Media relations

The media continues to be most people’s main source of information about their council. This resource explores how your council can get this right, proactively and reactively.

• The business case
• Building positive media relations
• Being strategic
• Proactive media relations
• Reactive media relations
• Crisis management
• Building a media culture
• Working with partners and inspectorates
• Media monitoring and evaluation
• Copyright law

The business case

Local government tends to get a poor press nationally. Recent stories about 'Baby P' and child protection, council investment in Icelandic banks, and chief executives pay are likely to have been damaging, not only to the individual councils concerned but for local authorities generally.

Residents’ perceptions of their local authority are strongly shaped by the media. So it is crucial to try and build a positive relationship with journalists to achieve more informed, positive reporting about the council. It may also help you have more influence over the way bad news stories are reported.

There is plenty of evidence for the role of the media in shaping views. Research by Communities and Local Government in 2006 found that in general, people were most positive about their council in areas where the council had a good relationship with the local press.

Residents’ surveys consistently show that most people get most of their information about the council through the media, particularly the local press. This is backed up by the findings of the 'LG07 Study 2007', which show the most common forms of communication with residents are:

• local media – 77 per cent
• council magazines or newspapers – 76 per cent.

The LG07 Study – on the Karian and Box website

Connecting with Communities research shows that residents often rely on the local media to get the ‘true picture' of council issues. In some respects, they see council publications – such as the council magazine – as propaganda. Residents prefer to read council publications for information, rather than news, which they feel they can get elsewhere.

The LGA’s Reputation Campaign gives three further reasons why councils should improve their media relations:

• to demonstrate community leadership with the goal of increasing understanding and improving electoral turnout
• to help to recruit and retain good staff by showcasing your work
• positive coverage protects your reputation and 'brand'.

Building positive media relations

There is a direct link between journalists’ relationship with an organisation’s communications team and the impact this can have on the 'slant' of articles, Ipsos MORI research found.

Relationships tend to be best where:

• councils know what journalists want from a story
• journalists know what they can expect from the council
• press officers take the time to meet journalists face-to-face
• press officers are proactive – providing stories regularly, alerting journalists in advance of stories, phoning journalists to thank them for a particularly positive story or to discuss a negative one
• councils are honest and admit when they’ve made a mistake.

Journalists get frustrated when the only person they can ever speak to is a press officer. As part of your media strategy, you should plan a programme of using those members and senior managers who are good at delivering the council’s message. Promoting a positive media culture within your council will help build people’s confidence and willingness to make themselves available to the media.

Being strategic

Your media relations should be driven by a media strategy linked to the corporate communications strategy. This should help you be clear about what your priorities are and how you are going to approach working with the media. It should be backed up by a detailed action plan.

Media relations audit

Before you develop your media strategy you need to understand how well you are currently handling media relations. Carrying out a media relations audit will tell you a lot of information as well as highlighting any gaps in your knowledge about your activity.

Done on a regular basis, an audit can also help you identify trends in your coverage and what is working best for you.

The audit usually includes three elements:

• an analysis of how residents gain their information about the council 
• an analysis of the council's media monitoring statistics, including percentages of positive, neutral and negative coverage, the number of press stories resulting from proactive media relations and coverage in different media 
• a survey of journalists – from local, regional, national, black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) and trade media – on how well they view your reactive and proactive media relations.

Media relations strategy

From this, you can devise a media relations strategy. This should be a component part of a wider communications strategy and should focus the council's reactive and proactive media relations on the bigger picture.

Media relations action plan

Your action plan should set out how you are going to implement the strategy. It should include what you are going to do and when, who will be responsible for each element and what resources you will need at each stage. It should be used to evaluate progress regularly.

You should also develop an action plan for individual media campaigns. Action plans should cover:

• key messages
• key audiences
• key media
• milestones
• communications tools
• resources
• targets
• timescales and deadlines
• monitoring and evaluation.

Proactive media relations

High-performing councils dedicate a large amount of time and resources to proactive media relations, rather than letting the media set the agenda. As part of their media strategy, many of them set targets for stories in different media, such as national, trade and BAME, and put a great deal of effort into working with media other than just their local press.

