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In conclusion, Chandler said, “You’ll know what it is about.” Be pre

pared for hard questions, he advised, and you better have answers. “If

you don’t know, we’re going to show it.”

The Behavior Research Institute followed the example of Illinois

Power when CBS asked for its cooperation with Eye to Eye with Connie

Chung. Its experience is described in Box 4.4.

Impose a News Boycott or “Freeze-Out”

Imposing a news boycott is an extreme response to perceived unfair

treatment by the media. When the Electric Boat Division of General

112 I CHAPTER 4

Box 4.4 Behavior Research Institute Does Not See “Eye to Eye

With Connie Chung”

The Behavior Research Institute (BRI) reluctantly decided to allow an in-

vestigation of its services by CBS’s Eye to Eye With Connie Chung.The

Providence, Rhode Island, institute feared that Connie Chung was al-

ready predisposed to accept allegations against it and to discredit it.

The institute felt that its residential treatment center was vulnerable be-

cause it treats mentally retarded and autistic individuals with extreme

behavior disorders, some of whom have been classified as “hopeless.”

Some individuals are prone to self-abuse to the point of gouging out

their own eyes, ripping out pieces of their throats, or banging their

heads on the floor. Therapy is consequently severe and can take the

form of an electric shock applied to a patient’s arm or leg.

So the institute faced a difficult challenge: “How does an organiza-

tion defend itself against false accusations from the press?” Its deci

sion was to take on Eye to Eye and CBS by telling others in the

press—convincing them that the show was a “one-sided, prefabri-

cated story meant to do little more than win ratings points.”

BRI took several actions. First, the institute invited more than 40

parents (who volunteered to be interviewed and insisted on being

present during the show’s filming) to participate in the videotaping.

Next, BRI declined to allow videotaping of patients receiving therapy

on the grounds of protecting patients’ privacy, but offered its own tape

of treatments instead. CBS responded by hiring a “plant” who filmed

the treatments with a hidden camera. The institute also wisely de

clined CBS’s request that BRI’s legal counsel be seated next to Mat

thew Israel, BRI’s executive director, while he was being interviewed.

BRI knew the attorney’s presence would imply guilt on the part of the

executive director. BRI took two final steps. It hired its own video crew

to tape the interview so that it would have a complete and accurate re

cord of what was said prior to the March 3, 1994, broadcast, and it

sent copies of these tapes to 300 media critics across the country.

Dynamics was angered by what it considered biased and unbalanced re

porting by the Day, the local newspaper, the company cut off the news

flow to the paper, even though its 18,500 Groton, Connecticut, employ

ees read the Day. General Dynamics excluded the paper from access to

any information about its activities (except the launching of subma

rines because U.S. Navy regulations required such notification), refused

to send news releases that were sent to other papers and broadcasters,

shut it out of news conferences open to other publications, and refused

to return phone calls or answer questions posed by Day reporters

.63

Mobil is another company that imposed a news boycott. Angered by

a story that the chairman’s son-in-law would benefit financially from

the company’s construction of a tower in Chicago, Mobil announced it

would no longer “have anything to do with the Wall Street Journal.”

would no longer answer any of its reporters’ questions or give them any

information.

In the field of investor relations, the freeze-out is a version of a news

boycott imposed by a company when analysts have written something

negative about it (see Box 4.5). “Basically, it’s management’s way of

punishing an analyst who is not part of the cheering squad,” says

Jullianne C. Iwerson-Niemann, senior vice president of equity research

and portfolio management at Huntleigh Securities. “What happens is

your phone calls are not returned. You’re relegated to junior people.

You’re the last on the fax list. You basically become Zachary Zilch, the

last person in the phonebook to get the message on anything. And

sometimes you have to resort to talking to other people to find out

what’s going on.”

Christopher McFadden, a Goldman Sachs Group an-

alyst, experienced the same “big chill”after he downgraded some stocks,

such as Cardinal Health and McKesson. He claims that the companies’

executives pointedly didn’t take questions from him during conference

calls. Larry Kurtz, head of investor relations for McKesson, denies this

treatment, saying, “We talk to everyone who calls us, regardless. That’s

our ethic here.”

