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Creating Media Coverage (sample)

The Shape We’re In series offers a great opportunity for your program and your community partners to generate media coverage. The projects you undertake will have a natural news hook because they directly affect the communities you serve. Additionally, many active living and physical activity projects carry human-interest angles that are ready-made for local news placements. Below are a few tips that can help you generate local media coverage of your project’s activities.

	Know your media. Read, watch, or listen to the media outlets you wish to target ahead of time. Note which reporters are likely to cover your issue. Make sure your issue or organization fits with the reporter’s “beat.” If you are not sure of which reporters cover your issue, contact the assignment editor. At large newspapers, there are assignment editors for different sections of the paper (e.g., Health, Metro, Business, etc.).
	Help local newspapers carrying The Shape We’re In series to localize their stories. Provide them with background on your organization’s efforts and, if appropriate, make available someone from your group, or a community member served by your organization, as an expert on the issues explored in the articles. Remember, media like the local human interest story.
	Reach out to local television and radio reporters to build on the newspaper coverage of the series. Again, offer to assist broadcast coverage of the issues by providing background information, experts or community members who illustrate the story topics.
	Arrange general information meetings with reporters who cover beats related to your project’s work. Brief them on upcoming activities, community members participating in the project, and the project goals and timeline. Stay in contact with reporters, updating them on scheduled events and project achievements.
	Near the release date (June 2) of The Shape We’re In series, try to place an op-ed (see Writing an Op-Ed) in your local daily or neighborhood papers.
	If local citizens play a feature role in your campaign, be sure to emphasize their roles to local newspapers and television and radio news programs. If your project involves students, don’t forget to include school newspapers.
	Consider using alternative media to access hard-to-reach populations. Pursue placements in foreign language newspapers and distribute brochures and leaflets in community centers, churches, and hospitals —wherever people with an interest in your story gather.
	Remember that your organization’s newsletter—and those of other local community organizations—is a media outlet, too. Community organizations, neighborhood associations, and parents’ groups often publish newsletters for their members. Use these outlets to raise awareness of your local efforts.
	Investigate regional or state e-mail listservs that commonly discuss issues related to your work and include your Web site URL. Post your Web site, information about The Shape We’re In  series, and your project’s achievements and upcoming events to the listservs you identify.

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