The media's (and the public's) misconception of FIRST

[pufame]

Unfortunately, FIRST nor any FIRST team has the final say in what is and is not in a news story/report. While I see where you are coming from trying to promote the "gracious professionalism, coopratition, winnings-not-the-most-important-thing" aspects of FIRST (which we all know make FIRST what it is) through media, trying to convey all this in a news piece may not be the best decision for FIRST or for the news outlet doing the story (Remember, it's their jobs to make a story that will be most interesting to the largest number of people). It's much easier for the public to understand what were doing if it's presented as a competition. I think most people just find the competition aspects of FIRST more easy to relate to (Probably anyone who's been on a FIRST team has been asked the question- "So, is this like that BattleBots on TV".)

What I can say from experience - after all the news coverage our team has been given in the past few years (reports from regionals, coverage of kickoff and ship day, coverage of various community events, even a live local reporter from Atlanta last year), we have managed to get the attention of almost everyone in the community. And now that our community is interested and know the basic principle's of FIRST (the competition), it makes it far easier for our team to convey all the non-competition aspects of FIRST at all our community events, presentations, etc.