Delaware National Guard Unit Public Affairs Course (DNG) UPARC ELO4 - News Sources and Media on the Battlefield Determining news sources What is News? Before you begin to write, back up a few steps and consider - what is news? News is: Timely. Something that has just happened or is just about to happen is timely. Words such as "yesterday," "Thursday," or "tomorrow" make a story timely. The odds for successful publication will climb if your story is current. Close. Your story should have a local angle or appeal. Something that happens close to home or affects local residents is more likely to make it into the media than something that happens far away. How a national issue effects your local area is always news. However, national news only is already well covered by Associated Press and other news agencies. Important. Events that have an impact on your readers or that concern prominent people are important. Since interviewing a local personality or political figure about your event or situation is probably not an option, one way to make your story "important" is to tell your readers what the impact is to them or why they should care about what might seem obvious to you or others in your field. Unusual. If a man or woman bites the dog, it's news. Much of what your unit will ask you to cover is not unusual. Be creative and find the twist that makes your change of command unique or what is unique about the soldier or deed that earned that award or promotion. Of human interest. Some stories are newsworthy because they bring about an emotional response in their readers rage, laughter, tears. Our citizen-soldiers are chocked full of stories from their MDay lives. Tell us who and what they are not only in uniform, but outside of the drill weekend. Media on the Battlefield All media inquiries and requests will be handled by the State Public Affairs Officer, CPT Len Gratteri. All public information will be reviewed by CPT Gratteri prior to release for OPSEC and other Public Affairs concerns. "Essential to understanding the media is not so much what they cover as why." - LTC James Kevin Lovejoy, U.S. Army, Military Review, January-February 2002. Freedom of Information Act and the First Amendment: The public's right to know and the media's duty to report it. News: When all else fails, controversy sells. If media relations are respectful and stable, prior to a negative story, the media will be more inclined to include our perspective in the first story. Bad news happens: The military or someone in the military has done something bad, or a poorly written article, taken out of context, that misrepresents the military appears in a publication. The only way to make the best out of the situation is through proactive engagement strategies that include relationship building and clear, quick, accurate responses. Quality of journalism and reporting in general: The explosion of media personnel with lowered levels of professionalism and the lack of military experience and knowledge among those news reporters increases the occurance of unintentionally negative stories. 30-second sound bytes and two-inch, two-column newpaper stories rarely give the full context and content of any given story, especially the military. These are realities over which we have very little control. What we do have the ability to affect is our own mentality toward media coverage. We must diminish military aversion to media. The deeper we bury our heads in the sand, the more we increase the bad news problem. The media will continue to write stories about the military regardless of whether we want them to or not. The more we are able to positively tell the Delaware National Guard story on a routine basis, the better equipped we will be in responding to a negative report. CPT Gratteri is the point of contact for all public information and media relations activity.