SEMINARS Passia Seminar 1999 Media and Communication Skills

 

 

 

 

Tudor Lomas

 

 

 

With regard to establishing contact with the media, it is essential to know one’s publicity goals and target audiences and to understand what kind of issues journalists are interest in and how to be able to provide it. If one can come up with an event where journalists can get some really good inter­views or video-footage – preferably, from their point of view, that no one else has – they will come. It is a two-way relationship: the media needs you for a source of information, while you need them for coverage, but do not expect something in return every time you do them a favor.

 

At the moment, the year 2000 is a huge international story and anything that contributes to that story and to understanding its broadest sense is impor­tant. Therefore, an organization should find a way to tie at least one of its projects to the Millennium. Another popular issue is Palestinian state­hood.

 

When there is not much news around, it is a good idea to refresh media contacts, which often may lead to a new story. If an idea is dismissed by the media contact as ‘boring’, one should ask what kind of information would be needed to make it newsworthy. Communications people should be – although this is not always the case - part of the policy-making proc­ess of the organizations for which they work, which means they should be able to say, “Look, there is a real opportunity here; if we start doing now something we were planning to do next year, we are going to get some good cover­age.” To some extent, communications people should be able to shape what their organization is doing, assuming that the benefits derived from the hoped for publicity warrant this. The public face or spokesperson of an or­ganization should be someone able and dynamic as he or she will make a significant contribution to the overall image, which is of great im­portance.

 

A few years ago I attended an important workshop for economic journalists in Amman, and one of the speakers was the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisor. What he had to say was extremely interesting, but once he had finished, a Dutch journalist remarked that of the 20 journalists present, only four had taken notes. The foreign media organizations need stories to jus­tify spending tens of thousands of dollars on having people in this region, and you should consider it part of your job to help make sure that they get them. In this respect it is always useful to tie ‘minor’ events with ‘major’ ones, even if you have to spend some time racking your brains to find a way to do this and even if, under certain circumstances, you feel that this is somehow ‘taking advantage’ of people’s misfortune.

 

Rami Khoury: Human drama is extremely important in the world of media. Whether preparing an annual report, a brochure or an article, one should try to draw attention to it by using human drama. A lot of the problems in the Middle East in general and Palestine in particular are the result of gross injustice, but the media does not work according to justice, but according to drama and entertainment, which must be used in order to introduce a mes­sage and get a story into the media.

 

A second point is that if one wants coverage by the international media, he should play on the fact that journalists talk to each other all the time. A good relationship with a few respected journalists increases the chances that they will give your name to their colleagues when asked who would be a good person to contact. The strength of such a relationship will depend to a great extent on the credibility of the information that one supplies and the willingness to provide information without necessarily expecting some form of instantaneous reward.

 

Tudor Lomas: It can be very useful to build a list of key media contacts and set target dates by which one wants to meet them. Sending a press release, for example, is a good reason to ring them up and have a chat, and within some weeks one will be able to draw on a group of good media contacts.

 

A proper journalist should be totally objective and leave his own viewpoints out of his reporting. Once a journalist has built up a good reputation – as honest and accurate, etc. - he might get away with imposing his personal opinion a couple of times, but he is going to lose credibility if he does it too often. There might always be an occasion in which a journalist gets in­volved in a story and reports what is going on partly to achieve a particular end.

 

For instance, the BBC as an organization was not morally neutral on the issue of apartheid in South Africa, which it regarded as wrong, and re­ported from that point of view; however, it was only able to do this because the overwhelming majority of people felt the same. The BBC tends to re­flect the general public view and does not see itself as a champion or an advocate. In the case of Lebanon, for example, one of the functions of the media is to reflect the views of the various communities involved, but no one expected an extremely sympathetic hearing for Hizbollah, whilst it was obvious that there will be lots of details about the Maronite community.

 

One should not get too far out of touch with one’s audience and should make every effort to tell them what one considers important, even if it meets with some initial disinterest. There is a new British magazine called The Week, which is a digest of what is published everywhere else. It has a very interesting column called ‘Important, but Boring’ that deals with things that have happened which, although ‘boring’, have the potential to affect people’s lives. One of the things to be done when trying to sell a story is to explain why an apparently boring story has the potential to be very inter­esting so that the journalist will take another look at it.

 

Timing and accuracy are of great importance. If the timing is wrong, it can be the end of a story, and if a bit of paper is tatty, crucial details may be lost. It should be always assured that the details on the letterhead are cor­rect and, if needed, a number is added where one can be reached outside normal working hours (as journalists frequently come up with stories late at night and it is important that they know that you are willing to provide them with a quote or some kind of information).

 

Another important thing is to refrain from overstating things, putting things that are not true, and making what you write – whether it be in a press re­lease, a brochure or a newsletter - so sensational that you cannot sustain it. A good example in this respect is the ‘March of the One Million’ [on the occasion of the 50^th An-Naqba anniversary in May 1998], when certain Palestinians told the news agencies that one million Palestinians were ex­pected to take to the streets; it soon transpired that the figure had been grossly overestimated.

