Connecting with media– ch. 5 and 7

I read through Chapter 5, and it was a good overview of how the media climate has changed in today’s world. I think this is pretty obvious to us, as we are all tweeting, blogging, etc. What I gleaned from the chapter is, though other media are still relevant, the internet is king, and as strategic communicators we need to learn to utilize it effectively.

Chapter 7 is pretty extensive set of practical knowledge for connecting with media that is overall informative and more relevant to our proceeding with our projects in this class. As we begin working on our projects and needing promotion, pitching something to our campus media (for the on campus event people) or local media (for the REP people) will be important. For example, the chapter stressed the importance of relationships with journalists. I’m sure several of us know people who work on either the Tiger or CTV and can use those relationships to leverage coverage for our programs.

The chapter goes into how to approach pitching something to a variety of media sources—television, radio, magazines, and the tried and true newspaper. One part that seemed interesting to me was about the Op-Ed section of the newspaper because I just read an article about non-profits utilizing an Op-Ed in a newspaper or online news. From working at two newspapers, I think the editorial/ opinion section still has a strong presence in the publication, though it can be polarizing: some people hate it, some people really love it. The main thing is you can have a little more fire and passion, though still within control, and more personal perspective, than the coverage that an article written by a reporter may give you. When you think about it though, the people who read op-eds usually have a vested interest in political and social issues and it could be a good way for a non-profit to promote both itself and its cause. Anyway, the Op-Ed is not as relevant to us necessarily, but it stood out to me as something of interest.