Dealing with the media – Help for Community Organisations
Community Comms Collective
Communications and media relations can play a powerful role in an organisation’s success and reach, and can be an effective channel for raising awareness about your cause and gaining support from the public. However, planning, writing and delivering effective content can be time-consuming, particularly for organisations that don’t have a dedicated resource for this area.
Community Comms Collective is made up of communications professionals – experts in writing, editing, social media, media relations and more – who volunteer their time to community organisations. In addition to volunteer matchmaking, they offer workshops, website assessments and free resources. They also have some great resources to help raise your profile as an organisation and promoting your events and projects via different platforms. Some of their services include
For a full overview of media and communications information, see Introduction to communications
CommunityNet Aotearoa
CommunityNet Aotearoa has a great resource on dealing with the media that includes tips on managing your organisation’s relationship with the media, creating a media kit and doing interviews. The section covers various aspects of communication, including:
See also: Media Relations
Media releases
A media release is a brief article written by an organisation with the aim of getting media outlets to publish it. Like a news story, it needs to have a strong headline and hook, and should be engaging as well as informative. You can use media releases to promote an initiative or an event.
Media Release Tips (Community Comms Collective)
Community Comms Collective have a page of media contacts in New Zealand that you can use to target your media releases to.
Complaints and corrections
If you believe you’ve been misquoted or misrepresented by the media, you can contact the media outlet to ensure that any mistakes are corrected.
Communicating via the media: scroll down to ‘Corrections and complaints procedures’
Written Media
Making a formal complaint to the NZ Media Council should be a last resort after you have lodged a letter of complaint within one month of publication to the editor, author or publisher.
Make a complaint with the New Zealand Media Council
Radio and TV
For radio and TV, you must lodge a complaint with the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) within 20 days of the broadcast. Generally you will need to have complained directly to the broadcaster first but certain types of complaints, e.g. relating to privacy, can be lodged immediately with the BSA.