Talking Media with Todd Stone of Rapp Strategies, Inc.

The pandemic is forcing organizations large and small to adapt their internal and external outreach to communicate from safe distances. No doubt, we have mastered the art of Zoom or WeChat to help make up for the lack of personal interactions.

Still, screen time has its limitations. The lack of personal interactions – meeting over coffee or bumping into someone in a downtown skyway – impedes the relationship-building that can help you advance good ideas and effective policy. After all, how can we make introductions and critical connections when physical distance is the safe and responsible thing to do?

In response, communications strategies have intensified in the digital realm – more social media, newsletters, emails, and yes, more virtual chats – to try to connect, influence and move forward. And yet, there’s an important part of external communications that shouldn’t be overlooked – news media.

I’m not suggesting that a story pitch can replace a lunch meeting. But it’s easy to underestimate the value of traditional news organizations when executing a strong public affairs plan.

At Rapp Strategies, we help organizations advance good ideas in areas such as public health, education, energy and economic growth. Our work begins by deepening our understanding of a client’s goals, issues and key audiences. We then develop strategies for engaging influencers. Often, traditional media can play an impactful role.

No matter their original platform – print, TV, radio, etc. – news organizations have expanded their digital outreach through websites, apps, video, podcasts and social media. As a result, news organizations are more multi-faceted than they were a decade ago and deliver a wider range of audiences.

You can reach key targets through the media as well – whether it’s a specific profession, community or demographic group. News organizations know how to cultivate audience segments that you can reach through aggregation and by building strong connections that can lead to your story becoming part of a news story.

To take that step, developing professional relationships with news organizations helps, but it’s not as easy during a pandemic. If you haven’t recently, you should take an inventory of your ongoing media relationships. Who have you worked with in the past? What are they doing today? You never know who has moved on or if roles within the newsroom have changed.

Building a professional relationship with media groups doesn’t have to be a one-way street – where you ask for some kind of news coverage and hope you get it. That’s a strategy for playing checkers. But if we’re playing chess (By the way, The Queen’s Gambit is excellent), then consider what you can do to be a resource for journalists.

Take it from someone who was in the news business for 20-plus years, reporters and editors are always looking for reliable sources of good information. You can be a credible source by sharing interesting story ideas, providing updates about your work, offering an expert voice on an emerging issue, sharing fact-based research, and of course, always returning phone calls and emails promptly.

When you think about it, those are good steps to take beyond your media relationships. Whether your target is journalists, lawmakers, or influencers, you should strive to make yourself a resource for cultivating and expanding good ideas. After all, we always find ways to stay connected with those we need the most, especially during a pandemic.

Todd Stone is the senior director at Rapp Strategies and leads the firm’s media relations work. He served in editing positions at five of the 30 largest daily newspapers in the U.S. and regularly writes for the Rapp Strategies blog. You can reach him at toddstone@rappstrategies.com.