Ask Charity Weblog

A couple of weeks ago a freelance women's magazine journalist sent out a request using askCHARITY. It was a request asking for a series of case studies, many of which appeared a little irrelevant to charities (eg "tattoos drastically changed my life") and one which I knew would offend some ("I fell in love with my stalker/abuser"). I explained the problem to the journalist but to some extent the damage was done. One of the charities on the database asked to be taken off as a result. And they pulled out of participating in a seminar we were organising on crime for BBC Radio 4. This charity felt that we were responsible for sending out the request and thus that they did not want to be associated with anything we were organising. I agree the request was insensitive to many charities but I still don't feel we should censor/filter these requests. They can only be sent out by registered journalist users and can be deleted if people don't like them. But equally I don't want to alienate more charities.....

Posted by Charity at 01:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The Voluntary Action Media Unit, which runs this site, has recently designed and promoted a scheme to give those who work for charities the opportunity to work in the media for one or two weeks. Its a competitive scheme - we have only 20 attachments available - and the response has been amazing. We got over 200 applications before the deadline and people who are interested in applying are still e-mailing us. We asked candidates to explain why the media should be interested in their charity/project/client/issue. Too many of those who applied just related what their charity did. But, unfortunately, the media is very seldom interested in hearing straight about how many clients use a charity's services etc. The best applications tapped into the media's agenda and showed how their charity could help the media persue that agenda. These applicants had passion about their charity but understood that that passion on its own would not produce coverage.

Posted by Charity at 04:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Is it worth a charity helping a journalist with an as yet uncommissioned article? There are arguments both sides - if you do you create a friend in the freelancer concerned and the article may get commissioned, but you may waste a lot of time tracking down the perfect case for nothing. The other day a freelancer posted a request on our answer service and said she was looking for XYZ for "a national magazine". I rang her and asked her whether the article had been commissioned and pointed out that it would be better to be totally open in the request so all charities knew where they were. She said it had not been commissioned. This journalist might be upfront next time but it just shows that all charities need to ask key questions of a freelancer who wants case studies
- is the article commissioned and who by?
- if the article is not commissioned, what is the journalist's track record in selling?
Clearly we still think these requests are a good thing but the onus is still on each charity I'm afraid to check them out

Posted by Charity at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I used to work at the BBC but never in News. I know many charities would like to get their stories on BBC News bulletins or their spokespeople interviewed. We picked up an interesting correspondence on this on a message board. One person suggested sending stories to uknewsplan@bbc.co.uk but Steve Bustin, a PR who used to work on the News planning desk advised other routes "mails to this address don't go to everyone in BBC News, only to the central newsgathering planning team. If they pick up the story on your press release, they add it
to the Prospects, a daily news diary, which is then seen by everyone from local radio stations to national TV bulletins, News 24 and various other programmes such as Woman's Hour, plus BBC News online. Needless to say, they get hundreds of submissions to that address every day, the vast majority of which don't stand a hope of getting noticed, so only send something if you can realistically see it being covered on national news. In most cases, you're far better off approaching a particular programme or specialist producer".

Posted by Charity at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)