Introduction
NEON’s Press Officer Handbook – a comprehensive guide to effective media work in social movements.
Being a press officer means different things to different people, but at its most basic it’s your job to help your cause or organisation communicate what you are doing for the world.
You might be part of a communications team, or the only press officer in your organisation – or maybe you aren’t even being paid to do the press work.
We know it’s not an easy role – and that’s why we’ve produced a Press Officer Handbook to help people in the movement do brilliant press work. The guide covers key press officer skills such as writing killer press releases, using the phone, preparing spokespeople for broadcast and much much more.
Contents
- Introduction
- What makes a good press officer
- What is framing and why is it important?
- Audiences
- What makes the news?
- Media strategies / Comms strategy
- Press release
- What is a press release?
- How to format a press release
- How to send a press release
- Diary notes
- Using the phone
- Building relationships with journalists
- Breaking into broadcast
- What do broadcasters want?
- How to pitch
- Freedom of information requests
- Different types of broadcast
- What makes a good spokesperson?
- How to prepare for a broadcast interview
- How to pitch and write comment pieces
- Pitching to comment desks
- Ghost-writing
- How to deal with rejection
- Regional and local media
- Why pay attention to local media?
- What is the media landscape regionally?
- Alternative forms of media
- Challenges: Hostile journalists, crises and mistakes
- Hostile journalists
- Dealing with a crisis
- Tools and tips
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