Module 8.15 – Making You and Your Numbers “Media Friendly”

 

Module Introduction

            If everyone in the news media were an accountant, you would not need to explain and interpret your financial statement. They aren’t accountants, but they have to explain those numbers to people who know even less about financial statements than they do. The key point to remember about the news media is that you do need one another. You have to get your message out to the various publics you want to communicate with. They need the stories you provide.

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1. Making You and Your Numbers “Media Friendly”

            If everyone in the news media were an accountant, you would not need to explain and interpret your financial statement. They aren’t accountants, but they have to explain those numbers to people who know even less about financial statements than they do.

            In this module we will look at how to explain yourself to the media, and at some practical tips for working with them to make sure that they do get the numbers right—both in terms of the math and in terms of the meaning.

The key point to remember about the news media is that you do need one another. You have to get your message out to the various publics you want to communicate with. They need the stories you provide.

Just because you need each other, however, does not mean that the relationship will always be smooth, or even pleasant.

Reporters and their news organizations all have their own priorities and concerns. When they conflict with yours, the media will ignore yours and focus on their own. Notice that the word used here is “when,” not “if.” It has happened in the past. It will happen again in the future. It is part of the price you pay for dealing with the media.

Think of the media as a large cat. Sometimes, fro no obvious reason whatsoever, it purrs and sometimes, again for no obvious reason, it scratches.

Only the cat really knows why—and it isn’t telling.

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2. Media Is Plural

            We tend to talk about the new media as if it were one, unified group, body, or organization. It’s not.

            There are reporters with advanced degrees and others who never got all the way through school.

            Some TV reporters and news anchors are millionaires and celebrities in their own right, sometimes more famous than the people they interview. Others are barely getting by on low wages.

There are conservative and liberal reporters, religious and atheistic, warmhearted and cold, funny and dour. They reflect the full spectrum of society.

            Lumping all reporters together as one group, and trying to find one way, one magic solution, to deal with all of them effectively, is like trying to find one way to keep all the managers in your organization happy. Everyone might be smiling today, but you know that it won’t last.

Once you get to know the reporters who regularly cover you and your organization, you can begin to deal with them personally.

Until you do, however, all you can plan on doing is dealing with the reporters according to the type of media they work for, since each of them will have different needs and ways of working.

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3. Media Is Plural (Continued)

            We are talking about three separate categories of news media:

1.      Electronic—TV and radio

2.      Print—magazines and newspapers

3.      Internet—still developing. While obviously “electronic” in nature, often showing video footage and offering sound bytes and interviews, most Internet News sites also run text stories, like newspapers and magazines.

The three categories are all broken down according to size and circulation:

·        Local

·        Regional

·        Trade

·        National and International

·        Trade Press (the people in the sector of activity)

·        Special Interest (those using your product for project/programme purpose, hobby, or other reasons)

·        Internet (which can include all of the above)

News media outlets all have different needs and ways of doing project/programme purpose based on their type and their size, their circulation or number of listeners or viewers, and the type of people—broken down by factors such as where they live, gender, age, occupation, income, education, and interests—who regularly read, watch, or listen to them. While media plans for the various categories will all have a lot in common, it is the differences

 that can get you into trouble.

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4.  The Different Media

Local:

            These are your local weekly and daily newspapers, city magazines, radio, and TV stations. Because you are local, and have a direct impact on the local economy, your financial successes—and failures—are of immediate interest to their audience.

            You are probably “big news” to them, and your financial stories will be treated accordingly.

            You have the opportunity to develop a long-term relationship with the individual journalists who cover your organization. In many cases, some members of your organization’s public relations department may have worked for the various local media outlets at one time, since many PR people come out of the news media.

            It is often advisable to spend a great deal of time with your local reporter—in one-on-one conversation—to make sure they actually understand the financial information you are giving them. Since your fellow employees probably read or watch these reporters every day, as do their families, neighbors and friends, you do want to make sure they get it right.

            Most journalists start out at small media outlets, which means you are more likely to run into young and inexperienced journalists and editors within the local media. This doesn’t mean that they are not as sharp, talented, or intelligent as those working for the bigger media.  It just means they may be less experienced. But not always. Some very talented and experienced people like local media work, and either never move on. Or come back to it after they have had a taste of the “big time” media world.

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5.  The Different Media (Continued)

Regional:

            These are the larger papers, regional magazines, radio, and TV outlets. Your location is probably one of many urban or rural areas that they cover.

            They are usually interested in stories of interest to the entire region that they serve. Since your organization and employees are part of the region, they are definitely interested in you.

The bigger you are, the more interested they are.

            They will most likely have more reporters who specialize in project/programme purpose, and therefore are more knowledgeable about finance and understanding financial statements than many of the reporters in your local media.

While you might not be as “big” a story in the regional media as you are in the local, your financial reports will definitely be covered extensively.

If you deal with the regional media on a regular basis, you will probably have had a chance to develop relationships with then and gotten to know some of their staff members.

One point to keep in mind is that the larger media tend to talk to more outside experts—often your competition—and ask them to comment on your financial reports. Of course, they are just as likely to ask you to comment on your competitor’s reports.

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6.  The Different Media (Continued)

Trade:

            When dealing with the trade media—the newspapers, newsletters, magazines, and Internet sites—that cover your project/programme purpose or sector of activity, you are also dealing with your internal audiences—and your competitors.

