Engaging the Media
Media coverage is a great way to reach wide audiences and show people how your organisation’s ESF funded project is transforming people’s lives. It enables you to promote and raise awareness of the ESF programme.
This page provides some guidance on how to engage effectively with various media organisations.
- Working with the media
- Approaching the media
- Securing a journalist’s attention on the telephone
- Tapping into online media
- Top tips – what journalists like and don’t like
- Related topics
Working with the media
The media includes local and national newspapers, TV, radio, websites and magazines. The journalists who work on them are always looking for good stories that their audiences will be interested in.
Engaging with the media through communications such as press releases enables you to:
- influence the news
- raise the profile of your sector and specific work area
- prompt further contact (a ‘taster’ to stimulate media interest in what you do)
- get the story straight (a written record from your or the customer’s point of view).
People working in the media are often under pressure, so it’s important to think carefully about how you engage effectively with them.
You may be able to work with communications colleagues in your or partners’ marketing or press Departments, or have access to CFO level guidance.
Remember to consult your CFO / ESF funder first
Please ensure you consult your CFO/ESF funder when planning any media activity as you may well be required to follow their policy or guidelines and/or seek formal approval from them. In some cases, the arrangements could be set out within your contract.
Key messages for media
When contacting and working with the media, it is important to remember that you are seeking to promote and raise awareness of the ESF programme, as well as the main activity or story.
Wherever possible you must ensure that the following are included within the main body of media communications:
- a clear reference to the European Social Fund (in full – not just the ESF abbreviation) plus an acknowledgement of EU support – and what activity it is funding through your project;
- the ESF logo;
- a general message about what ESF does – for example "The European Social Fund in England is investing in jobs and skills – focusing on people who need support the most and helping them fulfil their potential."
Please do not place the above details in the editor’s notes as they will have less impact.
Approaching the media
- Identify your target media – who do you think would be interested in running your story?
- If you are contacting local media, make sure your story fits their “patch” – the area their publication covers.
- Consider using different versions of the same core news story or press release, each of which includes a supporting story about local people. This may enable a journalist to feature the story in a number of local publications across a wider area.
- Some newspapers have specific reporters working on different areas – find out who they are (they are usually listed on the newspapers’ website) and contact them directly, rather than sending all stories to the editor.
- Avoid bothering a journalist near deadline – these vary by publication. It’s therefore important to find out when the deadlines are, which may of course vary seasonally, for example over Christmas, New Year and Easter. Generally
- weekly papers have deadlines about 24 hours before publication, however specialist section deadlines are often earlier
- evening papers’ deadlines are at about 11am, so contact them with non-urgent stories in the afternoon.
- morning papers usually have a late-afternoon deadline, so late morning is probably best
- weekly supplements, for example the ‘business’ section will have different deadlines
- websites tend not to have specific deadlines as they update their pages with new stories all day long.
- Develop a relationship with journalists working on websites and encourage them to link to your website which will generate traffic to your site. In return you may wish to link to their website.
- Consider radio and TV. The BBC has community sections which are particularly interested in social and community news. Ring them and send a shortened version of the press release, summarising the story. They will almost certainly want to interview somebody – possibly live on air – so make sure you have a representative available – who has permission to do interviews.
Securing a journalist’s attention on the telephone
- When talking to a journalist, make sure you have all the relevant details to hand.
- Remember that the journalist wants to write or publicise stories that will interest their audience, so think what it is about your story that will be interesting to them, not just what you want to say.
- You need to get the journalist’s attention straight away. What is the most interesting point you need to make, for example:
- positive impact on local people, businesses or one or more communities;
- £1 million project funding helping 700 young people not in education, employment, or training, 1,000 people gaining level 2 qualifications, 600 people finding jobs…
- Imagine you were meeting a friend – how would you describe your story?
- Imagine you didn’t work for the organisation or ESF project you are promoting:
- What would interest you?
- Is there some way you can tie it into the current news agenda?
- Include specific details about how ESF has been involved, but remember you are trying to grab the journalist’s interest first.
- Offer to follow up the call with a press release – this way you won’t need to get into too much detail when you’re on the phone.
Tapping into online media
- Most local newspapers and magazines now have websites in addition to their printed publication - and many stand-alone community websites run local stories too.
- Websites run by national newspapers and journals often have several sections dedicated to areas of interest, for example science and technology, society, and health. Each section has its own editor and reporters, so you can contact them directly with your story.
- Regional news websites may have smaller teams, but there will be an online editor that you can contact.
- In addition, online publications often have additional features – such as videos and picture galleries.
- Some examples of online opportunities are:
- The science and technology section of a website may wish to run a case study of an individual who launched their own business within the science and technology sector. Send details of a suitable ESF participant.
- The website of a local newspaper may be interested in running a short video to accompany the printed story you have sent them. If you have access to a video camera and can offer them some footage of say, an individual talking about how their life has changed after attending your ESF project, they might well consider using it.
- To support your story or possibly as a separate measure, you could offer the website section a selection of photographs (if they are particularly good) that they could run as a gallery. The website wants to keep its audience logged in as long as possible, and anything you can do to facilitate this will be welcomed.
- Often, national newspapers run stories on their websites that will appear in more detail in their printed publication the following day. If you spot a story on the website that you have an ideal case study to accompany, you can ring the newspaper up and offer it to them for use the next day.
Top tips – What journalists like and don’t like
What journalists like
- clarity and conciseness
- exclusives
- their readers, listeners and viewers
- professional behaviour
- honesty (Do not be afraid to admit you don’t know the answer. Offer to go and find out or refer to a person who does.)
- hooks – to make the story and the headline catchy
- strong visuals
- real news
What journalists don’t like
- people who don’t take "no" for an answer
- hype and gimmicks (i.e. not real news)
- interruptions at deadline – so find out deadlines of the media you are dealing with
- being bypassed (if your regular contact on a paper says no, do not approach someone else).
- jargon and over-use of abbreviations and acronyms.
More specifically for broadcast media
- no attachments or photographs (take time to open and/or delete)
- no long press releases.
Top errors
- long boring dull releases – stick to about 300 words and never more than one page (unless you are writing a bespoke piece with the prior agreement of the editor or sub-editor – which can potentially be 800 or 1,000 words long)
- dull and boring photographs
- bad targeting
- poor timing
- unnecessary press events or badly organised events
- no tailored approach (broadcast media have different requirements to written media).