The risk of freeze-outs and news boycotts is that analysts and report

ers have “a long memory for things like that” and will seek to punish the

company. It’s the worst thing to do, says Eugene P. Beard, vice chairman

of finance and operations at Interpublic Group of Companies, an adver

tising conglomerate. “Companies that do that will find it coming back to

haunt them.”

“Get tough” tactics, such as a boycott or freeze-out, should be used

prudently not only because some violate journalistic tradition but also

because they can backfire. For example, when the Day complained to the

National News Council about General Dynamics’ boycott, the council

sided with the newspaper, saying, “When public funds and the public in

terest are involved to such an extent in a company that employs a quar

ter of all the workers in southeastern Connecticut, the community is

ill-served by an arbitrary decision on the company’s part to withhold all

information from the chief newspaper directly serving the region.”

PROACTIVE MEDIA RELATIONS I 113

Rate Reporters

Rating reporters is a common, informal practice. It helps a company se

lect which reporters to avoid and which to favor. To rate reporters, a me

dia relations person typically reads some articles written by a reporter

or calls colleagues for their opinions. Several actions might then be

taken: Send news releases to favorably rated reporters and not to others,

select cities for a media tour where reporters in local media are friendly

toward your company and industry, or meet with low-rated reporters

to provide them with more information and, hopefully, make their sto

ries more balanced. Despite the acceptance of this practice, however,

government agencies must exercise caution. The U.S. DOE took some

heat in 1995 when the Wall Street Journal disclosed that the agency

spent $43,500 to hire a firm that ranked reporters on how favorably

they wrote about it.

The growth of electronic databases containing reporters’ stories and

the emergence of an entrepreneurial group of former journalists willing

to report on their ex-colleagues has fostered a new media evaluation in

dustry. The giant is Carma International (Computer-Aided Research &

Media Analysis) in Washington, DC, which charges $500 to $15,000 for

1 month’s analysis, depending on the number of reporters and variables

114 I CHAPTER 4

Box 4.5 Freeze-Out of Financial Reporters

Bonnie Wittenburg, a food and agriculture analyst at the Minneapolis

securities firm of Dain, Bosworth & Co. and a former reporter at the

Des Moines Register, suffered a freeze-out. For years she had recom

mended that investors buy Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM) stock.

One of her reports, 40 pages long, so pleased the company that it

mailed copies to its 34,000 shareholders. However, because of a

price-fixing investigation into the company and the resignation of

Howard G. Buffett, a director and company spokesman, she put out a

“sell” recommendation on what she called her “flagship stock.” This

act caused her stress, but it was compounded when officials at ADM

failed to return her phone calls and, in fact, refused to have anything

to do with her.

Another analyst, Christopher McFadden of the Goldman Sachs

Group, suffered a similar fate. After downgrading some pharmaceuti-

cal company stocks, he was put on hold during company conference

calls and the companies’ executives pointedly didn’t take questions

from him. The companies disputed McFadden’s notion, saying that

they were coping with numerous participants and more questions

than they could accommodate. Larry Kurtz, head of investor relations

for McKesson, said, “We talk to everyone who calls us, regardless.

That’s our ethic here.”

involved. Chuck Werle of Chicago-based Werle+Brimm Ltd. judges

journalists on a scale of 1 to10 on accuracy, verification, interview

skills, industry knowledge, balanced reporting, writing ability, integ

rity, and personality.

The beef industry used another measure. It investigated whether re

porters ate steak, which might persuade them to portray beef more fa

vorably, or whether they were vegetarians and therefore would not do

the industry much good. When the National Cattlemen’s Association

saw Tom Kenworthy, a Washington Post reporter, at the bottom of

Carma’s charts, its public affairs director arranged to discuss matters

with him and introduce him to some live cattlemen. The result: “We’re a

little bit happier with his reporting.”

