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● Introduction & Index ● What is PR ● Job Expectations ● Types of Media ● Building Relationships ● Media, Hams & FCC Rules ● The Basic News Release ● Interviews and Live ● Making your own show ● Easy P.R. ● Public Service Events ● Piggy-back to Events ● Pictures NOW! ● P.R. Research Aids ● Making Friends ● ARES® PIO ● Final Exam Information |
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The only item they have in common, of course, is that they all rely on the printed word. Because they do, you need to reduce your message to words, present it with a natural “angle” which makes it interesting and perhaps plan to supplement it with one or more photographs. Try to get your story there at LEAST two or three days before the date when the event will actually occur. Many papers want materials about planned events two to three WEEKS ahead! Magazines are quite similar in that there’s more than one approach. Most magazines consist of a mix of feature articles, often written by freelancers (you?), and columns, generally written by regular contributors, often called Contributing Editors. Even if you can’t land a feature article, you might get your story covered by one of a magazine’s columnists. Radio and TV As with newspapers, you need to consider that the radio and TV media also consist of parts. Their news programs cover everything from international to local news and many “news” programs routinely include feature sections which present opportunities for covering a story on a local Amateur Radio event like Field Day. Some stations have “news magazines” which, like their print media cousins, offer similar opportunities. The advice on timing discussed in the print media section above, applies equally well to the electronic media, although here, because of the more cumbersome logistics involved in assigning camera crews, for example, two or three weeks’ notice may work a lot better. Editors tend to know a lot more about things like parades, bridge collapses, political campaigns, automobile collisions and the like than they do about Amateur Radio. Lace your efforts with some information educating them about the basics of Amateur Radio (that’s what “backgrounders" are for). In making your presentation, for example, you may want to supplement a story idea and request coverage with a good quality audio tape as possible background sound from some on-air operations to provide a “feel” for the event in the editor’s mind. You could also consider adding “still” photographs to further help him visualize the story’s potential and capture his imagination. And, if you have not planned that far ahead, tape some current on-the-air activity and use that, along with some still photos of a few typical radio shacks. |
