Category: Let's talk
Hey all,
I know this is going to vairy massively between different press organizations, but I was wondering if anyone had any experience with the below and could give some advice?
I'm involved in a local organization which might be getting a small bit of publicity soon. Because of what I do in it, I'd be fairly involved in whatever kind of media coverage we get - e.g. interviews in local papers.
I don't mind writing a press release, I don't mind sending it to people and I don't mind being interviewed - thats all fine. However, I have a feeling that as soon as a face to face interview takes place or probably more likely a photo, the story will somehow turn into (For want of a better description) a blind story. The organization has nothing to do with blindness or any other disability so it wouldn't make sense if it did, but I've scene other articles which have involved blind people and in every single one, the story is less about what the person has done and more about the person and how its absolutely amazing that they manage to do whatever they've done. It seems that journalists have a nack of filling a page with a lot of nothing which degrades the story terribley.
I'm not one of these people who doesn't like admitting I'm blind or anything like that, I just don't think that this story would be the best time for everyone to see how amazing I am.
What does everyone think? I'm guessing I have some control over what goes out, but like I say, having read a few articles that have been written about some of my blind friends, I'm sure they wouldn't have wanted them to be published, so either the person in question is just lazy and didn't confirm the article or the journalist has just ignored what they said.
Cheers.
Good for you for not wanting to whore for attention.
The options I can see are numerous. You could opt to stay behind the scenes, writing editorials or press releases or whatnot and thus not make it known to the press that you're blind. You could talk to each press outlet/interviewer specifically and explain your feelings about not wanting to draw attention away from your organization and to not make a fuss about your condition. You could explain, briefly, your condition and how you came to the organization before steering the interviewer back on topic.
Best of luck.
Ugh. Yep, been there. I get cornered for media coverage a couple of times a year because of rowing. It's a real dilemma for me, because I don't like those amazing blind people stories, but my blindness is an interesting angle that helps my local boathouse and the sport of rowing get some coverage. I'm passionate about rowing and I want to help support the boathouse because they've been so supportive of me but the stories generally end up being aweful no matter how much I downplay the blindness. I'm done with local television because they really ramp up the sympathy angle more than print media. I'll still talk to newspapers, but I'm very careful about downplaying the blindness and steering the reporter to rowing. It doesn't always work, but it's generally less nauseating than the stuff that's been on my local news. If you can't stay in the background, the best you can do is deflect the blindness questions. Tell the reporter that blindness is irrelevant and you are happy to answer questions about the organization but keep the blindness stuff out of it. Of course, the risk with this is that the reporter will make it a blindness story anyway and get the info all wrong. If you answer the blindness questions, at least you know you're giving them the right info and it will make it less likely that the blindness angle of the story is based on misconceptions. I've never been offered an opportunity to read a story before it goes to print. You really just have to give the best information you can and hope the reporter gets it. Explain your feelings to the reporter. If they don't want to drop the blindness stuff, you can walk away. Good luck.
@Time Traveling Bunny: Never knew you were on the water, and in an unpowered craft at that. Awesomeness.
To the original poster I totally understand where you're coming from. I would suggest if you can't keep in the background, just totally present yourself as mission-minded, and unwilling to compromise the mission for the express purpose of media types wetting all over themselves because of fiction and fantasies about blindness. Know also that their ratings come from sound bites rather than actual content, so if you give them a shred on being blind they're likely to use it. Don't feed the neighborhood raccoons and squirrels, in other words, even if said rodents come with camera trucks.
as someone who has had firsthand experience with this sort of thing, I wouldn't recommend it. more often than not, the press will find ways to completely twist things you say. if anything, being behind the scenes is your best bet.
I agree completely. I had a similar situation last year that got twisted way out of proportion, and one a few years ago that was headed that way, but luckily didn't end up getting published. if you would rather be out in the open and not stay behind the scenes, I would recommend only settling for video/TV interviews, and/or live interviews where the viewers see what you are doing in the interview in real time, and there's no room for editing. But at least in video interviews, they might be able to edit out things you did say, but they can't put words in your mouth you didn't.
Hmm, I absolutely applaud you for doing this, so many people live and die by the saying, "any publicity is good publicity" even if it means completely disregarding the whole purpose of the interview or story. It is true the juiciest detail that the reporters will find is your visual impairment, but you don't want to knock off the idea of doing the idea because of that. I'm sure you can work it out with whoever is doing the interview, i've been in many articles/ news clips and never once did they go and make their own story.. Don't get me wrong the majoriy of the interviews I did was blind related, but the ones that I wanted to stay strictly on the topic at hand, which was always the case.
Yeah.... well, I have been on both sides, I wrote for the school newspaper in high school and know what it's about, it's a real indecent job sometime, unless you're a really honest journalist, which they won't much like anyway. but I've also been part of quite a few blind story, I basically was the flier girl for the foundation of the junior blind, and so I was all over the place and seen as heroic and brave and inspirational.
and, I still remember going on google one day to search me and see what I got for kickss, I discovered they quoted me, and this quote they didn't ask for but I said something along the lines of Oh, I got it! I got it! and they quoted that, and I was thinking when I was reading it, what the heck? why quote me saying something like that? what was so special about "oh, I get it?" but haha! yeah, I've been on articles from representing the vision trips by being asked and being filmed at the blind olympics held by the foundation, and been a few dozen people's heros for some stupid reason or another. Interesting, but not all that great I wasn't very thrilled especially about that one time I discovered they just quoted me randomly.