communicating evaluation to the media

[kate stoney]

Dear forum members

Allow me to pick your brains on the tricky subject of communicating evaluation to the media. I am keen to find out best practices and  innovative ways of pitching evaluation to journalists and editors. 

Do you have any experience of contacting the media to promote your events ? If so, what are your thoughts on the best approach, and how did you personally go about it ? Did you contact journalists / editors personally ?

Thanks for your help with this one, 

Best regards, Kate

[Rituu B Nanda]

Dear Kate,

Here are some tools which might help in communication of evaluation. https://www.betterevaluation.org/en/blog/communicating-findings

http://stephanieevergreen.com/the-1-3-25-reporting-model/> 's site about
structuring a report for a variety of audiences. Another link to
Ann K Emery about easily transforming a text heavy report into a more reader
friendly format
/span>http://annkemery.com/how-to-transform-a-text-heavy-report/?ck_subsc...
=191297940

[Yuleidy Merida]

Hi Kate, 

In my experience, media professionals usually work with very tight deadlines, so when we reach out to share our research studies, it's useful to include some key-messages that either align with a trending topic (by adding new information or perspective to debate) or that could potentially be strong/engaging headlines.
I find the use of Cision handy (you can see media contacts working in your field/topic, media platforms that have published more than one article related to your areas of interest and reach out directly to a journalist that may have an interest and some prior knowledge).
To pitch evaluation findings, I will suggest finding one key-message and 2-3 supporting ideas/data, then pitching it to journalists and media platforms that have an interest in the topic.
Nowadays, data journalism is having an impact in the media, and interest in data visualization is growing. This trend is an excellent opportunity for sharing not just headlines, but in-depth research findings. The key is doing very targeted reach out, and probably our audience will be more specialized.
If your evaluation findings include stories, I would suggest framing your reach out in the first person and use your stories to speak about the evaluation results.
There is another strategy that works very often, and it's sending media availability emails. Identify some media platforms/journalists that may be interested in your evaluation findings (topic) and send them a short list of researchers or professionals that could speak about it - this is most effective when we can connect trending topics or international celebrations with the information we are interested in sharing - journalists are often looking for trustworthy information sources.
We can also use Cision, and Social Studio to monitor trends and opinions relevant to our field, so when the opportunity arises, you can effectively leverage the context to support your ideas or research findings (what it means, why is this happening, what are effective ways to deal with this, etc.).

[kate stoney]

Dear Yuleidy, 

Thanks so much for your insight. Really helpful. I am not aware of the existence of media software platforms in Africa so you have put me on an interesting track. Also your tips on pitching and media availability lists are very useful. 

Best regards, Kate