SEMINARS Passia Seminar 1999 Media and Communication Skills

 

 

 

The Communication Process –

 

Tudor Lomas[1]

 

 

 

When dealing with the media one should have or develop some sense of ‘media market’ as thinking of the media as a market can be quite helpful. There are organizations that want information and dozens of others that are producing news and information, so there is a certain market mecha­nism that has to be understood. Carrying our adequate research and de­veloping a comprehensive understanding of the market are but two ways of ensuring success when dealing with the media.

 

A few years ago I was doing a report for the BBC in Eritrea on the occasion of the 25^th anniversary of the longest war in Africa. Talking to the people who were deeply involved in the struggle, I was often asked “How can we get the rest of the world to understand our case?” and I tried to explain that once I had returned home and presented my 20-minute report on one of the BBC World Service Programs, I would be bothered with other things, such as how to cut my lawn, pay the electricity bill, decide upon schools for my children, and other everyday matters. In England, people do not even know where Eritrea is; they may have heard the word once or twice, but to get a message across one has to know how to communicate with the add­ressees, i.e., by using terms and words that they understand.

 

 

The Newsroom

 

In any newsroom, the task is essentially the same: to find out what is hap­pening, to understand it, and to 'process' the information into a form that is suitable/interesting/entertaining for the audience/readership. A newsroom is essentially a place where information and sources of information are coming in and need to be processed into a radio program or a newspaper. During this processing, honesty, credibility, and accurateness are essential. A good journalist must try to find out and understand what is going on and then explain it to the people in a way that makes them take notice, so that the story has an impact. A ‘proper’ news organization should be like a lens, focusing the information so that the people will see an accurate, objective version of what is happening and making sure that news items do not get distorted, damaged or ignored in this processing. All the different sources of information and news come in from the organization’s own reporters, other news organizations, or other media; a good first step is often to look through the papers, not for the obvious stories but for ideas, potential sto­ries or ways a story could be taken on. A few years ago, for example, I was involved in a campaign to keep the small school my children attended open; it was due to be closed down because only big schools were wanted. I noticed that at the Conservative Party’s Annual Conference a statement about small schools had been made, and I knew that the weekly Times Educational - a publication specifically for teachers and people in the field of education –wanted to cover this story, so I sent them an immediate press release, which I wrote myself, about the fact that in view of this statement, this little school in Surrey had decided to stay open. We got a two-page article the following week – so an initial idea was taken and be­came a story. If you have information about something, think about who can get you good media coverage and get in touch with the right outlets.

 

It can be a real power element if there is someone you can turn to on a certain subject, someone you can trust, so nurturing such a relationship is very important, but one has to be straight with the media contacts. Only if one is viewed as a credible source supplying objective information, will the media make use of it; after all, there is a lot of pressure coming from the editors, the readership or viewers or listeners, and if someone turns out to be less than honest, his reputation as a source is damaged. A good exam­ple is Green Peace, which nearly shot itself in the foot some two or three years ago on the issue of the oil platform in the North Sea that Shell was going to dump out in the Atlantic Ocean. Green Peace started getting very noisy about it, saying that this was bad for the environment, and got a lot of publicity. At that point, people started to do some research and found that all the respectable scientific sources were saying the same thing: that the safest and most sensible thing to do was to dump it in the ocean. Green Peace’s reputation has still not fully recovered.

 

Good, diligent journalists will try to be as honest and accurate as possible, to ensure that their 'public' receives news it can rely on. Moreover, they will attempt to work quickly and with style. The guiding principle is to serve the public, not the interests of the owners of the organizations for which they work, the advertisers, or even the State.

 

Much of my own experience has been within the BBC, an organization that takes its journalistic responsibilities very seriously. The BBC Producer Guidelines provide many useful observations:

 

"Due impartiality lies at the heart of the BBC. It is a core value…It requires program makers to show open-mindedness, fairness and a respect for truth…The BBC should treat controversial subjects with due accuracy and impartiality…due impartiality does not re­quire absolute neutrality on every issue or detachment from funda­mental democratic principles. The BBC is explicitly forbidden from broadcasting its own opinions on current affairs.

 

"Reporting should be dispassionate, wide-ranging and well-in­formed. In reporting matters of controversy the main differing views should be given due weight in the period during which the contro­versy is active. News judgements will take account of events as well as arguments." [Accuracy can be difficult to achieve, and it is important to distinguish between first and second-hand sources. An error in one report is often recycled in another.]