 

Rami Khoury: There is another dimension to this example, which is to get the media to focus on the relevant points from the beginning. In this par­ticular instance, the focus was not on the real issue, namely the reason why the people were taking to the streets, but on the number of people who did so. One should make every effort to shape and define a story right from the very first press release; instead of saying “I am sending you a press release about one million Palestinians joining a march” you say “I am sending you a press release pertaining to the fact that 50 years after the creation of Israel, demonstrations are taking place in all Palestinian towns and villages in relation to the issue of who owns the land.” Catchy phrases are important: ‘Who owns the land?’, ‘Whose land is this?’; journalists love catchy phrases, so they should be included in these kinds of communica­tions.

 

Tudor Lomas: I would now like to move away from the media and look at various methods of communication and the importance of the right piece of paper landing on the right desk at the right time and in the right way. I would also like us to consider the following questions: Who takes the deci­sions that affect your organizations, what motivates these people and how can you influence them?

 

The history of Jemstone, with which I got involved in 1995, is a useful case study here. We are the largest of the European Union's Med Media proj­ects, established to increase contacts and understanding between media profes­sionals in Europe and the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean, including Israel and the Palestinian territories. Our history is one of con­stant struggle to maintain funding from the European Commission in Brus­sels.

 

For us the success of our work on the ground here (conducting seminars, workshops, courses, exchange visits and consultancy assignments) has had to take second place to lobbying the officials and others in Brussels to ensure that our funding continues. It is not enough to do what you set out to do and to do it well; that alone will not ensure your continuation. You need to understand how the essential decisions about your future are taken and learn how to make sure that they are favorable.

 

In our own case, at the end of 1995, Brussels decided to suspend over 300 Euro-Med projects while new mechanisms for running those projects were developed. Three years later those projects are still suspended. However, two projects (one in the Maghreb and our own) have continued with special funding.

 

In order to continue receiving funding, we had to put a lot of effort into un­derstanding how Brussels works and into finding supporters. This entailed studying the European Commission, the Parliament, the role of the national governments, the relationship between a commissioner and his 'civil serv­ice', the importance of the European Union 'Embassies’ in this region, how information flows between these various actors, who is influential, etc.

 

I would not encourage any of you to seek funding from Brussels unless you are prepared to spend a lot of time and energy understanding how that whole monstrous machine works. Nevertheless, the way we went about influencing the decision-makers is relevant to your experience: studying the scene, identifying the key actors, working out how to change their minds, paying lots of attention to timing, etc.

 

If you are trying to affect people's behavior, it is important first to predis­pose them towards the change, then enable the change to take place and finally reinforce the changes when they have occurred. It is also necessary to identify your key allies, who are essential for the success of your lobby­ing, and those who can prevent you from succeeding, so that you can con­centrate your limited resources where they will have most impact. The more preparation you have carried out the more likely you are to communi­cate your message to the right person, at the right time, in the right lan­guage and using the right arguments to influence them.

 

When lobbying in the name of a cause or project the best thing is to write an individual letter to each person or at least divide your audience a bit so that you know the kind of argument that will be relevant for each group.

 

In order to predispose people towards change one need to make them appreciate the potential benefits. In most instances, this would usually en­tail ensuring that the findings of any surveys that support an argument are widely published and some good media coverage is provided. A good part of dealing with democracy and pluralism involves predisposing people to­wards taking decisions. This is very important particularly with regard to the senior people, whose position is based on the old ways of doing things. I was amazed to discover that the editor-in-chief of Ha’aretz does not check his own e-mail; in fact, he cannot even type! For example, by trying to get people like him to use e-mail, one should tell them what benefits they will get from using it and point out the disadvantages of not knowing how to use it, whilst trying to make them feel old-fashioned and at a disadvantage vis-à-vis their more technically adept colleagues.

 

 

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Participants were asked to provide some examples about the kind of problems they are facing in their organizations. The example below was considered by the whole group the in some detail:

 

A small Palestinian NGO working with deaf people over the age of 13, whose board members are all deaf and, to complicate matters further, who do not all use the standard sign language, is in dire need of funding to pay off debts and ensure the continuation of its services. Dealings with the PA were almost impossible since no one in any of the responsible offices understood the sign language and many of the additional problems resulted from the fact that it was not the Ministry of Social Affairs that was in charge, but the Ministry of the Interior, whose employees were perceived as simply unable to understand the need for such services.

 

The energetic and interactive session that followed engaged the participants in a brain-stormed over possible sources of funding, useful connections, arguments to use and a strategy to adopt, try­ing to clarify the difference between the aims and the process of achieving those aims, in the context of the means available to or­ganizations that often do not have enough money to pay their phone bills. Among the potential sources of funding discussed were the following:

 

-        existing funders

-        the authorities, both local and beyond - how to approach them (what are they doing for this group of handicapped people?)

-        businesses/private sector - arguments to put forward (publicity, sponsorship)

-        small membership fee

-        public/prominent figures - how to use them

-        street collections (which had been done in the past but turned out to be illegal)

-        international donors

-        international deaf organizations (for advice)

 

 

The participants decided that it would be beneficial to try to develop and maintain the group as a network, with the members offering ideas and support to one another in the future, perhaps in the pres­ence of an outside facilitator.