Everything they report will go right to the people in your organization who read the trade press—and to the competition.

The reporters who cover your sector of activity for the trade press know your sector of activity, often as well as you do, maybe even better.

As a result, you can expect them to ask more technically specific, in-depth, knowledgeable, and challenging questions than the regular media.

Since their entire purpose is to cover your trade, you can also expect them to ask your competitors what they think about your new numbers, and then compare your figures to your competitor’s. Of course, they will be asking you to comment on how your competitors are doing, too.

They cover a brad “geographic” area—anywhere your project/programme purpose, trade or sector of activity—is located, but because they are writing about a relatively small “community,” you tend to personally know or know of all the people and organizations that you will read about.

They will also be more interested in the people in your organization and will tend to run more news about them since they are all part of the same “community”.

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7.  The Different Media (Continued)

            These are the major newspapers, national and international magazines (news and special interest), radio, and TV networks. As a rule, they will not be interested in you unless you are a major story or a part of one.

            Here, you are dealing with major league professionals. You will very likely see or deal with any of them only occasionally, perhaps only once. Since they are national and often international in scope, they focus on stories big enough to be of interest to all of a country’s viewers, listeners, or readers.

            They are the least likely to just accept a news release and run it as is. When they cone in they always come in with questions, possibly more questions than you have ever had to answer before. They are invariably in a hurry, and usually want to speak to the CEO, COB, or some other member of the board or senior management.

            While dealing with local papers can be relatively pleasant, dealing with the national or international news corps can be brutal. If you don’t do your job properly, millions of people will watch it on TV that evening, ore read about it over breakfast, or listen to it on their way to work the next day.

            The national media also show up quickly, and move on just as quickly, usually before you are ready to see them go.

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8.  The Different Media (Continued)

            Special Interest:

            These are the newspapers and magazines, and some radio and TV shows (usually on cable), as well as a growing number of Internet sites, aimed at the people who use your product or service.

            Special Interest media include those covering topics from automobiles and project/programme purpose in general to yachting and zoos.

            Unlike the trade media that focuses on the people “making” or working within the sector of activity, special interest publications include those who use it.

            There are trade magazines, for example, that are aimed at people in the railroad sector of activity: conductors, engineers, rail transportation specialists, shippers, and so on. These are not the same magazines that might be read by railroad enthusiasts; those people who like to ride trains, see antique engines, and consider railroading their hobby. As well, within the railroad enthusiast category there are further breakdowns between those publications that focus on model engines, steam engines, electric engines, and those that ride on different gauge track. The latter would be special interest media.

            Since they are more concerned with the product and its appeal or usefulness to them, they are less concerned about financial performances. Each publication will have its own needs and outlook. As a rule, however, they are fairly easy to deal with.

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9.  The Different Media (Continued)

            The Internet:

            In many ways, the Internet defies description as a news media outlet. As a rule, when dealing with Internet sites other than your organization’s, generally there are:

·        No paid subscriptions or mailing lists;

·        No meaningful ways to compare or “rate” one site’s popularity with another’s in term of viewers or readers:

·         No way to track how many people actually visit it, or if the same small group of people keep “clicking” on the same site to make it appear that the site has more viewers than it really does;

·        No way to really know exactly “who is clicking on your site since there is no way to guarantee that any questionnaires put up will be answered honestly;

·        No way to analyze “where” the people who visit the site live, unless they voluntarily give you that information;

·        No way to even know, in some cases, who is actually running a site.

Despite all of the unanswered questions that the Internet poses in terms of functioning as a news medium, there is no denying its reach and ubiquitous nature.

      Since the Internet’s presence and influence is growing, you have to treat it as seriously as you treat all the other news media. Use the same guidelines with Internet journalists and editors as you do when dealing with the more conventional print and broadcast journalists and editors. Also, almost every news source, from local to national, now has its own Internet site.

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10. Information Layers

Different types and levels of media will run different levels and depths of detail about

financial reports.

If you pay attention to the way they report other similar stories, you will have a pretty good idea of how they will report your story, and what information they will most likely report.

This does not mean that you give one media outlet less than another.

You give the local weekly newspaper reporters the same news releases and information packets that you give the nation TV new reporters and their producers and camera crew.

The amount of information you send out does not change. What do have to change, however are your expectations. While an in-depth news analysis can run for a thousand words or more, and include charts, graphs, and actual sections of your annual report, not many publications will give it that much room.

            At the other extreme is the radio or TV news “item” which could last for less than one minute and will “sum up” everything that you gave them—several pounds of paper worth of reports, analysis, and figures—in 25 words or less. In the following example, 24 words:

            “It’s been a good year for Universal Widgets. organization officials say widget sales are up 24 percent over last year’s—with profits to match.”

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Assignments

 

Multiple-Choice (2)

 

1.         News media outlets all have different needs and ways of doing project/programme purpose based on their __________.

a.       Type and size

b.      Circulation

c.       Audience

d.      All of the above

 

2.         They are interested in stories of interest to the entire region that they serve.

            a.   Regional

            b.   Local

            c.   Trade

            d.   National

 

3.         You can expect them to ask more technically specific, in-depth, knowledgeable, and challenging questions than the regular media.

            a.   Regional

            b.   Local

            c.   Trade

            d.   None of the above

 

4.         They are least likely to just accept a news release and run it as is.

            a.   Regional

            b.   Local

            c.   Trade

            d.   National