Media Workshop

Communications and Media Team

• Based in Underwood Street• 8 Communications and Media Officers• Deliver all media work for Friends of the Earth• Help plan all communications work, along with staff in

other communications teams• Take up to 40 calls from the media a day• Consistently ranked in top ten of PR Week’s monthly

‘NGO watch’• Refer all national media enquiries to us

Why work with the media?

REACH• We can reach thousands

of people all at once

IMPACT• People may listen to our

messages more if they hear them through an ‘independent channel’

What is the media?

Which stories for which media?

What makes a good story?

• Topical/Timely

• Relevant

• Unusual/Unique

• Trouble

• Human Angle

…so what?

Topical/Timely

Biofuels survey as new rules came into force that required the inclusion of biofuels in petrol. Less than one in seven people think that biofuels are the best way to reduce emissions from road transport.

Relevant

EVENING SERVICE FOR CHEDDAR VALLEY CHURCH

Unusual/Unique

New Forest Carbon Footprint Project: CHARLIE DIMMOCK LAUNCHES THE PARTY

Trouble

Boycott threat after council chamber walkoutSep 11 2008 by Sandy McKenzie, Middlesbrough Evening Gazette A BOYCOTT of future full meetings of Middlesbrough Council is being threatened by Conservatives and a group of independent councillors.It follows a walkout by the 10 councillors at last night’s meeting of the council in Middlesbrough Town Hall.

Human Angle

What makes local news

• Needs a local angle:– Local people– Local row– Local information – Local celebrity– Local event

• Can carry a national message through a local example eg the Big Ask Day of Action

Big Ask Day of Action

• Over 160 local groups• Pressure on the Government to include

emissions from aviation and shipping in the Climate Change Bill

• 300 media hits across local newspapers, radio and TV

Why?

“My local newspapers are vital for me to find out about the issues that local people are concerned about, and also to let them know what I am up to. When an issue is raised in local papers – whether as a news story or a debate on the letters page – it has a real influence on my work.” 

Don Foster MP for Bath and Lib Dem Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

Media ‘tools’

• Publicity stunts• Press releases• Letters• Reactive comments• Getting to know journalists• Interviews on radio and TV