Hello, I’m Jack
A former UK print news reporter, I have been providing media relations to NGOs since 2007, mainly those working to strengthen EU law and enforcement. Winning media attention is mostly about optimising content and getting it seen by the right journalists at the right time. Fan The Frames is a play on the expression ‘fan the flames’, meaning to amplify. Politics being downstream of culture, I believe that sustained progress for NGOs comes from promoting frames that improve public perception and political support for our goals. But most NGOs simply need mainstream media attention, fast. Below are the methods I prefer to achieve that. I also offer reviews of NGO media operations and other communications services.
A fluid kick-off
I need to understand your goals, the planned intervention (be it a report, polling results, protest plans, celebrity intervention, artistic splash, court case etc), the timing and how you like to work. A free-of-charge kick off call allows for a fluid exchange on all this and I’m happy to sign an NDA in advance if you wish. I can offer some immediate thoughts on how successful we are likely to be and roughly how much work I think will be needed to secure that. A big part of that estimate depends on how media friendly your written materials are, so I can follow-up with an assessment of those. Ideally though, you have come to me very early in the process so that we can shape the intervention together to maximise its media potential.
Getting on the same page
Clarity is king for busy news reporters and a press release (PR) allows them to quickly understand and evaluate the news value of your intervention. A PR is also useful in getting policy, comms and even whole coalitions, on the same page. It also surfaces ambiguities, logic gaps and major unanswered questions so that we are fully prepared for a potential storm of media interest. A technical piece of writing, a PR must serve journalists before any other audiences, or it could fail. It therefore must be written by a media specialist alone, with all others providing comments rather than edits, until they are satisfied that the tone, accuracy and strategic aspects are met. Sign off can be difficult and time-consuming, but results in a truly useful document. Trying to write a PR and setting a launch date while the primary content is still being drafted is a recipe for failure.
Media outreach
If we can agree a strong and sharp press release, I will be happy to reach out to a large base of mainstream reporters I am in touch with, mainly across Europe. In the unlikely event that we end up with a compromised / soft PR, I will be reluctant to share this with my contacts and may instead ask you to take over this media outreach. Most of my 3,000 or so contacts cover environment, health, science, business, EU or consumer affairs. If your content falls outside these newsroom categories, I may need to spend additional time identifying the most suitable press contacts in your priority countries. I ask for at least 6 working days to share with media contacts the fully signed-off content (PR, report or briefing, visuals), under embargo, preferably with professional translations of the PR. The less time you give me, the fewer confirmations I will manage to secure. That said, hot stories will ‘sell’ quickly and there is the possibility to broadcast the story without exclusives. Reactives, photo-calls and protests operate differently.
Making the most of media exposure
As launch day approaches, I will get an idea of how big a news story your intervention will become. We can then decide whether you want me to provide TV and radio interview training to make the most of the upcoming wave of media interest. I will track the results in all languages and provide regular reports on any push-back the story is getting, from industry or officials for example, which can in turn inform how we approach interviews. I can co-ordinate the distribution of interview requests among your staff or act as a spokesman for short media interviews in English for print, TV or radio, if you wish.
I’m really happy to jump on a call, without charge, to hear what you are up to and offer a quick assessment of the media potential. So please…