Some of information about reporters can be obtained from online

media directories such as MediaMap’s Media Manager. It not only lists

reporter contacts by phone number, fax, and e-mail, but also provides

information on reporters’ background, what areas they report on, what

stories they are working on, deadlines they must meet, and how they

prefer to be contacted. Users can also obtain information on editorial

calendars, access the archive section, and read past stories written by

particular reporters that give a sense of their interests, subjects, and

writing styles. Information about most subjects can also be found on

the Internet’s huge database.

Threaten to Drop Advertising

Another way to discipline a news medium is to threaten to drop adver-

tising, thereby undermining the news organization’s commercial via-

bility. All media organizations are commercial to the extent they must

contend with the economic reality of remaining solvent. This reality has

been intensified by the current era of media concentration, which de

mands that media be profitable investments. Advertising generates the

largest revenue source of almost all media (exceptions are premium ca

ble services and the film industry). To advertisers, the media are simply

an audience delivery system.

With the advent of wider alternatives to newspaper advertising, ad

vertisers wield more bargaining power. In Detroit, car dealers who

were angry at negative news stories printed their own tabloid adver

tisements rather than advertise in local papers. Even large newspapers

respond to advertiser pressure. Car dealers in Hartford pulled their ads

from the Hartford Courant after a story was run that warned consum

ers about high-pressure sales tactics. The editor of the paper was

forced to apologize to the dealers to woo them and their advertising

dollars back to the paper.

Even public television is not immune, for businesses see it as a means

of enhancing corporate images and thereby creating a favorable climate

for marketing. For this reason, various drug companies have supported

PROACTIVE MEDIA RELATIONS I 115

shows on health care (being careful to avoid controversial health is

sues); and Boeing Corporation funded a PBS program on the president’s

plane, Air Force One, Boeing’s own product.

Companies can indirectly threaten to drop advertising through their

advertising agencies. According to Hollywood Reporter, an entertainment

industry paper, General Motors warned its advertising agencies to avoid

two episodes of the syndicated Donahue talk show that dealt with the

movie Roger & Me. The film was critical of General Motors and its chair

man, Roger B. Smith.

Require Advance Notice of Upcoming Articles

Some advertisers and retail chains demand advance notice about up

coming articles. In January 1996, Chrysler’s advertising agency sent a

letter to more than 100 magazines saying, “In an effort to avoid poten

tial conflicts, it is required that Chrysler Corporation be alerted in ad-

vance of any and all editorial content that encompasses sexual, political,

social issues or any editorial that might be construed as provocative or

offensive.”

In response, the Magazine Publishers of America and

American Society of Magazine Editors accused the company of practic-

ing a form of censorship. They issued a strong statement urging maga-

zines not to “submit tables of contents, text or photos from upcoming

issues to advertisers for prior review.” In October 1997, Chrysler, which

is the nation’s fifth-largest magazine advertiser, dropped its controver-

sial policy; but it also said, “In the end, we reserve the right to decide

where and when to place advertising.”

Some big retail stores, such as Winn-Dixie supermarkets and Wal-

Mart Stores, regularly demand advance copies of publications suspected

of containing material that might be objectionable to many of its cus-

tomers. The concerns involve nudity or lewd language and such contro-

versial subjects as abortion, homosexuality, and religion. “We serve a

broad spectrum of customers, and we don’t want to offend them,” ex

plains G. E. Clerc, Jr., a spokesman for Winn-Dixie, based in Jackson

ville, Florida.

For example, a possible objection to Cosmopolitan’s

March 1997 issue was that its cover headline included the words “His &

Her Orgasms.”

Supermarket and big discount chains have enormous power over

magazines because they control 55% of single-copy sales of U.S. maga

zines. Wal-Mart is the biggest seller, with about 9% of single-copy sales.

If an outlet judges an issue to be offensive, it might simply not carry a

specific issue or, as Dana Sacher, circulation director of Vibe, warns, “If

you don’t let them know in advance, they will delist the title and never

carry it again.”