Here’s how the best communications teams do it.

Know your media

• Identify which media and individual journalists are important to you and your public audiences – local, regional, national, specialist and BAME press.
• Focus on the council’s key messages and target key media on the issues that are relevant to their readers.
• Develop an excellent relationship with key journalists – this will help you build trust, float ideas, better understand what stories interest them and find out how they want to receive press releases and briefings.
  
• Be helpful – be prepared to give a local comment on national stories.

Plan ahead

• Develop one positive story a week that affects real people.
• Encourage services to tell you their successes.
• Create a forward planning media calendar to ensure there are no internal clashes, that you are prepared for potentially negative stories and that you have a full programme of positive stories.
• Develop key facts around particular services or corporate priorities to ensure that you always have up-to-date information to share with journalists.

Engage interest

• Be creative – think of unusual visual stories for photographers and TV cameras and interesting sound environments for radio interviews and features.
• Bring your press releases to life by finding the human interest, for example, if you’re opening a new service or launching a new strategy, find some residents who can talk about what they or the community will get out of it.

Run media campaigns

Create ongoing campaigns with a number of media 'hooks', rather than just one-off stories. Media campaigns can also be used as part of a wider PR or 'marcomms' – marketing and communications – campaign to ‘soften the blow’ or change public perceptions on difficult decisions the council has to take – for example, a rise in council tax or cuts in services.

More about developing marketing campaigns

To improve children’s literacy, Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council persuaded Dolly Parton’s Dollywood Foundation to launch the star’s Imagination Library UK programme in Rotherham. The council ran a media campaign to encourage parents to sign up the Imagination Library. The communications team kept all but basic information under wraps until the launch, which attracted local, regional, trade, national and international coverage. The council won 'gold' in the LGCommunications Reputation Awards ‘National story’ category in 2008.

Rotherham enlists Dolly Parton to improve childhood literacy

Dolly Parton talks to the IDeA

After a 'Tonight with Trevor McDonald' TV programme misrepresented a local estate, the London Borough of Islington chose to fight the residents' corner and defend the reputation of the council and its partners.

Together they made a film for YouTube and promoted it via the national media and council communications. Coverage in 'The Observer' newspaper led to the television programme running a follow-up piece that was much more balanced. This strengthened relationships between local agencies and residents. The council won 'gold' in the LGCommunications Reputation Awards ‘Media relations’ category in 2008.

e-communications and new media

Many councils are embracing developments in e-communications and new media as part of their communications mix to engage with their residents and stakeholders. It’s as important to set 'specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and timely' (SMART) objectives for this approach as it is for more conventional media tools. Ideas include:

• using YouTube – for example, Somerset County Council has launched its own YouTube channel to show people the variety of services it provides, and Cambridgeshire County Council used it to appeal for new councillors
• using the website to get across important news quickly to a large number of people – this came into its own during the recent snow storms, when several councils used the website to update parents on school closures
• using social network sites – for example, Babergh District Council used Twitter to announce that refuse collections had been cancelled due to extreme weather conditions
• using the website to create a shared experience – for example, Lichfield District Council used Twitter to appeal for local photographs during the snow storms and then used them to create a special 'snow section' on the council’s website
• SMS text messaging in campaigns targeted at young people
• video news releases and audio sound clips for local broadcasters, to encourage them to cover stories they are unable to attend
• blogging
• even councillors are getting in on the act, with a rise in the number who ‘tweet’.

Councils who use Youtube

More examples of councils using Twitter

More about using digital video

Blogging and Facebook for councillors

Find out more about councils and their use of e-communications

Reactive media relations

Council communication teams tend to spend much of their time dealing with media enquiries. The way and the speed with which the council responds to these will influence the media’s perception of the council, and therefore the kind of coverage it gets.

A good proportion of media enquiries will be hostile. These need to be handled particularly carefully to limit potential damage to the council. Some bad news stories will need crisis management, while others will need good liaison with partner organisations.

