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As dancers, we spend enormous energy on the image we want
to present - from costuming and makeup to dance stylizations
and venue choice. So after all this effort, it is hard to accept
that the media can influence our public image – for good
or for bad – and we can’t do much about it.
Or can we?
Well, the media is made up of people, and people can be influenced.
Smart dancers who care about their image need to find ways to
work with their local media. Below I’ve outlined some tips,
gleaned from my years in the newsroom.
The most challenging papers to work with will be college and
small-market papers due to the general lack of reporting experience.
The college reporters are inexperienced and the reporting beats
usually change every semester, so it’s hard to build relationships
with them. The small-market reporters may be cub reporters as
well – small-market papers owned by large chains are sometimes
seen as training grounds.
To give some context on the amount of time a reporter at a
small-market paper might spend on your story: one paper I worked
at required us to file 10 stories a week, so the process was:
think of story idea/angle, research story background, find multiple
sources, interview them, write to requested length and file –
twice a day.
To improve coverage, here are some ideas:
- Relationships. Develop relationships with reporters,
yes, but also the editors because on these papers they are likely
to stick around longer.
- Time-Sensitive. Pitch story ideas that have a time-based
element. An editor will challenge the reporter: “Why should
we run this story today?” The “hook” for a time-based
story could be a dance event or the opening of class enrollment.
Write a press release and get it to your intended contact two
weeks in advance if you can. Include a fact sheet about bellydance
so reporters can validate and write some background material
before they get to your event, and prepare some intelligent questions
for you (we hope). Most reporters would view bellydance history
as background material to fill out the story - it is not lead
material because there is nothing timely about it. Stories without
a specific temporal element need to have a strong angle. They
would most likely be pitched to the features editor, e.g. suggest
a story about students with unusual part-time jobs (one of whom
is a bellydancer).
- Angle. Prepare an angle or two that you want to talk
about to the reporter. It needs to be different from background
material. If after the interviews the reporter doesn’t come
up with a strong angle, he/she will fall back on the descriptive
lead: “The room full of brightly bedecked dancers swayed
and shimmied in the golden glow of the afternoon sun.” Arghh!
Not original – and also redundant if there are some good
photos accompanying the story.
- Don’t Take Bait. Journalism students are taught
to seek out multiple perspectives on a story. That’s different
from seeking out conflict or drama; however, if their bellydancing
source gets fired up about being questioned about a bellydancing/stripping
connection and starts giving good quotes around it, the reporter
will think that they have discovered an interesting angle. As
one dancer says, “If you don’t want them to write about
it, don’t talk about it,” and she is 200% correct.
The rock artist Warren Zevon was considered a master at directing
experienced reporters to only the subjects he wanted to discuss.
Anything else was met with a “hmm” or a shrug. It’s
hard to craft something out of hmms and shrugs.
- Be Quotable. Most reporters are generalists, not specialists,
and certainly not in the field of bellydance. So, think through
some sound bites that you could throw out that will illustrate
your angle. If you’re bringing in a famous guest instructor
for example, you could say “she is like the Elvis or Pavarotti
or whomever of bellydance” – just to give some sort
of reference that makes sense to a non-specialist. Also, a reporter
won’t let you see the story before it goes to print, but
you can ask them to read back to you any direct quotes from you
that they are thinking of using.
- Press Releases. Journalism students are taught to
never submit press release copy as news copy – they are
expected to rewrite any PR copy if they use it. However, when
I crossed over to the dark side of PR and advertising, I found
that if I wrote a press release exactly in the form of a news
story (lead, nut graph, quotes, background, etc.), small papers
would print it verbatim.
- Timing. Sundays are the slowest news day; thus you
have a better chance at pictures and a longer story if your event
is on Sunday than any other day of the week. Saturday night doesn’t
count, because the traditional news cycle is 24 hours, even if
the paper (like a college paper) doesn’t publish Sundays.
- Photos. Don’t forget to tell the reporter that
the photographer can get fantastic action shots at your event.
Photos make it more likely that the editor will showcase your
story in the layout – however the down side is that they
might shorten the actual story to also fit the photos into the
news hole.
And in the “it can’t hurt” category:
- Go above and beyond as a good source. Most reporters wake
up wondering what they are going to write about that day. If
you have lots of contacts in other areas, e.g. the local Arab
community, you could be helpful there as well – for example,
at the end of Ramadan you could call them up say, “Hey did
you know… are you going to do a story on it?” and if
so you could suggest sources to whom they can talk. This is just
to keep you in mind for them as a reliable, helpful source.
I hope these tips help you in your dealings with the media.
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