Frank Lalli, president of the American Society of Magazine Editors,

believes publishers should not give previews to retailers. “When you

give them a look, there is the potential that people outside the magazine

will say, ‘I have a solution. Drop that cover. Change the story.’” He says

116 I CHAPTER 4

editors are “deeply concerned” about this trend, and “worries that some

advertisers may mistake an early warning” from a magazine “as an

open invitation to pressure the publisher or editor to alter, or even kill,

the article in question.” Norman Pearlstine, Time’s editor-in-chief,

warns of establishing a dangerous precedent: “When you start giving

advance looks to either advertisers or retailers you are creating oppor

tunities for censorship.”

Exercise Restraint: Procter & Gamble’s Excessive Zeal

Several other kinds of “get tough” tactics are not discussed here be

cause they are blatantly unethical or unwise. For example, Procter &

Gamble’s (P&G’s) effort to hunt down the source of a leak to the Wall

Street Journal

earned the company one of Fortune’s “10 Biggest Busi

ness Goofs” mentions.

Several articles had appeared that revealed

possible changes in top management and some troubles with its

food-and-beverage division. Saying its own internal investigation

failed to identify the leak, P&G asked Cincinnati’s fraud division to look

into what was regarded as a violation of a state criminal law that bars

anyone from giving away “articles representing trade secrets.”

Using

subpoena powers, the court ordered Cincinnati Bell to identify “all 513

area code numbers that dialed the office or home phone number of

Wall Street Journal reporter Alecia Swasy [the author of the articles]

between March 1 and June 1, 1991.” The privacy of some 655,297

home and business telephone lines was violated as at least 35 million

toll calls made in that period were searched.

To the press, this was an

indirect way of seeking to identify a news source, which in Ohio and

many other states is illegal. P&G’s CEO Edwin L. Artzt finally con-

ceded, “We made an error in judgment … we regret it … we were just

plain wrong.”

But veteran columnist William Safire observes that

while Artzt admitted to a public relations blunder, he still did not un

derstand the ethical violation of people’s rights to privacy.

MAKING NEWS IRRESISTIBLE

News can be made so attractive to journalists and editors that they can’t

resist. Two basic ways of getting a story published are: (a) making a

story newsworthy, and (b) subsidizing the media.

Create Newsworthy Stories

News is timely information of interest to many people.

Perhaps the es

sence of news is contained in the comment by a former New York Sun edi

tor who said, “When a dog bites a man, that’s not news. But if a man

bites a dog, that is news.”

From a media relations viewpoint, news is

what a reporter and editor will accept. Unfortunately, too many corpo

rate executives have a house organ mentality, thinking a story written

PROACTIVE MEDIA RELATIONS I 117

for employees would also be interesting to outsiders. Thus, as a survey

of Fortune 500 companies shows, business would like journalists to be

more interested in stories about the following topics:

• Corporate social responsibility programs.

• Environmental achievements and the need for trade-offs.

• Human side of corporate life and personal glimpses of manage

ment.

• Research, technical achievements, and innovations.

• Positions on legislative or regulatory matters.

• Employee recognition.

Some of these in-house themes may, indeed, be of interest to journal

ists if implications for the broader community and society are drawn. A

company should tap its information resources, including insights of

corporate executives and other employees. A good media relations pro-

fessional tries to keep an inventory of the special facts and perspectives

that a company is able to provide and thus become known as a valuable

source of industry information. Of course, she or he knows that the

story must be well written, meaning the five Ws—what, where, when,

who, and why—are covered and that the style and level of difficulty

meet the readability requirements of the intended audience.

Subsidize the Media

Subsidies to the media help make a submitted story irresistible. In Be-

yond Agenda Setting, Oscar H. Gandy, Jr. explained that the idea behind a

media subsidy is to reduce the “costs of access to self-serving informa-

tion.”

