No vanilla ice cream
Any journalist will tell you, a meeting is not news. Not unless it’s the G20 or two sides in a civil war. Conflict is a main driver of narrative, news stories included.
This was my dilemma as I sat down to write a press release for the Mekong Forum on Water and Food scheduled to take place November 13-14, 2012 in Hanoi, Vietnam. There is no obvious conflict. The forum is all about seeking consensus on what constitutes “the good dam”. There won’t be anti and pro dam advocates hurling contradictory research results at each other, no environmentalists protesting at the gates. No assembly of the poor. So what other angle could there be?
There is a short list of attributes that give a science story news value. None of them were much help in drafting my two attempted press releases, but going through the list did help me come up with a couple of angles: “In search of the good dam” and “Water wars on the Mekong an unlikely future.”
Timeliness: In the one or two weeks following CERN’s announcement of 4 July 2012, you could have published just about anything if you could write a plausible link to the Higgs boson, something like, “Higgs boson and nitrogen uptake in dry season rainfed rice cropping”. Closer to home, there was a flurry of news stories on Mekong dams following the Lao government’s announcement on the Xayaburi dam. Everyone has been keeping a low profile every since so there is nothing especially timely about the forum.
Significance: Ideally, the significance of a good science story is both scientific and social. That’s why new breakthroughs in cancer research are popular news stories. Dams are seen as feats of engineering. The science is there but it’s not easy to get most people excited about sediment flows. Hydrologists excepted.
Impact. Dams will have impact. The debate over what impacts and how much fuels a lot of conflict, but not a lot of cooperation. Environmentalists staging a protest is news. Environmentalists engaging with dam developers to work out a fair distribution of risks and benefits will probably lead to a better outcome, but it has less news value.
Prominence. We invited Hillary Clinton to deliver a keynote, but she was already booked. A major challenge in bringing this story to a wider audience is that many of the people coming would prefer to keep a low profile.
Proximity. At last! Something I can grab on to. Most anything about dams on the Mekong is going to interest the local media—if we can come up with an interesting twist.
Human interest. CPWF’s recent film on Mekong dams played the human interest angle extremely well. People on both sides of the dam debate praised the film for its balance. “Balance” is something to strive for in a feature article and takes time to develop. Not much room in an 800 word press release.
Uniqueness. This is the second forum so not unique in that sense. But maybe there is something unique about this meeting. It’s not often you can get government policy makers, dam developers and researchers in a room and actually listening to other points of view. Maybe the conflict lies in the realm of perceptions. People see dams as points of controversy. What if they could become points of dialog and cooperation? What if there were such a thing as a “good” dam? And when you look at the Basins At Risk project, the striking feature is the high level of cooperation, not conflict, surrounding water in the Mekong.
Hence: In Search of the Good Dam and Water Wars on the Mekong an Unlikely Future.
Neither piece is a press release, but they may serve to interest the media in taking a closer look. And that’s all we can hope to achieve when we try to make news out of a meeting.
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Comments
Thanks Terry for your good advice; I have my own press release to write in two days on more efficient capacity building in agricultural value chains.
I remember having had your problem a few years ago when I was organizing a meeting on developing quality standards in agricultural marketing chains. My FAO press officer would tell me: nobody's going hungry in your story. It won't sell... Apparently, trying to develop solutions to problems is less newsworthy than the problems themselves. How sad...
Jo, thanks for the comment. There is some solace in knowing I am not alone with this problem. I would say that press officer was lacking in imagination. I have had on good authority that solutions can be as sexy as starving masses.
Lao gov't just announced they will go ahead with the Xayaburi dam. Suddenly the Mekong Forum on Water, Food and Energy is timely.
Terry,
I think there is also an opportunity for positive, counter intuitive messages and press releases. Take for example the Basin Focal Project Messages and press release which basically precursor's WLE's message - its not scarcity but management that is the problem.
The counter-intuitive message resonated globally as it was a more positive message on water and water management than the usual alarmist messages centered around scarcity. The campaign received widepsread coverage in local and regional media with 14 wire stories (Reuters, AFP etc.), four radio broadcasts, 25 original online stories and hundreds of online pickups in multiple languages.
A senior European Union negotiator picked up on these findings and used them in the EU’s Rio+20 messages. This in turn helped us enter into the Water, Food and Energy Nexus discussions. We also showcased our African Rainwater Management strategies at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, where we emphasized the value of rainwater management as an emerging climate- smart technology.
Take a look here: https://waterandfood.org/2011/12/21/defining-the-limits-of-agriculture/
Did you watch the US Presidential Debates on CNN? They had a focus group of undecided voters that would register the approval or disapproval of the candidates. There was a marked trend that when either candidate made negative comments, their rating went down. When they presented their vision or concrete policies, their ratings went up.
Maybe we shouldnt pander!
Indeed, the media are not only interested in conflicts. But there might be recent trends that push them in that direction. In last month’s Le Monde Diplomatique, Serge Halimi explained the media’s increasing taste for conflicts by the decline of print media, pushing journalists to resort to bigger headlines and more sensation, and easily compare anything with “the darkest hours in our history”.
Thanks for sharing. You put a nice twist to it. Thank you for the info Terry.