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MEDIA MATTERS

WORKSHOP NUMBER 135

Patricia Feeny
Oregon Department of Human Services
500 Summer Street, NE
Salem, OR 97310

MEDIA MATTERS

Child protection service agencies may be the least understood of all public systems. On the one hand, we are overly intrusive because we remove a child at risk from his home. On the other, a child dies of abuse or neglect and we are criticized for not doing enough.

What do we do? Ignore the media and hope they go away? Hide behind confidentiality? Or do we lament the unfairness of harsh reporting? We are not that different from other high-risk organizations. Patients die every day at hospitals. The hospitals remain open. Boeing airplanes have crashed. Planes continue to fly. Remember the Challenger? NASA still launches space shuttles.

But because we are talking about children--often very young children - we are held more accountable. This also works for us.

With every negative story that comes our way, we have an opportunity to educate, to set the record straight and to restore public confidence.

Using news clips, videos, radio sound-bites and first hand accounts of the successes and failures of a public information officer, this workshop focuses on the unique concerns, challenges, and strategies of working with the media around child protection issues. Topics explored include:

• Finding the Good News In Child Protection Services
• Confidentiality: What to Say When You Can't Say Anything
• The Importance of Telling Your Story FIrst
• Crisis Communication: How to Develop a Plan
• The Role and Importance of a Public Information Officer
• Answering the Tough Questions
• Coordinating Release of Information With Partners
• "We Can Handle Bad News But No Surprises" Philosophy
• Daily Strategies for Managing Media Communications
• Building Professional Relationships with Reporters and Editors

The media has great power to shape the public's view and the way we do our work in children's social services. Public relations techniques, once shunned by the public sector, are now used by many social service entities. If social service agencies do not proactively market their own message, they will not only fall behind the pack, but will remain a steady target of negative publicity.

The $46 billion newspaper industry has strong impact. Sixty million newspapers are sold every day with an average of 2.29 readers per copy. Add to this radio, television and now Internet and cable, which are growing exponentially.

We need to tell the public who we are and what we do. Public knowledge is vital to our success.

Updated on July 3, 2008