On a very basic level, a well-written news release or feature

story is in itself a subsidy to a newspaper, magazine, or broadcast sta-

tion because the story would otherwise have to be produced with the

medium’s personnel and other resources. Without the public relations

departments of thousands of organizations, the news media would

have to increase their staffs drastically. However, Gandy gives media

subsidies a sinister twist by saying it is most often the public relations

specialist who delivers the “undercover subsidy, where the source and

the source’s self-interest is skillfully hidden from view.”

Also reveal

ing, he feels, is that press releases follow the advice of publicists to inter

pret the significance of a story in case the editors and writers miss it.

Public relations professionals have used the following imaginative

ways to subsidize the media: (a) distributing voluminous press kits, (b)

using media distribution service companies, (c) providing video news re

leases, (d) sponsoring and citing public policy polls, and (e) creating a

website on the Internet.

Distribute Press Kits. Press kits, often enclosed in a folder or port

folio, are collections of background materials that aid a journalist in

118 I CHAPTER 4

writing a story. This information is now typically provided on an or

ganization’s website. The usual materials include photographs (of

company facilities, personnel, and products), biographies of persons

mentioned in a news release, speeches by executives, the annual report,

and other organizational data. Box 4.6 describes some of the advan

tages in distributing press kits.

Use Media Distribution Services. North American Precis Syndi

cate, Inc. (NAPS) provides releases to 1,500 dailies and 10,000 newspa

pers in all. NAPS CDs allow top dailies, Sunday, and feature editors to fill

whole pages and special sections. The radio release goes on CDs with

scripts to NAPS contacts at 6,500 stations. A Video Feature Release pro

vides broadcasters with 1-minute features.

Gandy describes how the

Business Roundtable hired this syndicate to distribute hundreds of edi

torials, cartoons, and feature stories to help defeat the establishment of

the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

According to Gandy, the

syndicate guarantees a 10% success rate for each mailing.

PROACTIVE MEDIA RELATIONS I 119

Box 4.6 Advantage in Distributing Press Kits

A study about news coverage of the environment by two journalism

professors shows that press kits and news conferences result in

greater acceptance of the source’s angle.

(They also studied whether

news selection and bias were caused by the nature of a report titled

“Toxic Clusters: Patterns of Pollution in the Midwest,” prepared by the

New York-based nonprofit environmental research group Inform, Inc.

The report was based on information provided by the EPA on the

amount of hazardous chemicals manufacturers have released into the

environment. Manufacturers annually report this information to the

EPA, as required by the 1986 Superfund Amendments and Reauthori-

zation Act.

A week prior to holding a news conference, Inform sent press kits

to about 200 media outlets in the seven-state region of the Midwest.

These kits served as an “information subsidy” to the media and en

couraged coverage of the story. The kit also persuaded newspapers

with larger staffs to assign reporters to the story.

The use of press kits is justified by the finding that those media re

ceiving press kits were fairer to business in their treatment of the pol

lution data than were those that did not receive them. Of 373 daily

Midwestern newspapers analyzed, the papers tended either not to

cover the story—even though coverage was most likely in communi

ties where manufacturing was at least of medium importance in their

economies—or to give more lenient headline treatment.

100

Further

more, little was said about the health risks resulting from local toxic

releases.

NAPS also provides “public policy publicity” when an issue promi

nently appears in the mass media. Some techniques suggested by Ronald

N. Levy, the syndicate’s president, are:

• Canned editorial: Enables you to editorialize in a way that would

not be acceptable in a feature. However, editorials get less readership

than features, and many papers will not run canned editorials.

• “Believe It or Not” type of cartoon: Works if you can make your

point in few words. Gains the attention of people who might not

read a text release on the subject.

• Stories based on speeches: Allow writing of releases, especially for

suburban newspapers, based on senior executive speeches that

have already been carefully researched, the ideas carefully thought

out, and the materials cleared with company legal staff.

• “Economic reality” stories: When a person’s own money is in

volved, he or she becomes interested. If a solution to an issue raises

the cost of producing a product of your company or industry,

point out how it’s going to cost the average person money.

