Ask Charity Weblog

askCHARITY went on a visit to Tate Britain to meet Phil Collins, one of the artists nominated for this year's Turner Prize. The exhibition is as controversial as ever and Phil's work is not proving to be popular with the UK media. Phil collects the stories of people who have appeared on Jeremy Kyle style programmes, talk shows and real life documentaries. His work is about how the TV camera works "as both an instrument of attraction and manipulation, of revelation and shame".

You can go and see his production office (Shady Lane Productions) in action in the Tate and watch his (unedited) interviews with people who want the chance to have their say about their experience of appearing on TV. His work has made many in the TV industry nervous - they don't like to be questioned about their ways of working and are nervous about "their case studies" being given the opportunity to bite back.

Phil is very keen to hear from charities and charity clients who have good or bad tales to tell about their TV experiences. He treats all correspondence with absolute confidentiality - your stories won't get displayed as part of his work. Read more about Phil's project here: http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/2006/philcollins.htm

Get in touch with Phil's office to find out more. Email: jane@shadylaneproductions.co.uk Tel: 0207 887 4924.

Phil is working towards a major press conference, bringing together a group of people who feel they have been manipulated by the TV industry and want their chance to collectively have their stories heard and their experiences recorded.

His show is definitely worth a visit and is bound to get a lot more print coverage.

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Two revealing articles on charities and celebrities were published on Monday. Sue Ryan wrote in the Media Guardian of the trials involved in dealing with Jemima Khan and Trudie Styler who were taking a trip to Pakistan to publicise Unicef's work there http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,,1928722,00.html. She describes brilliantly how the two women were incredibly particular about their travel, how they appeared, and exactly what the copy said. The article begs the question as to whether it was actually worth it for the charity.
Marina Cantacuzino, who now runs the charity the Forgiveness Project, writes in the Independent of her experience of charity press trips http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article1919430.ece. The article addresses the question "as you turn up in your Jeep and drive down a dirt track into another blighted community where the villagers swarm out of their homes hoping you are their salvation, the question that the celebrity, the charity worker and the journalist must all ask themselves is, will these people's lives improve because I am here?"

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We are doing a research project where we are offering media mentoring to two organisations who would like to use the media to recruit volunteers: the Cheltenham Volunteer Centre and the Berkshire Association of Clubs for Young People. We are offering these organisations media advice and their progress in getting media coverage is being followed by the Institute for Volunteering Research. As part of the research we have interviewed local journalists - about their perceptions of the organisations and about the kind of stories they are looking for. Its often said that the media is not interested in volunteering but these conversations and all those we had for our Culture Clash research http://www.vamu.org.uk belie that view. Journalists, particularly local ones, say they are absolutely happy to look at volunteering stories - they just need some details and some volunteers willing to be interviewed. There is absolutely no prejudice against the subject, in fact all of those we spoke to were really keen to make new contacts. I think it just shows again that the ball is in charities' court. Its genuinely difficult to get into the national new agenda but when it comes to local papers there are lots of opportunities...

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Many charities cannot afford to subscribe to a media contacts database like Gorkana, Media Disc or Media Atlas, given that the cost can run into thousands of pounds. Vivienne Parry, the freelance journalist, thinks it's better for PRs to build up their own list of media contacts anyway. For those who want to research the media outlets in their area, there are two sites which offer free information. The Newspaper Society offers a search facility for regional newspapers with a map showing where papers are based http://www.newspapersoc.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=947 and media uk has an alphabetical list of newspapers http://www.mediauk.com/newspapers/ . Apparently it also has a map but I couldn't find it.

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Women In Journalism, the networking and campaigning group for women journalists, met last night to discuss the use and treatment of case studies in UK media. askCHARITY were in attendance along with several charity PR guests. Lindsay Nicholson, Editorial Director of National Magazines spoke of how "people who have had terrible things happen to them have a right to a voice" and went on to state that she expected a "standard level of care" from all her titles. That meant she expected her journalists to negotiate with a case study which pictures could or couldn't be used and she recognised how important it was to tell each case study when their story was going to be published. Lindsay was really put under pressure though when freelancers in the audience expressed their concern that they could no longer get stories commissioned without a photo of their case study. Lindsay simply responded 'that anyone could be made to look good in the right photo'.

Joining Lindsay on the panel was Katy Weitz of First Features, a commercial agency which operates as a broker for media case studies and real life stories. She promises "big bucks" for your story. She said it was "ok to be an ugly case study" for most real life mag titles. It was only the glossies which insisted on pretty young women. She said the newspapers and mags had big money to spend so why shouldn't people be paid for their story? She said charities were missing out by not asking for money for their case studies. Many in the audience expressed great concern about such blatant cheque book journalism, and were worried about what motivates people to reveal their personal lives to the press - was it really for issue awareness or for the money? Did the payment corrupt the fragile relationship between journalist and case study?

Katy divided case studies she dealt with into three categories 1) Survivors - who have something to say 2) Victims who are still suffering but having their story told in the media will help them in their recovery 3) True victims; those who are still suffering, are troubled and just want to talk to someone. Katy won't work with this third group but did admit, "you're never exactly sure if you're taking on someone who is too vulnerable".

One thing was apparent to all last night - the media demand for "real life exclusives", "case studies" and "victims" is certainly not going away. The question is, how are charities going to manage to negotiate this tricky, sometimes unpleasant, trade?

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