I got a bit frustrated when the Rochester media carried nothing about the great accomplishments of all our teams (local and remote) at both the FRC and the Chesapeake regional. So I wrote a little blog article on the “Lamentable state of media in Rochester, NY” in my Rochester Startups blog. I encourage you to read and comment on it, and pass it along. I am looking for real positive suggestions for how to raise the bar for media coverage of ALL academic competitions - not just FIRST. I will collect these strategies and put together a plan for help. Until this culture learns to value academics as much as they do athletics our country(s) are not going to be the competitive powerhouse we once were:
How can we be sure that our community is known for the fantastic kids, mentors and parents we have who don’t happen to enjoy baseball or football (or enjoy them along with their academic achievments) but would rather create the next generation of scientists, programmers, and engineers?
You’re asking how to be acknowledged for what you do? The first step is, of course, to be visible. You need to have your team recognized as doing things – community service projects, technical assistance for festivals, demonstrations at regional fairs, etc. You need to emphasize a connection between your team and your community.
How can you win a Regional Chairman’s Award at Chesapeake without having a good team-community partnership?
I understand his frustration. Here academics/achievements gets put in the Thursday paper stuck in the middle of the People section under a small heading called Brain Games.
A couple of years ago, our animation team made it to the top 5 and were heading for Atlanta, when I called the Rockford paper. He asked about how the robot did that year. I told him we had made it to quarter finals at one regional and semi finals at another.
So --on Thursday in the middle of the People section – was a small headline that read “Bago Bot Falls in Regionals”. Halfway down the section it talked about how we had made it to the top 5 in animations.
We were hoping that this year since both the Rockford team and our team won at Wisconsin, that we could finally get them to put something in, but I haven’t seen anything yet.
However, our small town (pop. 3000) paper has been wonderful about putting in articles about our team and their projects.
Our team was mentioned in the paper when we appeared on ABC’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition, I don’t remember much about the article since I wasn’t on the team at that time.
Thanks for your comments. Of course we as a team DO have a good relationship with the media, compared to other teams. As you can see from the blog entry outlinks - we did have recognition for our year-round effort in the paper (I even provided links to the stories) throughout the year, and that our team does ALL those things and more. We were featured on 3 different TV stations, 2 different papers on multiple occasions, and numerous blogs, etc.
We even had an online story with video and pictures published about us in the lead-up to the competition, and have had several stories in different venues throughout the year. We were the ones that arranged for a reporter and photographer from the local paper to come to FRC and guided them through the process of getting a press pass and when would be the best times to come photograph. Pictures made it into the online edition, but nothing went in the paper after the event, and there was no coverage of the winners.
I’d consider our TEAM-COMMUNITY link strong. Unfortunately I can’t say the same about our SPORT(as a whole)-COMMUNITY link. We press released we were going to Chesapeake and press released as soon as we got back. The paper’s reaction? Nada. No coverage of the results of the event, or the results of our team. I am just as outraged at the treatment of FLR’s Chairman’s award winner as I am about ours, and strongly suspect that this is an endemic and cultural problem with media across the nation (with the possible exception of local newspapers in smaller towns).
I’m not talking about the recognition for our team (which compared to many other teams in the area has been phenomenal - mostly because of the outreach that won us the award in Chesapeake). This is the more systemic problem of having our team sport and other team’s academic achievements be ignored by the media, while they waste space on athletics. I see the same treatment given to Science Olympiad, Mathletes, Odyssey of the Mind, etc.
There is no way that a local sports team would make it to an international championship and have it NOT be covered with at least 1/2 page coverage (including the results) in the sports section.
So, rant over (and I just repeated most of the stuff you could read in the blog post), I’m looking for positive suggestions for engaging media at a more systemic level to enhance coverage of all academic team events, and to devote the resources and coverage to these teams that they deserve. MadeAtMidnight gets it - it’s about achieving visibility and recognition for the sport as a whole - not for our team.
Specifically:
Do we work more together with other academic competitions to try to pool resources and apply more pressure to media representatives for better coverage, or is it better for each organization to work alone?
Is it productive to engage directly with the main editor of the paper, or is it strategically better to work through one of the sub-departments?
Has anyone had success stories for getting better coverage for the regional and/or national events and if so - how did you go about approaching the paper/tv/news station about the event that worked?
Are there resources at FIRST that we’re not tapping into that could help us?
Are there things WE can do for FIRST that would help them do a better job of getting coverage at the Regionals?
My corporate sub-team’s goal and mission for the next year is to get better more thorough coverage of academic team achievements in my region for FIRST and other academic teams. I’m not yet sure HOW I’m going to do it but I sure would like some ideas. Enquiring minds want to know
This is right down my alley…
First off, I’ve done a lot of media work in the Boston area the past few years, trying to get FIRST as much coverage as possible. So these are my tips to you:
Press releases won’t do you much good unless they truly appeal to the press. When publishing a story, a paper wants an angle, something interesting to get and hold the attention of their readers. Sometimes you can get a blurb in about an accomplishment, but the stories with more “meat,” so to speak, have a backstory. Unless you have a very sympathetic editor, like I did last year when 348 did well at the CMP, find something unique about your accomplishments. Are you dedicating your year to someone? Have you overcome adversity? Gained sponsors because of your actions? Done extensive, visible, work in the community?
Don’t be discouraged by making it online, but not in print. There are a LOT more readers on the web now, and, unfortunately, the newspaper is in its decline due to the accessibility and often gratis news on the web.
As for who to contact, I think it depends upon the size of the publication. With the Boston Globe, running it by each of the “weekly” departments (who cater to different areas of eastern MA), was the best choice. I also had the opportunity to meet with the editor of Boston.com, the online Globe, and got to present FIRST and pitch why it should be covered. Telling a personal story to bridge the gap between “robotics event” and “inspiring experience” may come in to play here. The editor I spoke with was moved to tears, and promised full coverage.
Papers, more often than not, won’t come to you. However, you can always go to them. I would not recommend approaching them just to say you did well, but have a story idea developed, even if in essence it is just about you guys doing well. They’ll appreciate the extra work thrown into just that.
The papers know the sports teams will pull in more readers and therefore will publish them. We know the climate is changing, though, but it won’t be overnight. Over the past two years, BostonFIRST has received a very good amount of coverage, but it has taken a bit of persistence.
Relax a bit, first. This is an incredibly fickle business. I’ve been promised FIRST coverage before and it has fallen through. You never quite know.
And now…I’m late for class , but I’ll revise and try to help a bit more later.
You’re more than welcome to PM me to talk more about media relations.
Christina,
Thanks for your excellent suggestions. Could you post a couple of example PR releases that we could model after (obviously we’d have to change the names and stories to protect the innocent). I’d like to compare them to what we’ve been putting out.
I do marketing and PR for my own company but I’m certainly not formally trained in it
Cheers and thanks again for the help,
Lee
We will have a story covering both teams (I believe) in the Rockford Register Star hopefully prior to we go to Atlanta. I know we were able to get something run during the 2007 build season as well. We are trying to get a reporter to our meeting this Thursday night.
That would be excellent!