• Other techniques: Use signed columns, perhaps in a Q & A format.

Quote government experts who agree with you. Write several sto-

ries when each key point warrants a story.

101

Provide VNRs. Local television stations welcome video news re-

leases (VNRs) from reliable sources. By resembling television news re-

ports, the intention of these releases is to capture maximum exposure

on television news to promote company viewpoints and other news.

“What we do by definition is advocacy. It’s not journalism,” says Doug

Simon, president and CEO of the production and event company DS Si-

mon Production. To create a good VNR that confusion must be clarified

up front. Medialink CEO Larry Moskowitz advises PR pros to disclose

more than they even think necessary when sending out a VNR.

102

This norm was violated when PR professional Karen Ryan signed off

her voice-over on a Department of Health and Human Services VNR by

saying she was “reporting” from Washington, DC, thus implying a

journalist’s impartiality. To make doubly sure that its client stations

know a VNR’s source, CNN Newsource, one of the distributors of the

controversial VNR, will now add a fourth label in addition to “clearly”

identifying a VNR in the script and in the window that displays the

source.

103

A Nielsen Media Research Survey of 130 TV news directors showed

75% found VNRs helpful in preparing their daily newscasts.

104

A later

poll found that 78% of editors used edited VNR material at least once a

week.

105

Box 4.7 provides details of a specific case of VNR use.

In 1992 more than 4,000 VNRs were produced; Medialink, the larg

est distributor, alone sent out 2,000. The company has a news wire that

in 1991 reached nearly 700 television newsrooms coast to coast. It de

scribes its Medialink/AP Express Newswire as “a comprehensive, pow

120 I CHAPTER 4

erful and high-speed electronic service that delivers critical information

right to the desks of TV editors throughout the U.S.”

107

Medialink presi-

dent Laurence Moskowitz claims that “overall, VNR results continue to

rise, and the performance of the most successful projects continues to be

stunning.”

108

To illustrate, Burson-Marsteller, a leading U.S. public rela

tions firm, prepared a videotape for a client after the Food and Drug Ad

ministration ruled that a client’s product was the only safe one of its

kind. The tape appeared in the form of a news report and was

distributed to 100 television stations.

The most dramatic VNR, according to Medialink’s 1993 list of the

“Top Ten” organizations using VNRs, was Pepsi-Cola’s response to the

Diet Pepsi syringe hoax in June 1993. The VNRs attained a record-

breaking 500 million aggregate viewership on 3,170 stations airing

over a period of several days in June. (The previous most aired VNR was

the speech by the president of Colombia imploring Americans to stop

snorting cocaine, a broadcast that reached an audience of 80 million.)

Following Pepsi-Cola on the Top Ten list were Princeton University’s

“Fusion Energy” with an audience of 56,900,000 and 197 airings, and

Time-Warner’s “Venture with US West” with 49 million viewers.

109

PROACTIVE MEDIA RELATIONS I 121

Box 4.7 TV News Directors’ Use of a VNR on “America

Responds to AIDS”

A VNR, “America Responds to AIDS (ARTA),” produced by the govern

ment’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC), suggests the extent to

which television news directors use VNRs. Findings are based on a

survey and content analysis of 47 “air checks” of television news sto

ries from 42 television news organizations (39 local broadcasters, ABC

World News Tonight, Cable News Network, and USA Today). The key

findings were:

• No station used the entire VNR package.

• 85% of the air checks contained only half or less of the packaged

video; the same held true for the script.

• Of seven key story elements, an average of 21% appeared in the air

checks.

• Sound bites from officials were used infrequently. Celebrity James

Mason’s sound bite from the Washington press conference was

mentioned the most (by 25%), and one by Louis Sullivan (10%).

• The source, CDC, was mentioned in only 8% of the stories. Instead,

stations cited such general sources as “the federal government.”

• 75% of the stories focused on the AIDS Prevention Guide. In this

context, the CDC was mentioned in 17 of the 35 stories focusing

on the guide; 22 mentioned Health and Human Services.

106