8.1 Style

There are a wide range of potentially successful press strategies. Greenpeace continues to demonstrate the communication power of dramatic, direct, physical confrontation. Cycling safety groups and various antiwar groups often use arresting visual metaphors, ranging from "die-ins" to grim reaper masks. Many groups, including EBI and Sierra Legal Defence Fund, usually rely on more conventional, serious, facts-oriented communications.

8.2 Press releases

The style and content of any press release or press conference should respond to your audience’s needs. Press releases generally start with a headline designed to capture the essence of your news item and grab attention. The lead (the first sentence) then explains the headline. The following paragraphs fill in the who, what, where, when, and why. Include a few quotes from interested parties, which reporters can use. Journalists may then call to get original quotes or more detailed information. Depending on the message’s complexity and the intended audience’s background knowledge, successful press releases can be as short as a few hundred words, or as long as 700 words, but one page is optimal.

Reporters working on more than one story are under quantity and quality pressures from their editors. By providing them with complete information packages and sharing the knowledge you have gained while investigating your case, you simplify their work. For example, when announcing the results of laboratory tests on landfill leachate, you should include the contact names and phone numbers, not only for your group’s spokesperson, but also for a spokesperson for the laboratory, the manager responsible for operating the landfill site, and the local government environmental inspector.

8.3 Timing

Keep the following tips in mind:

• Assignment editors usually tell daily news reporters what to write about or give their approval of reporters’ ideas. This process often takes place in the morning to allow the reporters a few hours to research before they script, produce, and edit an electronic story or write a newspaper article. To get your message out, try to fax or e-mail information on the story (a news release or press conference announcement) to the target media overnight or early in the morning, so that the story gets picked up and assigned to a reporter.
• Media outlets are deluged by press releases. It is essential that you follow up all press releases with phone calls to ensure that your story gets covered.
• You should schedule press conferences no later than early afternoon and make them convenient to get to. On-site press conferences (e.g., at the gates of a landfill site or where contaminants are entering bodies of water) may be very valuable since they provide the media a firsthand look at the situation you are trying to raise awareness about. Reporters may better relate to the issues, want to find out more about them, and then provide the public with a more accurate and gripping story.
• Monday newspapers are usually the thinnest edition of the week because the reporters working on Sunday have little material. If your news item does not require reporters to obtain comments from people who are only available during normal working hours, consider releasing your news item on Sunday
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• Fridays tend to be very busy news days, making it difficult to capture the attention of reporters. On the other hand, for most print media, audiences are biggest on Saturdays, so getting a story out on Friday can be advantageous.
• Beware of the day before a long weekend. Members of the press are as distracted and anxious to leave work as other workers, making it difficult to get coverage.
• Radio and television news often follow print coverage. The reverse is much less common, particularly if a story is difficult to capture in pictures, so in your first media attempt, consider focusing your attention on the print media.

8.4 Media interviews

One of the most important skills to develop in responding to interviewers is the ability to answer questions directly. Qualification and clarification of answers is often necessary, but if you start the interview in this way, you sound as though you are avoiding the question, a behaviour journalists universally abhor.

Focus on your case’s goals, not on negativity toward the other side; aside from potential charges of defamation, attacks may turn people off and diminish your support base.

A particular challenge for an interviewee is a question containing a presupposition that makes the question seemingly unanswerable. Hostile journalists often adopt such an approach. For example: During an interview concerning sewage pollution, the reporter asks, "Since there is no perfect way to deal with sewage and many communities discharge waste into this stream, why should the taxpayers of this town have to pay for the cleanup your group is demanding?" While your first instinct might be to challenge the question, it is often worthwhile to answer as directly as possible first, and challenge the question second.

In an interview, it is important to determine at the outset what the journalist needs. Some interviews are superficial, others are substantive. If a journalist has little interest in a story, already thoroughly understands an issue, or is under time pressure, he may only require a sound bite. Make it crisp and clear. Remember the great stylist William White’s admonishment: "Omit needless words." If the occasion permits, explain the issue’s context. Serious journalists working on complex stories usually want help understanding the issues. Be helpful.

Prior to doing any interview, make a list of three points that you want to make. Also, consider what questions you would prefer to avoid and figure out good answers to them. Don’t say anything that you don’t want to see in print, unless you have an established relationship with a particular journalist, whom you trust completely.