Making Friends With the Media

Making friends with the media takes some simple P's - professionalism and personableness. Some of the things to do seem so simple that it's a wonder why more amateur sports organizations don't do them. All it takes is a telephone, a typewriter/ word processor/computer, and access to a fax. Please note that as most sports directors and editors are male, I'll be using the male gender in this article.

You know how to write a press release. Now what do you do with it? Before the rugby season begins, you will want to fax your club's schedule to the sports department of each television station and the local daily newspaper, highlighting any special match or club event that is upcoming in the season ahead. Call each television station that has a sports department and ask the receptionist for the name of the sports director and the weekend sportscaster, as well as the fax number of the sports department. Chances are, they'll be sharing the fax that's in the news room. The sports director will usually be the person whom you see doing the sports Monday through Friday. He usually gets the choice interviews, the national stories, the best of the sports to report. The weekend person usually works Wednesday through Sunday. He's on the air on Saturday and Sunday. What does he do the other three nights? He's out getting sports-related local stories for his weekend newscast. This is the person who will usually be coming out to shoot some video at your club's practice. Aim your publicity efforts at him, although keep the faxes coming to the sports director, too. Please note that I don't fax the TV stations with each week's match. They won't really care. I fax these stations with our season schedule and news of any upcoming special event or big match. If I fax them weekly, the truly newsworthy events will go right by them.

For newspapers, call the sports editor (get his name first, even if you have to call one of the operators at the newspaper) and ask him to whom you can fax announcements about your home games each Friday for inclusion in Saturday's sports section. Our local paper here, The Virginian-Pilot, assigns me to a person each season. I know that each Friday this is the man to whom I will fax my match announcement, followed up with a phone call to the person to make sure he received the fax. Also ask the sports editor to whom you can fax the match results on Saturday evening.

Make sure that you keep everything short and concise. When you fax your match announcement, keep it to two sentences; three at most. You'll be lucky if the paper prints one sentence. The same with the match report. No daily is going to be concerned with any type of play-by-play, half-page press release. Our paper here has a column usually found on page 4 or 6 of the sports section that has one or two paragraph short stories of sports events not "worthy" of a regular story. Here is where rugby ends up - if there's space. I make sure that I fax my story to the person in charge of this column - it changes responsibility weekly. I fax my report to the Sports Briefs (the "inside" name of the column). After I fax my story, I call the sports department and ask for this person. For the Briefs, I simply ask for the person who's writing the Briefs. I don't know who he is nor do I have to. I simply tell him who I am and ask him if he received my fax a minute ago. Simple.

When you fax match results and do your telephone follow-up, you may find that you're given to the same person week after week. Sometimes this person is busy; sometimes bored. Get to know this person during his slow times. Usually you'll find that this person is starting to take an interest in you. Perhaps psychologically he feels an "ownership" toward your sport. Whatever, be personable toward him and ALWAYS thank him for whatever can be done for your story. One of our members has made it a policy each fall to fax in the Virginia Rugby Union standings on Sunday evenings. One of the sports room gents has made this "his" project to fit it in the Monday's sports section, including where and when the following Saturday's Division I matches will be played. Also, these sports room people have good memories. Yearly, I get three or four calls from people who have moved to the area and are looking to hook up with a rugby club. How'd they find me? They called the newspaper's sports department and, although there's another rugby club in our area, our club gets the referral.

For truly newsworthy events, make sure that you fax everyone on your list and give them a follow-up call. If you haven't been bombarding them with weekly drivel, chances are that someone will wake up and take notice when you call. I have my weekly fax list - the daily newspaper's sports department and the weeklies - and my special events list - the daily newspaper and weeklies, the TV sportscasters, the people in the community who may be interested in the sport (perhaps a potential sponsor?), the local TV sports show producers (usually found on the local cable access station), and someone who's British, Irish, or from down under and has any remote connection with the media. Don't let a stone go unturned! The following is an example.

Yearly, Norfolk, Virginia has a week-long celebration of NATO called the Azalea Festival. This year, the honored NATO nation was England. The sports chairman of the Azalea Fest, a TV director at the local CBS affiliate, had a thought that since rugby is an English sport, maybe there was some rugby around here. He asked an English gentleman, who produces a local late Saturday night entertainment TV show at the station, if he knew of any rugby in the area. The gent pulled from his locker an old press release of mine (he's English and has a connection with the media, remember?) and handed it to the director. Later that day, I received a call. Would our club like to be a part of the Azalea Festival, playing the RAF Select XV, with some event money thrown in to boot? The rest is history. As I mentioned in the press release article, we got in the newspaper, got on all three TV stations' sports reports for the day, and two of us got to be on two local TV sports shows. Even the English TV producer came out to practice and did a story about the club. An old press release to someone English in the media opened the door.

For such newsworthy events, this is the time to send the beefed-up, glorified press release. Remember to put as much concise information right up front, after an attention-getting headline. Then in the paragraphs that follow, make sure your language is professional, interesting (use a good thesaurus for adjectives), and in laymen's terms. Think like an American, not like a Brit. Write in American English, not British English. What, you didn't know that you speak British English? What are tries, drop goals, penalty kicks, dead ball lines, drop outs, being in touch? These aren't American football terms! As mentioned in the press release article, write so that any ignorant American will understand what you're saying.

When you send the press release of an important event, make sure that you follow it up with a telephone call. Again, if you haven't been bothering the press with a constant barrage of routine rugby matters ("But sir, we're playing the East Moosejaw XV for third place in our Local Area Union this Saturday!"), you will get the opportunity to verbally put forth your case of the importance and newsworthiness of your special event. If you keep in mind that you shouldn't expect too much, you won't be disappointed with a turn-down, but will be extremely grateful. Express it - for what little or much you do get.

