Page updated:
Wednesday, 12 September 2007

SPECIAL REPORT...

Getting your message across

REPORTING for publication...

The availability of time has become a critical limiting factor in getting a message across. There is a lot of competition for the attention of the public and of institutional decision makers.

Reports from radio journalists can be broadcast soon after material is recorded and edited. Mobile phones makes it possible for journalists to report live-to-air from a scene. Equipment carried by radio journalists consists of a high quality directional microphone (called a 'cardiod' because of the hear-shaped pattern over which it collects sound) and a high quality digital tape or mini-disk recorder or an analogue cassette recorder.

Why seek publicity?

Organisations usually seek publicity to:

• propagate their message
• increase their influence among the public or with entities such as industry and government
• increase public support for the organisation
• establish their credibility among stakeholders and decision-makers
• lobby for change or to oppose something, such as an unwanted development or law
• counter the assertions of opponents
• promote their services or goods
• find new members
• raise funds
• promote an event.

How to talk to journalists

If you are seeking publicity or releasing information for some other purpose, remember that from the time you start talking to a journalists whatever you say is considered to be on the 'public record' and may be published.

You should always consider that whatever you say may appear in the media. There are exceptions.

Four ways to disclose information

There are four ways in which information can be passed to journalists:

1. For publication: anything said may be published; assume this is the case when talking to journalists.
2. Not for attribution: the information can be used but the source is not disclosed; the information may appear in print as ' a source who wishes to remain anonymous said... ' or 'a source close to the minister said...''; leaks - 'official' and otherwise - fall into this category as does information of a critical or damaging nature provided by 'unhappy' people who have been wronged by an organisation or individual. 'Whistleblowers' - people who want to ananomously or openly provide information about government or corporate misdoing or bad behavoiur to the media may choose this route.
3. Not for publication: information provided in confidence or as background and that is not published. It may be provided so that a journalist has a better understanding of an issue. Organisations may offer selected journalists background briefings to improve their understanding.
4. Leaks: A leak is the release of unauthorised information to the media. Leaks are made by public-spirited employees or others - sometimes at risk to themselves were they to be discovered - who wish to disclose misdoing or questionable practice within a government or organisation. A leak may come unofficially from an official source, such as a member of government. Sometimes, information is leaked by official sources to test reaction to something to assess whether it would be acceptable to the public.

The leaking to CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System in the US) and New Yorker magazine of digital photographs of US prison guards torturing Iraqi prisoners in May 2004 is an example of military personnel, unhappy with the practice, taking action to stop it by disclosing it to the public. CBS held copies of the images and did not publish them until other media organisations obtained copies. Competitive pressure then forced their publication to the great embaressment of the US military and government, whose esteem quickly fell through the Middle East and around the world. Something similar happened with digital images taken by US military personnel of the coffins of US soldiers being loaded onto a transport aircraft.

If you are providing information in classification 2. or 3. above, make it clear to the journalist. Usually, information of this type will only be provided to journalists who are known to the source. There is no legal obligation for a journalist not to publish information in any of these categories, no guarantee apart from any agreement reached with the journalist that information will not be published. Such arrangements are informal.

If you write solely for community-based or small business organisations it is unlikely you will have to deal with information in some of the above categories.

Define your readership

Before you start writing you should know for whom you are writing - is it members of your community association, a special interest group, a professional group, other businesses, clients or potential clients or some other readership?

Once you have defined your audience - who your article, images, website or text is aimed at - you will then have an idea of:

• the range of subject matter that is appropriate
• how to best present your information (journalistic articles, brief notes, brochures, information in tables or matrices, photographically, drawings, illustrations, animations, long literary articles etc)
• the complexity of language that is appropriate (technical terms and acronyms must be understandable to your preferred audience - they may be meaningless to other readers).

Define your media and go for quality

For organisations, defining the media they want to publish in is best done in the process of creating a media strategy - a document that identifies the audiences you want to address, what you want to say and other factors that will guide your media work.

The Worldwide Web has made it possible for a greater number of individuals to be publishers. The material they produce ranges from authoritative to pap. Aim to produce quality, authoritative, verifiable material or readers/ viewers will stop using your media product and your credibility will crash. This is the problem with blogs (an abbreviation for 'weblogs', a online media that takes the form of sequential log entries around some subject, similar to a diary or daybook). Just how accurate and reliable is the information they offer? Blogs are a newer type of media presently establishing a niche for themselves, however normal journalistic processes, such as the checking of facts, may be absent (there are exceptions). The credibility of blogs is a talking point among journalists and media analysts.

