HippoBLOGamus

Continued from Part 4

Your Toolkit

So how do you get your message out to the general public? First of all, you must be ready to go to the local media, and that means learning to use the tools available to get the message into the mainstream press.

The first and most important tool is a press release.

It’s a simple document, but it is the basic form of communication to the general public. It goes to newspapers, TV, radio and friends, including legislators and politicians.

And you should remember these different media have different needs. TV needs strong visuals, and you can help create those visuals with your event, your location and the backdrop.

With radio, you may be able to just phone it in.  Have a brief synopsis ready, or prepare it and call back, if they want to run tape on you

Newspaper reporters will want backgrounders, fact sheets, maybe even your local union newsletter. They ought to be on the local’s comp list.

Nowadays, journalists all look first at websites, so your union should invest in that resource. It should be a source of information for both members and the general public. Ideally, you would have a “press room” page that is updated regularly.

Before you draft a release – and this goes for an op-ed or a letter to the editor – you should ask yourself: “Why will John Q. Public care about this story?”

You need a news hook that connects with the stories of the day, or is a story that is unique and newsworthy itself, or you have a story with a compelling human interest, or that appeals to the self-interest of most people.

For the story to sell, it must connect with the broader population.

Sometimes you may need to create that connection, to sell your story.

For example, when the Goodyear workers had been out on strike for six months, and the company was using “replacement workers” and supervisors, continuing to produce tires, the Steelworkers turned to my firm to develop a communications strategy to win the contract fight.

The key was to promote it as more than a contract fight, which is how it had been portrayed up to that point. That’s like last-century news to many media outlets, just another picket line, and they covered the story (or didn’t cover the story) just that way.

We turned the dispute into a consumer issue. We uncovered statistics showing that tires made by replacement workers are dangerous – a threat to public safety – and used dramatic video on YouTube to drive home the point.  The Steelworkers Rapid Response network and other union email services helped propel the video into the news, including a report in The Wall Street Journal about the technique.

Our warning about inferior tires produced by scabs, including rallies at 120 Goodyear stores around the country, resulted in enormous consumer pressure on Goodyear to settle the strike, which they did in short order. Their first demand was the withdrawal of the YouTube videos.

The point is – the key was appealing to the general public.

If we didn’t warn consumers, Goodyear would not have had the incentive to negotiate.  It would have tried to wait out your members, make them suffer more, and press an inferior contract.

The main point is that you will need to step back and think about the public audience before you write, and before you pitch your story.

The same thing applies when you are drafting an op-ed or letter to the editor – for yourself or an officer in your organization. The first step is to consider the audience – the editors who are the gateways, first of all, but also the broader interest of the general public. Then structure the article to appeal to those interests. In this way, you connect your union’s point of view to the concerns of Everyman and Everywoman.

The worst thing you can do is to write a piece in which you are only talking about YOUR members … YOUR rights … YOUR economic plight.

Rather, you want to project your union, and your members, as an essential part of the community fabric, fighting for all working families, for THEIR rights, for THEIR economic plight.

The first thing to remember: connect with your audience.

The second thing to remember: keep it simple.

You should use straightforward language, and just tell it like it is.

Start with a simple declarative sentence, then build your case, anticipating what the other side might say. But don’t state their case for them.

Now, I don’t know how many of you aspire to be labor journalists, or perhaps are taking this course to gain insight into the question of labor, to learn about the history and the politics. But no matter your interest, I am happy to discuss any of these issues, via e-mail exchange. You can reach me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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