If you do not have access to a fax, mail your press releases. For "fax-less" match announcements and match reports, call these in to the newspaper. For match reports, some sports department personnel like only the information and then they will write the short article. Others would rather have you call in the short article itself. Whichever, be prepared with simply the facts (the teams, where they played, the score, and who scored the most points or was man/woman of the match) as well as a two or three sentence article. If the latter, make sure that you work in when and where the next home match will be. Once again, be concise. If your club had 40 points scored by 5 different people, don't give the entire list of who scored what.

Read the TV column in your newspaper. Here is where you will find the first report of any of the sportscasters planning to change jobs. You don't want to be faxing stories to someone long gone. This lets the remaining sportscaster know that you are not watching his station.

Chances are, your daily newspaper has some sort of weekend events listings in Thursday or Friday's edition. Fax your home games information to this and get a free listing.

Don't forget the weeklies. There are usually loads of them around, with plenty of event listings opportunities for you. One such weekly here, which is really a "what's going on around town for the arts" type of magazine, has run articles on our club twice because match announcements had been sent to it's calendar of events and they caught the eye of one of the staff's writers.

Under weeklies, some daily newspapers have local supplements. We've gotten good articles in the past from the local sports editor of this supplement, which goes to Norfolk homes only, instead of all the surrounding 5 cities that the daily goes to. Learn before the season starts who this editor is and follow the above recommendations.

Going on a local TV sports show? It is of utmost importance to bring along plenty of video action! Most sports shows would prefer the footage to be on anything other than VHS, with 3/4 inch and betacam SP being the most popular. However, all local sports show producers realize that most of us are laymen and not television professionals, so they take what they can get. These producers realize - and so should you - that a half-hour of talking heads is interrupted only by the sound of TV sets being turned off or channels being switched in homes around the area! Plenty of rugby action on video - yes, even the slightly blurry VHS in your home collection that a friend overseas sent you on the PAL standard and took you two months to find a PAL to NTSC converter - is better than 30 minutes of talk. For a recent local TV sports show, I brought along one of our combined services select side players (and introduced him on-air as a military All-American - what's a select side player to a layman?), and footage of the 1994 Five Nations, our local club in action (which another local TV sports show had shot two years earlier), Gareth Edwards in 4 action clips, the U.S. Eagles scoring their only try vs. Ireland last fall, the U.S. Eagles scoring a long one vs. The Netherlands in the 1993 World Cup 7's, and the All Blacks haka. Phew! Remember to go over with the show's host/producer a few days beforehand what you will be bringing. You will always be asked to show up early so that the editor can edit your clips together on another tape. Make sure that you tell the editor if you want the audio from the clips included. You will more than likely be talking over the video, explaining to the viewers what is happening on-screen. Also, a couple of days before the show, fax the host a bio of yourself and any guest you are bringing, as well as questions he can ask you on-air. I can guarantee that your host knows nothing about rugby. How will he know what to ask if he doesn't know? Here's your chance to educate the TV public ("What are the ways you can score in rugby?") as well as let your club shine ("How can potential sponsors or new players get in touch with your club? What can your club do for a sponsor?").

Want to get even friendlier with the media, other than by doing the professional things right? Try getting close to the sports gatekeepers in your area. Three years ago, we invited the weekend sportscaster from one of the local network TV affiliates to be our year-end banquet speaker. He was informed that for $75, we wanted him to speak for 10-15 minutes and then hand out the trophies as the club's president called out the names. Instead, he told two blue jokes, one lawyer joke, talked for 2 minutes about his exposure to rugby from the past, and then stood back with one hand in his pocket and a drink in the other while the president did both the reading and the presenting. When I left to go home at the end of the evening, he was still replenishing his drink at the club's expense! Strike one!

The next year, we invited the new sports editor of the daily newspaper. He was thrilled to be asked and for $75 he gave us a tremendous speech and hosted a question-and-answer forum as to why rugby didn't get tremendous coverage. I also made sure that I knew his favorite sport was high school wrestling - he had been active in it in high school - so I made sure that he met our club's hooker, who just happened to be the wrestling coach at one of the area high schools. This time, when I left to go home, the sports editor was in his second hour of talking wrestling with our hooker and broke away long enough to profusely thank me for inviting him to come! Home run! Our club had made a powerful friend!

See if any of your club members has a press connection. It turned out that one of our members drank at the same after-hours club as one of the area's sportscasters. They got friendly over the months and our club ended up being the final story on each Saturday night's sportscast for a year, until our member ceased attending the club. Also, one of the local TV sportscasters recently married the sister of one of our old boys. We soon got a story done about our rugby club for his 6PM sportscast!

Please remember that news space is shrinking. Your daily newspaper is much smaller in the number of pages today than it was five years ago and it will keep getting smaller. Be appreciative of what little you are given and tell the sports editor so. As he sees what a nice person you are - you're grateful and understanding - you may soon find that you are getting in his good graces and that your club is starting to receive a little more space. However, just because news space is limited, don't give up pushing your publicity efforts. Just be realistic in your expectations and thankful for what you get. If you grouse or complain to the sports editor, you can expect to see less of your club in the paper.

Above all, be consistent with your publicity. You will make and keep friends in the media if you are consistent. Earlier this year, my club played in some tough tournaments early in the season and ended up losing its first five games. The sports editor of the daily called me, complaining that he hadn't seen anything on rugby in his paper on Sundays recently. I explained the five losses to him. His answer taught me a powerful and quick lesson: "Hey, look! I make space possible to you each week and I want my readers to come to know that they will see rugby stories regularly in the Sunday paper! If you won't be consistent, there's a whole lot of other amateur sports out there waiting for that space and I'll give it to one of them! Get your stories in!!!" Yes sir! How nice - a friend in the media!