CLARITY
STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS
PO Box 522 Bethel, VT 05032 (802) 234-6785
Columns
Media relations: high returns, but higher risks, too I was working in my office in the Middle East a couple years ago when a reporter from Reuters called. He was new to the Reuters bureau in Dubai, having been transferred from London. At the time, I was head of international media relations for the world’s largest energy company, and I knew the energy reporters from Reuters, Bloomberg, Associated Press, Dow Jones and others. But this reporter had a question about a very sensitive story: an oil-futures trader in London (one of his regular, trusted sources, no doubt) had told him that the company I worked for was selling jet fuel to a foreign military force in the Persian Gulf, which was leaving the company’s home-market short of jet fuel. It was an absurd angle, because the company did no such thing, but I told him I’d get right back to him with a confirmation of my initial thought on the matter. Sure enough, research with our sales and marketing folks confirmed it was a bogus story, and I called the reporter back and gave him the company’s official position in the form of a brief statement. The next few hours saw the story run, and I was stunned. The headline screamed that we were selling fuel to the foreign military, and the information was attributed to “unnamed sources.” My quote about the whole thing being false was not placed until the fifth paragraph, and then the rest of the story continued to refute the company’s position. I fumed about it for a few hours, but the journalist that still lurks in the back of my mind pointed out the facts: this reporter was new to his bureau, had never met me, and had rarely talked with me before. His initial information came from a trusted source. The “official position” of the company came from me, a corporate spokesperson, and he had little reason to trust me or the company. I was managing editor at a couple of newspapers before moving into corporate communications, so it was clear to me what was missing. Over the next several months, I sent him a few press releases earlier than I sent it to his competitors (in the world of wire services, a head start of five minutes makes a huge difference) and trusted him with some off-the-record conversations that helped him understand how things worked in our company. Eventually, we had a solid relationship of trust, and I never got burned on a story again. Not by him, anyway. This illustrates the most important point of effective media relations, and the guiding principle of all public relations: trust is essential for it to work. The reason news organizations are such coveted channels for corporate communications and other forms of public relations is that they are trusted by the public to be fair and impartial. Reporters know this, and therefore take their responsibility to be fair very seriously. You can be reasonably assured that if you read an article in the paper, it is balanced and the facts have been checked. The same thing goes for radio and other broadcast media. So given this aura of trust, it’s no wonder companies and other organizations want their messaging disseminated by the news media. jamal.kheiry@clarity-stratcomms.com
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