[NLA] Discussion: Working effectively with the media

[DBlockGPLC@aol.com]

Dear colleagues:
    Up to now I have stayed on the sidelines during this NLA discussion of 
how to work with the media. However, the discussion touches very close to 
home for me.  My family owns a media company which includes two large 
newspapers among other properties.  I grew up in a family that lived and 
breathed the newspaper business every day.  Yet I have never worked there, 
except for a brief internship.  Instead, I have spent the last 21 years in 
the field of adult literacy.  So I have what might be a unique perspective on 
how literacy programs can work effectively with the media.
    Perhaps the biggest challenge for our field in working with newspapers is 
that adult literacy is not a "beat" for any reporter.  Public schools have a 
beat, higher education has a beat, and social services have a beat.  This 
means that, at larger newspapers, a full-time reporter is assigned to those 
areas and gets to have, over a period of years, a deep knowledge of the 
subject matter and who the experts are.  Adult education is not a large 
enough field to merit its own beat reporter.  What happens in many cases is 
that a different reporter is assigned to do an adult literacy story each time 
that such a story is written.  With no background in the topic, that reporter 
is bound to produce a very superficial, even unfairly biased story, given the 
tight deadlines of most metropolitan papers.  Example:  I once had a reporter 
call me at 1:30 p.m. for a story which had a 5:00 p.m. deadline.  He had 
never written a story about adult literacy in his journalism career.  He had 
three and a half hours to learn everything there was to know about adult 
literacy, write the story, and submit it for the next day's paper.  And if I 
wanted the story to be done at all, I needed to go along with these 
limitations.  It wasn't the reporter's fault.  The time limit and the topic 
were assigned by his editor.
    It is very important that we in adult literacy learn how the media 
operate in assigning and allocating stories to reporters.  That is why we 
need public relations expertise in our organizations.  My agency has a 
full-time public relations director.  If your agency can't afford that, at 
least one of your staff can take a course in public relations and how it 
works.
    Right now we at GPLC have gotten out of the trap of having a different 
reporter every time a story is assigned.  After many years, we have a single 
reporter at the largest daily in Pittsburgh who has become almost a beat 
reporter on adult literacy.  She has been following one literacy student from 
enrollment through her studies with us and has been collecting information 
for over a year.  This close relationship with a reporter is unusual in the 
field of adult literacy, but I can wager that all the colleges and 
universities in your area have this type of relationship with their local 
media.
    So one key to working with the media is to build close relationships with 
media professionals, including reporters.  They become your advocates inside 
the media, and when you need their help in a pinch, they will be 
knowledgeable enough to help in the right way.
    I have to constantly remind myself that there are 2,000 nonprofit 
organizations in my city, all clamoring for media attention.  In order to 
stand out from the crowd, literacy programs must make sure that there are 
editors and reporters in the media who are knowledgeable about our issues.  
It is our job to educate them about our topic.  
    I hope that this is useful for some of you on the NLA list.

Don Block
Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council
dblockgplc at aol.com
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