Effective reactive media relations

The automated systems used by many councils to log and respond to press enquiries help enormously by providing accessible information to the whole communications team, and helping to meet press deadlines.

They can also store background information, briefing notes and the response given – so if a recurring enquiry comes in, it can be dealt with quickly and simply. 

They will also produce useful monitoring information on response times – not just by the communications team, but also other departments' response times.

Whether or not councils have these systems, there are key points to effective reactive media relations including:

• responding to the journalist in full by their deadline or giving a 'holding statement' until a full response can be given
• being helpful, polite and positive
• never saying 'no comment', as this can sound as if the council has something to hide
• if there is a major hostile enquiry which other media may get hold of, share it with the team and work out the line to take
• ensuring any statements to hostile enquiries are cleared – and send them in writing
• building up a set of 'experts' across the council who can brief journalists directly
• ensuring the appropriate council spokesperson is available for interview and is fully briefed
• making sure officers and members are aware of media guidelines and media protocol
• building up facts and figures and background information for big stories
• monitoring response times and cuttings to evaluate how effectively the enquiry has been dealt with.

Crisis management

Communications teams should be working closely with their top teams to shape how a council responds to a crisis. Effective crisis management can help to limit the damage caused to the council’s reputation by bad headlines.

Some bad news stories will crop up out of the blue but many can be anticipated and planned for. You should have strong internal relationships to help services understand that bad news rarely goes away. You should ensure that they alert you when bad news – such as a critical inspection report – is on the horizon. You don’t want to hear it from a journalist first.

Building a strong media culture internally, through media training and media guidelines and protocols will go a long way to achieving this.

Communications managers should make sure that their strategy for communicating in an emergency is kept up to date, and that their teams are fully aware of their role in a major local or national incident.

Other useful guidelines to managing bad news and crises include:

• act quickly – a speedy response and a good council statement will help limit the damage
• never say 'no comment' even if there isn't enough factual information to give out
• build up background briefings and key facts for big stories in advance
• be honest and open and do not try to deceive the media
• if the council is at fault, apologise swiftly and sincerely 
• issue the news in a planned and managed way, rather than just react
• make sure the appropriate council spokespeople are available for interview and are fully briefed
• ensure officers and members are aware of the media guidelines and media protocol
• ensure officers and members know who to contact in the press office.

Gloucester City Council faced a potentially damaging story when, for reasons beyond its control, it became clear that the town's Christmas lights would not be delivered on time. The local evening paper got hold of the story just as the council prepared to go public with it. The communications team had a choice to make. They decided not to issue their own press release to spoil the scoop, which earned them journalists' goodwill. And they turned the story around by holding regular update briefings with the local media and promoting the team of council staff who were on call around the clock to put up the lights as soon as they arrived. The arrival of the lights prompted good picture opportunities.

When a six-year old pupil tragically died of swine flu in the London Borough of Hillingdon, the media spotlight turned on the council. This case study looks at how its communications team supported schools, council staff and the primary care trust.

Swine flu: crisis management

Building a media culture

An important role for the media team is to help senior officers and members understand the importance of effective media relations for the council and their role in achieving it.

One of the most effective and simple things to do is to get out and talk to members and officers about upcoming stories and ideas. 

Media awareness training

This can make officers and members more aware of the importance of media relations and how they can contribute to it. The training can include council partners and usually covers proactive and reactive topics, including:

• how the media works
• what makes a good news story
• what makes a good photo opportunity
• how to write a good press release
• planning a media campaign
• feature writing and placement
• how to handle a negative press enquiry
• how to deal with a media crisis.

Induction programmes are a useful way to explain the importance of media relations and communications. Other training may be useful such as press release writing for managers or tips on taking photographs for officers.

Media interview training

This training is vital for chief officers and lead members. This gives more specialist training and helps you identify who your best spokespeople are. It usually covers:

• preparing for interviews
• developing key messages
• how to manage the interview
• tips on posture and appearance
• practice at pre-recorded and live interviews
• group feedback on performance.

Media guidelines and protocols

These should be used and actively promoted to back up training and face-to-face contact. They set out how the council will approach media relations and are particularly useful for councils with a range of different political groups. Once agreed, they can inform the way the communication team works and make this clear to others.

