A Responsible Press Office: an Insider's Guide
Table of Contents:
- What a Press Office Does
- What a press office is and is not
- Journalists and government press officials
- The duty of dealing with the press
- The Job of the Press Officer
- Roles of the press spokesperson
- Establishing the press officer job
- Authority and coordination
- Relationships with other press offices
- A credible spokesperson
- The Press Office at Work
- Thinking long term and short term
- Dividing up the work
- Day-to-day activities of the press office
- Meetings
- Press clippings and news monitoring
- Phone calls
- Putting workers where the work is
- The need for coordination
- The Communications Plan
- The message starts with the leader
- Creating a communications plan
- Working out a media campaign
- Message Development
- Tools of the Press Office
- Press Releases, Media Advisories, and Fact Sheets: A Closer Look
- Press releases
- Media advisories
- Fact sheets
- Interviews: A Closer Look
- Assessing the interview request
- Establishing ground rules
- Once the interview is agreed to
- During the interview
- Staying focused
- Being effective on television
- After the interview
- Press Conferences
- Before the press conference
- If the press conference is off site
- During the press conference
- After the press conference
- Crisis Communications
- Before a crisis
- During a crisis
- After a crisis
- Event Planning
- Planning for an inside event
- Planning for an outside event
- Ethics: Codes of Conduct
About the Author:
Marguerite H. Sullivan is a public affairs and communications specialist. She began her career as a reporter and colmnist for Copley News Service and then served as an editor of The Washington Woman magazine from 1984 to 1986.
Ms. Sullivan moved into the political arena in 1986, as director of communications for the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 1991, she became part of the White House staff, where she was assistant to Vice President Dan Quayle in the administration of President George Bush (1989-1993) and chief of staff and press secretary to Marilyn Quayle, wife of the vice president. She subsequently worked in state government as a cabinet member and director of federal liaison for then New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman.
During the 2000 U.S. presidential campaign, Ms. Sullivan was chief of staff and press secretary to Lynne Cheney, wife of the Vice President Dick Cheney. She is currently vice president for communications and external affairs with the International Republican Institute, a private nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing democracy worldwide.
From the Author:
Over the past several years, I've had the pleasure of traveling to various Central European and Eurasian countries as a participant in the U.S. State Department's Speakers Program. On these trips, I've met with many government officials and, based on my experience both as a reporter and as a spokesperson for several U.S. government organizations, have advised them on how to run an effective public affairs operation.
This book is a direct response to the many questions I've been asked while on these trips. It has been written as a sort of pocket guide for government leaders and public information officials who want to create an effective mechanism of communication between the press and the government. The choice of material reflects issues raised by these spokespersons, both in terms of the specific topics addressed and the level of detail provided.
The questions discussed here are certainly not unique to anyone part of the world; most are the same as or similar to questions I've been asked in the United States and other countries. How do I deal with the press during a crisis situation? How do I develop the message that the government official for whom I work wants people to understand and accept? How do I assess an interview request? How do I set up a press conference? How do I combine a press office's need for a long-term communications strategy with its responsibility for working with the press on a daily basis? How friendly can and should government spokespersons and journalists be?
One topic that this book does not include but about which I've fielded many questions is "sunshine laws" --or the Freedom of Information Act and open meeting requirements-in the United States. For information on this subject, I would refer the reader to the booklets Transparency in Government and Democracy Paper # 10: The People's Right to Know, prepared by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Information Programs.
The material in this "insider's guide" also reflects my own working experiences in the United States. I have observed how a government communicates from the outside, as a reporter and columnist covering government, and from the inside, as a government spokes- person working with journalists. As a journalist, I reported on government at all levels-from the local to the national. As a government spokesperson, I responded to and worked with members of the regional, national, and international press. And as president of the Washington Press Club and an official in several government executive groups, I learned firsthand the importance of professional organizations through which you can share experiences, problems, and successes with your peers.
Finally, both inside and outside the United States, I have observed how important the roles of government spokespersons and journalists are in a democratic society-and how they can work together to communicate information about government to the citizenry and respond to their concerns.
Marguerite H. Sullivan
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