Posts Tagged: Reporters
Handling the bad news: Estero, Florida firefighters say chief ordered them to leave fire engine & serve alcohol, topless at private fundraiser. Fire commission extends stories life with vague answers.
Vague answers a week late won't get reporters off your back.
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What gives? No outrage over ghoulish photographers shooting bodies. Has something changed in year since Connecticut trooper blasted cameraman?
Not even a whimper over videos much more graphic than a burning car. Dave thinks he knows why.
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EMS official grabs WNBC-TV camera. Apparently they don’t read U.S. Court of Appeals decisions in Suffolk County, New York.
Was Long Island exempted from the Constitution?
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Media relations video: EMS crew member tells reporter where to go at fire scene in Coudersport, Pennsylvania.
EMS crew member says videographer has no right to shoot her in public place.
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Firefighter charged with burglarizing home of elderly woman he took to the hospital. Osceola County, Florida fire chief gets how to handle bad news.
Fire chief expertly handles a reputation issue for the department.
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Rhetorical Lesson No.5: Maybe T-Shirts and Patches Make a Difference?
If the customers and the politicians read, and they do, does what they see match the story?
Does it matter?
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Boston Local Once Again Swings The Social Media Sword. New Union President Delivers A Still Unpublished Response To Globe’s “Opinion”
718 takes on a Boston Globe Op-Ed attack on firefighter personalities. Readers' comments allowed, but for some reason they don't have the president's response.
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Lessons from South Fulton: Avoid making a bad situation worse. Have a plan to respond when your reputation is on the line.
Have you thought about how your department would handle suddenly being under the national or international spotlight with its reputation at stake? Your initial response can be vital to how the story plays out.
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Bells and Whistles Press Release Falls Flat
I was at a conference last year that had a session on “social media press releases.” In essence this form of release is intended to provide reporters with an interactive and user-friendly way to get information, audio clips, photos and videos about a story in a one stop shopping format. By providing this type of release, as the theory goes, a reporter would have everything at their fingertips to prepare the story without having to play telephone tag with you to get additional details, photos etc. As usually, when you hear these ideas at a conference they seem to fall just below Einstein’s Theory of Relativity as ground breaking, cutting edge genius.
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Ambush Journalism – Don’t be caught off guard!
Here are some tips to do everything right if a reporter is waiting outside of the firehouse to ask the Chief a hot button question as he enters the building.
As an example, the Chief is confronted at the firehouse door by a reporter who states that “the homeowner says your response time in his estimation was extremely slow to the fire. Isn’t it true his house would have been saved if you got their faster?”
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“Off the record” is usually “On the record”
I look for your war stories about this posts topic. In my estimation, when dealing with the press, “Off the record” is usually “On the record.”
Many, many years ago when I wanted every reporter to be my friend, I was in the sports industry. I was serving on the committee of a boxing dinner that among others, was honoring promoter Don King. Obviously King has had controversy follow him his entire life, and especially in the 1980’s, was great fodder for the press.
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Identity Crisis Grows
“Ambulance Drivers”, “First Responders” and now “Special Forces”