IS THE MEDIA YOUR ENEMY? THEN YOU NEED TO KEEP IT CLOSE

I roll my eyes every time someone says he or his company avoids the media.

In their mind the media is good for nothing except misrepresenting, misquoting and generally making a bad situation worse. Their response to this reality --- their reality, is to avoid the media like the plague.

They have worked themselves up to perceive the media as their enemy. If that is true -- to them, then wouldn't it be wiser to follow the old say that counsels, "Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer"?

The best way to overcome fear of anything is to gain more knowledge about it. Where there is ignorance there is fear. If you think about if you know something intimately you cant fear it. You may not like it but you wouldn't fear it.

What baffles people about the media is that they don't understand what makes them tick. If they knew that, their perception of the media would change immeasurably.

So here goes.

The media is driven by two things ---deadlines and the news worthiness of a subject or event. That is simplifying it to its barest essentials.



THE DEADLINE


Every media house has a deadline. there are series of deadlines through the news cycle -- assigning deadlines, editing deadlines, printing deadlines. All these build up to the final deadline which is in the case of the print media, when the publication hits the street; in the case of broadcast media when the news item goes on air and in more recently in the digital media when it is put out on the internet.

In a media house or operation worth its salt this final deadline is what rules their lives. in the print media getting to market after the competition can cost thousands of copies in lost sales. In the broadcast media gaining a reputation as the one with the news everyone wants to hear at the top of the hour will mean the difference between listeners turning the dial to your station or in the case of TV reaching for the remote to switch to your channel.

Media make their money by being able to attract audiences. no audiences no money and vice versa.

So if one wants to leverage the media to deliver their message they need to pay attention to deadlines, which are as diverse as the media you are dealing with.

If you are dealing with the daily papers who have to be around the country by the crack of dawn the next day, it does not help you to have a news event after 3 pm if you want the news to run he next day.

The kind of events that take place in the late afternoon and make the papers the next day are often earth shattering or even better will add extra copies to sales.



NEWS WORTHINESS


In journalism school they tell you that newsworthiness of an event will depend on several things including impact, relevance, proximity, prominence, conflict, timeliness to which you can also add drama and the unusual.

But before the media house reaches for those lofty heights, what determines what is news or not depends on three fundamentals;

1.  The media house's ownership

In the old days rich men owned newspapers as a tool of influence, to promote their own agendas, newspapers would often taken on their owner's character and mirror his biases. So in western economies you will find papers that support the monied classes or labour. Little has changed today.

So it makes little sense to have a news event or item you need pushed that is contrary to owners' world view. If for instance you have a capitalist news event it would be a waste of your time trying to pitch to the labour-leaning press and vice versa.

2.  The target market

The media are a business and as such have identified a target market to which they will target their news.

So if you are launching a sugar loaded soft drink it would be shooting yourself in the foot trying to slide it into a pro-health publication or media house. Or if you are launching a meat product trying to get it into a vegetarian biased publication.


3.  The editorial tradition.

Often unwritten rules but such things as endevouring to be as accurate as person, to give people the right of reply, to desist or insist on the sensational angle.

In inviting the sensational press for your press conference on company results, you should not be surprised if they make a mountain over a mole hill just to maintain their sensational reputation.

The point is the media is not as opaque as many people think, even communication officers who should know better.

If you understand your intended media target's deadline priorities and how it determines what is news it will make if so much easier to leverage the media for your needs , rather than fill you with pissing-in-your-pants dread.