There is no one way to produce media guidelines or protocols. Some smaller councils may devolve media relations, while larger ones specify that no officer can speak to the media without going through the press office first. However, guidelines typically include:

• responsibilities and roles for the press office, members and senior officers
• how to handle difficult press enquiries
• working proactively
• general guidance to the law relating to communications
• the principles and standards to which the council operates
• writing, clearing and issuing press releases
• dealing with media enquiries, including response times
• use of quotes
• media interviews.

Raising the media team’s profile

Communications teams should be highly visible internally, demonstrating their worth and explaining what they do and why. This is as important for the media officers as for any of their colleagues.

Some councils issue daily e-news alert to flag up stories that senior officers and members should be aware of or that the council could comment on or react to in some way. A one-sentence summary of each story along with an electronic link is enough. This service is used by a number of councils, including the London Boroughs of Lewisham and Barking and Dagenham.

Other effective ways to make the communications team visible include:

• circulating weekly press cuttings of articles published sent to key officers and members
• distributing promotional material, including contact cards, which give 24-hour contact details for press offices and set out what to do if faced with a hostile enquiry
• publicising the team’s successes internally, for example by producing a weekly report, emailed to managers or posted on the intranet, highlighting what releases have been issued and where they have been used
• providing face-to-face briefings for members and senior officers before interviews and providing key facts briefing sheets for them to use
• entering and winning awards, and then communicating internally that you have won.

Derby City Council wanted to refresh its drive to improve communications by organising a ‘Communications made easy’ week for its employees and those of partner organisations.

They ran 10 events delivered by their own communications professionals, with sessions including new media, web writing and how to communicate with hard-to-reach groups and plain English. The week was promoted through the internal newsletter, intranet and a prize draw. Particpants received a ‘I don’t do jargon’ biodegradable pen. Evaluation of the week showed that 92 per cent said it had made them more aware of why it was important to produce effective communications and 90 per cent thought they had improved their skills.

Derby makes communications easy

Working with partners and inspectorates

Councils are expected to work ever more closely with their partners to deliver improved outcomes for local people. So communications teams will want to be well connected with their counterparts in those organisations.

There should be agreements about a shared approach:

• who does what
• clearance
• spokespersons
• timing.

There should also be a commitment on all parties not to try and take sole credit for positive outcomes or blame each other for a negative news story.

Councils also have to work closely with statutory inspectorates and other non-statutory bodies. Whether good or bad news for the council, inspection reports need to be publicised carefully in the media, with good liaison between the council's communications team and those in the inspectorates.

Most inspectorates have specific guidelines or protocols for dealing with the media. It is a good idea to get hold of these early on and to ensure that they are communicated to relevant officers and members. This will help to avoid leaks to the media or antagonise the inspectorate. Often they will be happy to share embargoed releases as long as the council returns the favour and respects the embargo.

Media monitoring and evaluation

Ongoing media monitoring and evaluation is an essential part of effective media relations management. Monitoring and evaluation not only helps focus the activity and resources, but helps show tangible results of success.

Most councils already do some media monitoring, but if they do not have the full picture, an audit of media relations is a good place to start to get some baseline information. Then the council can set targets and introduce new monitoring and evaluation methods that fit with the media relations strategy and action plan.

Ongoing monitoring and evaluation should be analysed regularly to help the council spot trends. It should include:

• the number of press releases issued and take-up rates – media management systems will then collate statistics automatically
• analysis of press cuttings, television and radio reports by good, neutral or bad categories – with a supportive council comment – to see how effective the council has been at getting its message across
• press enquiry response times logged as the percentage achieved within the media's deadline
• a breakdown of figures for releases issued and enquiries answered by service area
• a breakdown of figures by corporate theme
• a breakdown by different media, for example, local, regional, national, BAME and trade press.

Copyright law

The copyright licensing law applies to newspaper articles which have been photocopied or faxed. Many of these publications are covered by the Newspaper Licensing Agency, which charge councils for copying articles.

Page published July 2009.