 

"BBC programs should be based on fairness, openness and straight dealing…News programs should offer viewers and listeners an intelligent and informed account of issues that enables them to form their own views…Audiences should not be able to gauge from BBC programs the personal views of presenters and reporters."

 

Many newsrooms (and journalists and media organizations) fall short of this ideal, but if they do not accept it then they are propagandists. With this in mind, it is important to look in more detail at the workings of a newsroom and see what opportunities exist to influence its output.

 

Some of the sources of news are as follows:

 

·          news agencies

·          press releases

·          news conferences

·          official edicts

·          calls from the public

·          other media

·          checks with newsmakers

·          news diary

·          own reporters/correspondents

 

Most of these are passive, in the sense that the journalist sits in the news­room and waits for the news to come to him/her, and for many organiza­tions this is the reality. If this is true within media organizations that are important to you, then you need to make sure you are providing the kind of 'official' information that will be taken seriously and covered by that organi­zation.

 

The later items on the list above involve more active newsgathering: look­ing for stories, not just accepting other people's judgement on what makes a good story. If, for example, a news organization that is important to you has a correspondent who specializes in environmental issues and your organization is involved with such issues, then you should study the work of this journalist and try to establish and maintain contact with him/her; it is in both your interests to do so.

 

As a good journalist or media person one should also show initiative, and, for example, ring the police to see if something is going on, or the ambu­lance station to see if there have been any accidents, etc. There are lots of press releases and bits of other information coming in, but a decent news organization should be initiating things as well, taking into consideration the commercial and political pressures on media people, who often might hear something like: “Well, if you were a ‘proper’ radio station, you would be doing this and that.”

 

A good media organization should not only be an initiator; it should also be setting agendas by looking at the stories that are coming up the next week and preparing a news diary. In a media organization like the BBC, a third of the staff is involved in planning and creating a decent news diary, knowing what is coming up, preparing material or a feature in advance, etc. For ex­ample, in Britain, the unemployment figures are published on the 15^th of each month, so talking to the people in the right ministries a few days be­fore one enables one to form an idea about what the figures are likely to be, and then go to a factory and do a nice report that will leave the viewer well informed regarding the real economic situation.

 

All these sources of news result in potential stories pouring down on the central news desk every day, where they are sorted, assessed, and re­written before a selection is packaged in the newspaper or radio or TV sta­tion. In many instances, if not the vast majority, all this happens in an at­mosphere of chaos, panic and confusion with staff facing an immovable deadline, political and commercial pressures, and frequently, insufficient access to all the facts.

 

Pictures are very important, considering that some 80 percent of what peo­ple take away from the TV screen they take from the images that they see there. If one is setting up an interview for example, one should make cer­tain that the picture that will be on the screen matches the organization’s interests and represents it well. For example, I was working for an organi­zation called ‘The Development Board for Wales’, and a famous Welshman came to open a certain event. Just towards the end, we realized that we did not have the banner behind his head so that the photographs that ap­peared in the newspapers appeared to have nothing to do with Wales. It is the same with logos or a name the people recognize – these are very im­portant tools.

 

If one knows how to use newspapers to get a story covered in a desired way, this can be very useful for an organization, not least in terms of public relations. Once an article has been published, it can be copied and sent to everybody who should have it; that way, the organization gains a lot of out­side credibility because it has proof that what it has to say is newsworthy and therefore important. The same goes for radio or TV coverage. One should bear in mind that journalists are often extremely busy, so giving them as much information as possible will help make sure that things are reported in the hoped for way; however, it must also be borne in mind that by covering a certain story, the media organization itself takes a stand or position on that topic, and that in doing this, it must take into consideration its public, readers, viewers, or listeners.

 

The conclusions are, therefore, that one should study each of the media organizations that are important to an organization or a certain purpose and get to know their strengths and weaknesses and their ways of operat­ing, then turn them to one’s own advantage. If one knows, for example, that there is always a crisis at 4 p.m. as the editor finds he/she is short of sto­ries, then one should get used to faxing a story at ten to four. If it is known that they will print a well-written press release without changing anything or checking it properly then take time and make an effort to write and present a really good press release. If an important journalist is known for liking to uncover stories himself/herself, then he/she should be given a tip-off rather than a predigested, beautifully written story. If a certain paper is under po­litical pressure not to print stories that provide the opinion of the opposition with a platform, then one needs to find ways to present such stories in a manner that will result in them being published.

 

Finally remember that your interests and the journalists’ interests are not the same; their task is to tell people what is going on, not to argue your case for you. The greater your understanding of the media, the more real­istic your expectations will be and the more constructively and creatively you will be able to work with them.