Mark - quite the opposite. Where I work we deal with similar situations every day, that is what we do. Notifying our Duty Media manager, who is a qualified journalist, is very early on the check list when we know an incident is going to interest the media. The media manager is provided with the details and deals with the media. They do a full spectrum of media work from formal media release to TV and Radio interviews - we currently have a young lady who is very gentle on the eyes.
Despite the professional level of media management we have in place, the media still get it wrong!!!! - there is no magic formula and you can't control what they write. Retractions of front page blunders and printed on page 32, bottom right hand corner in the smallest font they can find. Poor media management can do a lot of damage to an organisation, a sport or activity, and the GFA could do better. But we are the GFA, however the current executive nomination and election process does not give us much say in who runs the GFA - something about protecting the management of the GFA from a hostile take over from a bunch of radical Johnnie come latelies. Ops sorry that's another soap box SDF -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark Newton Sent: Friday, 22 April 2005 10:20 AM To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia. Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Accident news reports Peter Creswick wrote: > Two, create a SINGLE MEDIA LIAISON point, ie, a "GFA Media Liaison > Officer", if you will, ie, ONE phone number, for the media to call. > To go a bit further, I think we need to consider creating a "GFA Duty > Officer" position, staffed at any one time by one of a number of > suitable people, RTO types, ie, have them rostered, but with ONE phone > number only known to GFA people, that can be redirected to whoever the > duty officer is on any given day / weekend / whatever. > Then, when an incident occurs, that one person becomes the receiver of > all information from the site, the club concerned, etc. Put yourself in the position of that person. You're gardening at home on a Sunday afternoon. Somewhere, someone in Australia has an accident. That person's club is busy liaising with ambulance, police and ATSB, satisfying their duty of care and their statutory requirements. Notifying the GFA's media liaison is a pretty distant priority. Remember, we have duties of care, laws and regulations, and they say our priorities are to care for the injured, assist the emergency services, contact the ATSB and notify the RTO/Ops. The media, who have been monitoring emergency services frequencies with a scanner, are all over it. They're trying to get telephone interviews before the ambulance turns up, and they have an outside broadcast van in transit to the airfield hoping to get some juicy footage. Even if nobody lets them in they're going to be parked outside the gate with a 100x zoom lens hoping to catch something worth pixellating on the six o'clock news. Reporters pretty quickly figure out that the GFA has a media liaison, and they ring you up. When you answer the phone you'll get a barrage of questions about some accident which you have absolutely zero reliable information about, and you'll be expected to provide useful, accurate and coherent responses to their questions. Any questions they ask will need to be answered with, "I don't know," or "No comment," because you won't have the info needed to give accurate answers. All you'll really be able to do is offer general motherhood statements about how gliding is safe but unforgiving. Those kind of responses are going to make a reporter yawn, hang up, and talk to someone who actually knows something worth reporting. (or, more likely, it'll inspire the journo to just make something up). > Further, it should become mandatory for local / involved GFA members to > report in ASAP, so that the facts are gathered ASAP, AND it should also > be mandatory that NO MEDIA INTERVIEWS be given by those local / on > scene, AND that it be mandatory that those people refer the media > immediately to the "GFA Media Liaison Officer" and website. Your "No media interviews" rule is what makes reporters make stuff up. They have a thirst for information, and if information is not provided they'll invent it. That's why last weekend's accident had six different accounts of what happened from six different media outlets: nobody said anything substantitive, so they fabricated it from whole cloth. Last year's launching accident at Stonefield was reported as a fatality, as a hang glider accident, as involving a light aircraft, and as resulting in serious spinal injuries by various media agencies. None of those assertions were true. One reporter even said, "It is unclear whether the accident occurred during take-off or landing," if you can believe it. To which the obvious response is, "It was unclear *to that reporter*, which wasn't surprising because nobody talked to him and he really didn't have the faintest idea, so that's what he said in his report." Far better to have the club nominate someone to take media calls and respond to them with simple, quotable, accurate data. "A single seat glider was involved in a launching accident. The pilot has sustained leg fractures and has been taken to Adelaide for treatment. The ATSB will be releasing a report once they've concluded any investigatory activities they believe should be carried out, until then we cannot speculate on the cause of the accident without compromising those investigations." That gives the media everything they need to write an accurate story with first-hand data. > In short, the only way to stop the media reporting crap, and worse, is > to "feed the media" what WE want them to say. Agreed, but a GFA media liaison who is expected to respond cogently in an emergency isn't the right way to achieve that. - mark -------------------------------------------------------------------- I tried an internal modem, [EMAIL PROTECTED] but it hurt when I walked. Mark Newton ----- Voice: +61-4-1620-2223 ------------- Fax: +61-8-82231777 ----- _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
