programming Director
WFED Radio

To effectively communicate, you’ve got to create “stickiness.”  That is placing your story with newspapers and on podcasts, on-line stories, blogs, etc. These various media formats feed one another.

Richard Wolf
National Correspondent
USA Today

  1. Make certain that your press releases don’t get lost in SPAM filters. 
  2. Media thrives on scoops, originality, uniqueness.  Make certain that one or two media outlets get an exclusive. 
  3. The press does not go to the National Press Club for coverage especially if your story is being covered by the wire services or mass media outlets. 
  4. Pitch ideas ahead of time, two or three weeks out. 
  5. Give the media time to travel and get additional footage to tell the story. 
  6. Use non-traditional media outlets like the Daily Show or the Colbert Report.  One-third of young people get their news from these sources. 
  7. “Threading” --  Young viewers are looking for layers of information from wider world, from multiple media. 
  8. You can sell your story better on the internet than to newspapers and networks. 
  9. To make your story useable, always portray the human factor in the story. 
  10. News Divisions are now in the Programming or Entertainment Divisions.  The government has to be a better story teller. 
  11. First go to the beat reporter, then assignment editor, then the line producers, lastly the senior editors. 
  12. Government public information officers are writing 10 times more than they were in the 1980’s. 
  13. Writing is more risky than ever before, since it now lives electronically and can be recalled in an instant. 
  14. Consider using Mind Mapping software.  Go to www.mindjet.com

New Media Panel
How Blogs, Podcasts and Other Technological Advances Will Change Government Communications

Social Media (Umbrella term which covers the following media and others)

  1. YouTube
  2. MySpace
  3. RSS – Really Simple Syndication (easy to use core technology)
  4. Pod Casts  -- Department of State, White House, NASA, Obama (campaign advertising)
  5. Blogs

President Bush is now using YouTube for Drug Policy messages to reach youth.
 
Second Life – Virtual community Avatar.  Reuters has assigned a reporter to cover Second Life full-time.

Suggests going to:  www.readwriteweb.com
                                    www.techcrunch.com
                                    www.mashable.com

Who’s Video sharing on YouTube.
            Ted Kennedy got 250,000 hits
            National Drug Control Policy
            Firstgov.gov
            Marine Corp on MySpace

Typical Government Excuses for NOT Using Social Media

  1. Web 2.0 is a fad
  2. We lose control of the message.  (According to presenter, the White House webmaster believes that it is better to lose control and get message to target audience than to try to control message and miss the audience)
  3. People will say bad things.  (White House uses it and doesn’t care if they lose control of message. Because once it is on the web, by definition they have lost control.)
  4. Don’t have time to create it.
  5. It is not 508 compliant.
  6. OGC will reject it.       

 
Internet is now the NUMBER 1 news media among young.

  1. Only 1 in 4 people 18 to 34 years old get their news from the network news
  2. “News markets” are now “conversations”

For social commentary, go to: www.digg.com

With increased media outlets and resultant transparency, government can’t spin stories like it once did.

Final presenter comment:  “Light a candle instead of cursing the darkness.”