Media advocacy expert Lori Dorfman, of the Berkeley Media Studies Group (www.bmsg.org), the author of Blowing Away the Smoke Media Advocacy Advisories 5 and 6 (www.strategyguides.globalink.org/guide06 and www.strategyguides.globalink.org/guide07), tells us:

To convince the news media to discuss the health, economic, and environmental effects of tobacco, we need to develop "access strategies." We must use these techniques honed by successful tobacco control media advocates to reach and persuade the journalists to carry our message.

Being a media advocate means being pragmatic about how the news works, and what we need to do to be part of it. We need to learn to think like journalists, to look for good stories, and to bring them to journalists' attention.

Make Stories Newsworthy

Of course our stories are important, or we wouldn't be working on them. But journalists cannot cover every important story. They must tell the news of the day within limits: a brief TV news segment, a short newspaper item, or a few minutes on the radio. To get journalists' attention, we have to emphasize what makes our stories interesting.

Tobacco control media advocates should not think: "Here is an important health issue the journalist has an obligation to write about!" Instead, we should always be thinking: "How can I present the journalist with a good, newsworthy story?"

Remember, your story must grab the interest and attention of at least two people to become news: the reporter and the reporter's editor (or TV or radio news producer). Even a journalist eager to work with you has to convince the editor that your story deserves to be part of the day's news. The more ammunition you provide a journalist to prove your story is newsworthy, the better the chances you will read it in the newspaper or see it on TV.

To get journalists' attention and convince them to cover tobacco control issues, we have to make our stories fit traditional patterns of newsworthiness: We need to highlight the aspects that make them stories. Typical news stories interest a wide audience. And the more newsworthy elements your story contains and the broader the audience it interests, the more likely it will capture a reporter's attention.

For example, we know that celebrities nearly always make the news. During the fifth negotiating session of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, advocates in the Framework Convention Alliance (FCA) invited the director general of the World Health Organization, Dr. Gro Harlem Bruntland to attend their "opening-day ceremonies." Dr. Bruntland accepted. The FCA then announced to the media in Geneva that the director general would attend their event. On the morning of the ceremony, several camera crews were in place, hoping to catch a newsworthy moment with Dr. Bruntland. In the end, the FCA gained a great deal of media attention for an event that otherwise would have gone unnoticed.

Apart from celebrities, what catches journalists' attention? What are some creative ways to make your tobacco control stories newsworthy? Helpful guides for tobacco control advocates examine these questions in depth.

As you will see from these guides—and, eventually, from your own experience—media-access techniques can help you overcome the indifference of journalists. They will also help you persuade publishers and broadcasters who are afraid of losing advertising revenues or of antagonizing powerful business interests.

Go International

Sometimes even your most creative efforts to develop a newsworthy story will fail to sway your country's journalists and other media gatekeepers. Then you may want to turn to your international allies to help generate international news about your story. Often, widespread attention encourages local news media to take a closer look at your story.

Surprisingly, the Czech Parliament accepted the findings of this report. Even more stunning, the report did not interest the local media, despite its absurdity. As Dr. Eva Kralikova, a tobacco control activist, said: "Following that logic [of the report], the best recommendation to government would be to kill all people on the day of their retirement."

Since Czech journalists were not interested in this story, Dr. Kralikova turned to her colleagues at the Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids. They immediately saw its value and presented it to the US press: "Philip Morris' cost-benefit analysis of the consequences of smoking represents not only bad economics, but also a callous disregard for life."

Only after the report gained international publicity did the story become "news" to the Czech media, and it was reported widely in the Czech Republic at last!