Mark Newton wrote:
Peter Creswick wrote:
Two, create a SINGLE MEDIA LIAISON point, ie, a "GFA Media Liaison Officer", if you will, ie, ONE phone number, for the media to call.
To go a bit further, I think we need to consider creating a "GFA Duty Officer" position, staffed at any one time by one of a number of suitable people, RTO types, ie, have them rostered, but with ONE phone number only known to GFA people, that can be redirected to whoever the duty officer is on any given day / weekend / whatever.
Then, when an incident occurs, that one person becomes the receiver of all information from the site, the club concerned, etc.
Put yourself in the position of that person.
You're gardening at home on a Sunday afternoon. Somewhere, someone in Australia has an accident. That person's club is busy liaising with ambulance, police and ATSB, satisfying their duty of care and their statutory requirements. Notifying the GFA's media liaison is a pretty distant priority.
I said, you notify the DUTY OFFICER who IS and RTO/OPS person, NOT the media liaison officer, and yes, I HAVE been in exactly that position in another life, see below.
Remember, we have duties of care, laws and regulations, and they say our priorities are to care for the injured,
assist the emergency services, contact the ATSB and notify the RTO/Ops.
Agreed
The media, who have been monitoring emergency services frequencies with a scanner, are all over it. They're trying to get telephone interviews before the ambulance turns up, and they have an outside broadcast van in transit to the airfield hoping to get some juicy footage. Even if nobody lets them in they're going to be parked outside the gate with a 100x zoom lens hoping to catch something worth pixellating on the six o'clock news.
True, there is not much we can do about the initial reports, but a camera crew only goes ONCE. If you can get a leg in the door to the media organizations before the nightly news, you have a chance. Most accidents / incidents happen in the afternoon. There is usually a WINDOW of a few hours to get our act together before they go to air for the 6 o'clock news. They are less likely to transmit jurno generated crap if they have a phone interview they can play from the GFA media officer, now aren't they.
Reporters pretty quickly figure out that the GFA has a media liaison, and they ring you up.
Precisely what we want !!
When you answer the phone you'll get a barrage of questions about some accident which you have absolutely zero reliable information about, and you'll be expected to provide useful, accurate and coherent responses to their questions.
Depends entirely on what the time line is. With modern communications, mobile phones etc, digital cameras and e-mail, the RTO/duty officer should be able to provide the media officer with at least the basic "FACTS" within the hour. Moreover, we are not totally flat footed here. Any well prepared media officer for any organization has a number of typical scenarios down pat as standard responses, just change the names dates and places. It is not as difficult as you make out.
Any questions they ask will need to be answered with, "I don't know," or "No comment," because you won't have the info needed to give accurate answers. All you'll really be able to do is offer general motherhood statements about how gliding is safe but unforgiving. Those kind of responses are going to make a reporter yawn, hang up, and talk to
someone who actually knows something worth reporting.
Not if we are prepared, see above. There is also another point worth making. Accidents usually occur away from media resources. If there is local media in a local town they will attend, but it is usually a weekend and often they are gardening too, and may also be slow to respond, again, extending our "get our act together window". They are unlikely to send crews to cover events that are not "big" when they "know" they can do it easy, by ringing us up. They are lazy buggers too you know.
(or, more likely, it'll inspire the journo to just make something up).
Further, it should become mandatory for local / involved GFA members to report in ASAP, so that the facts are gathered ASAP, AND it should also be mandatory that NO MEDIA INTERVIEWS be given by those local / on scene, AND that it be mandatory that those people refer the media immediately to the "GFA Media Liaison Officer" and website.
Your "No media interviews" rule is what makes reporters make stuff up. They have a thirst for information, and if information is not provided they'll invent it. That's why last weekend's accident had six different accounts of what happened from six different media outlets: nobody said anything substantitive, so they fabricated it from whole cloth.
Disagree entirely. You get six reports because no one gave them the one authoritative factual report. The copy that was printed next day was written the night before, perhaps even the next morning. Again, look at the time line, and our window of opportunity. A reporter on scene going direct to air is going to sprout crap, granted, but how often does that happen, ie, immediately. Far better to go with our one source for all media. If one bloke does it live on scene, he get the scoop with crap. OK, so be it. But the other media who do not go on site get "the good oil" a few hours later, even the guy who did it live does. In later bulletins, is he (or his boss) still going to sprout crap when he knows there is better info available AND his media competitors have it also ? No, he would look like a jerk both in the public eye, but perhaps more tellingly, in their competitors eyes.. In short, any later coverage will reflect GFA media officer product, you can count on it, if you provide it.
Last year's launching accident at Stonefield was reported as a fatality, as a hang glider accident, as involving a light aircraft, and as resulting in serious spinal injuries by various media agencies. None of those assertions were true. One reporter even said, "It is unclear whether the accident occurred during take-off or landing," if you can believe it. To which the obvious response is, "It was unclear *to that reporter*, which wasn't surprising because nobody talked to him and he really didn't have the faintest idea, so that's what he said in his report."That is a plausible option worth considering, but lets be sensible here. How many clubs have a suitable person ? Probably very few, AND even he may be away, uncontactable etc. As an ORGANIZATION, GFA has the resource, and it is only a phone call away. I still think the "central" response is far better to the "local" response.
Far better to have the club nominate someone to take media calls and respond to them with simple, quotable, accurate data. "A single seat glider was involved in a launching accident. The pilot has sustained leg fractures and has been taken to Adelaide for treatment. The ATSB will be releasing a report once they've concluded any investigatory
activities they believe should be carried out, until then we cannot speculate on the cause of the accident without compromising those investigations." That gives the media everything they need to write an accurate story with first-hand data.
Hopefully others will lend a few thoughts and comments to this. It should be an interesting debate. I hope something constructive may come of it in the end.In short, the only way to stop the media reporting crap, and worse, is to "feed the media" what WE want them to say.
Agreed, but a GFA media liaison who is expected to respond cogently in an emergency isn't the right way to achieve that.
- mark
Peter Creswick E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Land Line 02 9718 4841 Mobile/SMS 0401 758 025
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