All news organizations include the cornerstone of any campaign political television exposure. Over time a candidate can get on the news, plu its chances to collect votes. The appearance also saves wear and tear on the campaign coffers because exposure of news is essentially a commercial free campaign. It is a game and on both sides, press organs and candidates know all too well the rules and how the game is played.
In this game, the candidate is the crime, trying to score points on the evening news in disguising an appearance of blatant campaign as legitimate a press event. The media play defence, ensuring that there is a semblance of the value of the new appearance and not letting the candidate to make with free advertising.
In doing so, the news organization can at least without enthusiasm convinced himself that his journalistic integrity was not compromised. Thus, the candidate gets his face time and media gets his news. But the truth be said - the media consider it as a victory. The media show the coverage of the campaign as two strangers meeting in a bar and leaving together for stand proverbial one night. In most of these after-bar meetings, one of the parties leaving feeling "I'm gonna hate myself in the morning". When it comes to cover decisions of the campaign, the journalists wait til morning, say, "I hate now me!"
A candidate of the Congress of the United States area has attempted a technique to attack that the media is proven to be a little too offensive. His Office sent a press release announcing a tour of the media across the district. He and his staff would be edge on a bus of 32 feet (wrapped in a representation of the Constitution of the United States) and stop, to quote the press release "goes back to a time before mass media when candidates would take the train or bus from city to city campaign, meeting with people in person.". A unique, interesting and picturesque idea with a fatal flaw. Its judgments of campaign came just to be in the city newspaper, radio station group major and three main stations affiliated with the television network - at the time! His campaign tour was not so much about the meeting with people in person ', but rather about media exposure. The media considered this tactic of the campaign as a challenge in your face by the candidate who was essentially telling the media, "Come, I dare you not way to cover this event.". We looked out the window of the press room of entertainment that we have seen a few workers standing campaign outside the bus on the sidewalk and the candidate. We saw all "people". Then we returned to our offices and got back to work on the news of the day.
Advice here for candidates seeking media coverage be - Yes, we are going to play the game with you, but you must play fair. As the song of the Don Henley "Dirty laundry" said, "Just give me something, something that I can use." The media give something to legitimize your event as something more than an appearance of (commercial) campaign. In doing so, the media gets its news, the candidate gets the coverage of the campaign. In this way, the game ends equality and everybody goes home a winner!
Tom Zalaski is a television news anchor who spent 35 years behind the anchor desk. It is there that day-to-day decisions are made about what will and what will not make it on the evening news. Tom's latest book, "How to manipulate the media For Fun and Profit" is an inside look at how to deal with the media in times of crisis and to cover your positive news.
"How to manipulate the media for fun and Profit" is now available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and http://www.tomzalaski.com/.
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