Selecting the appropriate media

Electronic and online media:

• websites - these are important to organisations because they make information easy to find and the Web is often the first place people look for information; for a small business, NGO (non-government organisation) or community association, a website can save time on the telephone and reduce the expense of providing printed material by putting up frequently-sought information and answering commonly-asked questions - some websites have a 'FAQ' ('frequently asked questions') section for such information; when planning a website, ask: "Who is the audience?" and "What sort of information will they want?", then provide it
• newsletters - a newsletter is - (a) a modest publication providing information in short articles; (b) a more substantial publication aimed at specific readerships, such as those in a particular industry; newsletters provide information in both short and longer form; they can be produced in print form and can also be placed online; they may be distributed as email, HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language, in which web pages are formatted) or as PDF (Portable Document Format) files for printing
• email - the provision of short pieces of information to a distribution list of recipients; for more substantial information, the email may contain a paragraph about the material below a heading that is a live link to more extentive information on a website
• online groups - service providers like Yahoo offer the means of setting up online groups such as 'Yahoo groups'; the usually-free service consists of online space for group discussion and file storage; check whether the providers use personal email addresses to advertisers and check their privacy policies (the use of such information in Australia is governed by the federal Privacy Act)
• eZines - essentially the online equivalent of print magazines, these may be housed on a website and notification of new editions distributed via email; they may be formatted in HTML or as downloadable PDF files (PDF retains page layout and fonts)
• weblogs - also known as 'blogs', weblogs make use of free or commercial software to post information to a dedicated weblog site or to an individual's own website; they are frequently used to provide semi-continuous commentary that reads like a diary or log; they may be used to post information about particular fields of activity that have to be updated frequently; weblogs are useful to individuals or organisations that need to make frequent reports; they have been used by journalists, such as during the war in Iraq in 2003, to place frequent, short reports online directly from the field, and are offered by a number of newspaper websites.

Technical options

Developing and maintaining a website no longer requires a knowledge of HTML code, although is can be useful.

Options for establishing and maintaining a website include:

• designing and maintaining your own site; the availability of software such as Adobe GoLive and Macromedia Dreamweaver offer professional-level tools, though they take time to learn; less-costly software is available but lacks some of the capabilities of the high-end software
• paying a website designer to set up, update and maintain your site
• paying for access to a Content Management System (CMS) that provides templates for you to put up and to maintain your own content; this is probably the easiest option for business.

If your organisation subscribes to a CMS service it is useful to have a single person with overall responsibility for the website. Someone with writing skills can edit and reformat content produced by others and avoid the turgid, dense and too-long blocks of text that those with little writing ability produce. They can also optimise photographs and graphics for fast download. This will improve the useability (the ability of users to navigate and find informatrion) of your website.

The printed word:

• magazines and journals - print products are expensive and time consuming to produce, publish and distribute, however they are the most 'user friendly' of media, being portable, requiring no equipment to read (perhaps a pair of glasses in some cases) and no batteries to operate; they contain longer articles, authoritative writing where credibility is important (ideally), illustrations and photographs; they require desktop publishing software and the ability to use it proficiently or, alternatively, funds to outsource layout services
• fact sheets - A4 or similar-size pages, single or double-sided, containing succinct information about a single topic
• brochures - commonly, A4-size, three-fold pages printed on both sides; they may be one colour for cheap photocopying, one colour in addition to the colour of the text (spot colour) or full colour; the illusion of more than one colour is created when single colour or spot colour is printed on coloured paper; brochures should not be crammed with words - their purpose is not to explain all but to introduce something or supplement information provided by other means; good graphic design is critical to attracting people to your brochure
• press releases - used to make the media aware of some topic (see section on writing press releases).

Personal delivery:

• presentations - the personal delivery of information to an audlence in real time; usually a feature of conferences and seminars; visual aids might include A0 or A1-size flipcharts with illustrations such as graphs and text; photographic slides, short video segments and computer graphics such as those produced on Microsoft Powerpoint; information must be succinct
• displays - usually found at conferences and expos and consisting of a table on which publications and other products are displayed; video can be played or a laptop computer used to present a slideshow or Powerpoint presentation on continuous repeat (attach the laptop firmly to the table); a display board can be used to illustrate organisational activities via photographs, text and diagrams; the person minding the display provides further information, detail and brochures to enquirers.

PowerPoint presentations

PowerPoint presentations are overused and overdone and are often boring lists of bulleted (dot) points tthe audience has to sit through. This is largely because of the communication incompetence of presenters who cram too many words onto a Powerpoint slide and who fail to understand that the words are supposed to be merely prompts, not short stories. Powerpoint can also be used to present photographs, much like a slide show.

Here are a few points to remember in producing your PowerPoint presentation:

• the PowerPoint images are not the presentation; they are a back-up to the presenter; the presenter, the person, not the PowerPoint images should provide the bulk of the information; training in public speaking is helpful for anyone who regualrly presents information to a live audience; it is available from professional training organisations or through the Toastmasters organisation
• use as few words as possible on a PowerPoint image, perhaps as few as 16; the audience will be reluctant to read slabs of text or complex charts, tables or diagrams projected on a screen - if any of it is really pertinent to the presentation, the presenter should present it verbally with only keypoints and keywords projected on the screen; if you want to provide detailed information, photocopy a fact sheet to give to the audience - the advantage of this is the audience will take something away to remind them of your presentation; your contact details on the handout makes it possible for them to follow-up
• avoid the sound effects, clip art, moving text and the other silly gizmos that come with the software; while there can be instances where they can be used in excessive moderation, their misuse detracts from the 'professionalism' of the presenter and the credibility of what is being presented; the point is to use the PowerPoint image to convey the main points about core information - special effects distract an audience; leave special effects to children
• avoid complex graphs and charts; keep them simple - too many colours, too much graphic bravado simply creates illegible, confusing diagrams; the point is to convey important information, not create a work of dubious art
• use moderation and simplicity to create understated but authoratative and uncluttered PowerPoint images that create the impression of credibility and authority for the presenter and their message -
  • use a single colour for text
  • use another colour for graphic elements
  • use a limited number of font sizes - three at most - one for body text, one for headings, another for subheadings
  • use no more than two fonts - one for body text, one for headings
  • do not cram the image with text or graphic content - leave plenty of 'white space' to make it more readable.

PowerPoint presentations can be done creatively, without gimmickry or other distractions and without appearing as an image crammed with a list of bulleted points.

Unless the PowerPoint presentation is a photographic slide show in which the image is the subject, images in a are pointers to what the presenter talks about and keyworks or brief statements summarise the presenter's points without providing detail - that is the job of the presenter.

In a presentation, the ability of the presenter to engage the audience remains the critical factor.

Present your message clearly and succinctly

The things that limit a reader's willingness or capacity to read material - their time availability and competition for their attention - makes it important that, when we are asked to prepare an article for a small business, NGO or community-based newsletter, magazine or website, our writing should be:

• precise - stay focused on the theme of our article
• concise - be as brief as possible but provide all relevant (but not irrelavent - it is not an exposition of all available knowledge) facts and argument
• adequate - provide enough information for an understanding of the subject
• accurate - present information that we know, as far as possible, is true and factual; report the opinions of others honestly and identify what is fact, what is opinion and what is hearsay.

It is not possible to put everything you would like to say into an article. The information you present must be focused.

The quality of writing retains or loses readers

Clear, concise writing attracts and keeps readers. People today seldom have either the time or inclination to persist in reading convoluted or flat, boring writing.

The structure of an article helps attract and retain readers. Contrast a story with long paragraphs written in a round-about, convoluted style with one written in easy-to-understand language, short sentences, short paragraphs and subheadings to help readers find information. Not only is the latter easier to read, its visual appearance on the page makes it look less formidable than the former's long blocks of dense, black text. Online writing necessitates plentiful heads and subheadings so readers can easily navigate the pages in search of particular information.

Graphic designers know about the importance of presenting information clearly so it is easy to access. This is referred to as the 'useability' of a publication or website - how easy it is for the reader or viewer to use it and to search for information. The use of 'white space' on a page, headings and subheadings and a font that is easy to read are just a few things a graphic designer will be able to advise on.

A knowledge of the principles of laying out information on a page will prove useful to producers of community newsletters, journals, magazines and small business material. So too will a working knowledge of website useability principles and the practices of producing readable online copy be to people who produce content for websites.