Media Guidebooks and Websites

Most large advocacy groups produce media guides about their issue for internal use. They're usually very helpful because they address the media nuances of specific issues. Ask a national organization that works on your issue if it has its own guide. Also, check out these:

Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits (2003)
Jason Salzman
Westview Press
Boulder, CO
The best, but we wrote it.

How You Can Manipulate the Media (1993)
David Alexander
Paladin Press
Boulder, CO
Some of this strange book's media tips, such as lying to the media, should be ignored. But it's still interesting to read the descriptions of some of the unusual media stunts.

The Jossey-Bass Guide to Strategic Communications for
Nonprofits (1998)
Kathy Bonk, Henry Griggs, and Emily Tynes
Josey-Bass Publishers
San Francisco, CA
A comprehensive book with tips on how to use new communications tools and much more. Valuable.

The Activist Cookbook (1997)
Andrew Boyd
United for a Fair Economy
www.unitedforafaireconomy.org
A great resource for helping you think creatively about media events and involving artists in your work. Don't miss the list of resources at the end of this manual.

Spin Works (2001)
Robert Bray
The SPIN Project
www.spinproject.org
A great tool for activists. Its presentation of how to develop messages and then "move" them is particularly useful.

Op-eds: A Cost-Effective Strategy for Advocacy (2000)
Larry Kirkman and Karen Menichelli, Editors
The Benton Foundation
www.benton.org
A practical guide for publishing op-eds.

Media How-to Guidebook (1999)
Marianne Manilov
San Francisco Media Alliance
www.media-alliance.org
The Media How-to Guidebook is a well-organized, concise handbook. A bit dry but highly informative.

The Executive's Guide to Handling a Press Interview (1990)
Dick Martin
Pilot Industries
103 Cooper Street
Babylon, NY 11702
The forty-seven-page Executive's Guide is filled with amusing
examples of how businesses have successfully-and unsuccessfully
-interacted with the news media. Its tips are good, too.

Prime Time Activism (1991)
Charlotte Ryan
South End Press
Boston, MA
Prime Time Activism is both a progressive academic analysis of the news media and a guide to help activists manipulate the news. It's a dense read for a busy practitioner, but there are lots
of interesting ideas here, particularly if you're interested in theory.

How to Tell and Sell Your Story (1997 and 1998)
Timothy Saasta
Center for Community Change
www.communitychange.org
Thoughtful booklets about media outreach, especially for issues related to low-income housing. A second volume, published in 1998, contains excellent advice on how to develop effective
messages, in part by using low-budget polls and focus groups.

The Practice of Public Relations (2001)
Fraser P. Seitel
Prentice Hall
Upper Saddle River, NJ
The best PR textbook that I've seen, but expensive and not so useful for the practitioner.

Conducting Successful Focus Groups (1999)
Judith Sharken Simon
Amherst H. Wilder Foundation
www.wilder.org
Do this yourself and avoid spending thousands of dollars.

Making Money While Making a Difference: How to Profit with a Nonprofit Partner
Richard Steckel, Robin Simons, Jeffrey Simons, and Norman Tanen
High Tide Press
Homewood, IL
Learn how for-profit corporations "partner" with nonprofit groups. This is interesting reading about a marketing tactic that is abused by some bad companies and compromising nonprofits.

Dealing Effectively with the Media (1992)
John Wade
Crisp Publications
Menlo Park, CA
Dealing Effectively with the Media focuses on interviews. It offers
some excellent interview tricks and preparation ideas. Definitely
worth buying.

Media Advocacy and Public Health (1993)
Lawrence Wallack, Lori Dorfman, David Jernigan, and Makani
Themba
Sage Publications
Thousand Oaks, CA
Media Advocacy and Public Health focuses on how to devise media strategies and messages to advance policy goals. Though a bit dated, it's still useful. Its focus is public health policy, but the information could be used by any advocate. If you can't muster the commitment to read it all, check out Chaper 4, "Thinking Media Advocacy," and Chapter 6, "Media Advocacy Case Studies."

News for A Change (1999)
Lawrence Wallack, Katie Woodruff, Lori Dorfman, Iris Diaz
Sage Publications
Thousand Oaks, CA
A guide that combines entertaining case studies with practical tips.

The Publicity Handbook (1991)
David R. Yale
NTC Business Books
Lincolnwood, IL
This book is so comprehensive you're bound to learn something
if you read it.

You'll find a stack of general books on marketing in the library. It's worth perusing them for an hour on a rainy afternoon. Most are written for small businesses and entrepreneurs, covering not
just the news media but advertising, flyers, business cards, newsletters, direct mail, speeches, canvassing, personal calls, and more. A few books to look for:

Guerilla P.R. (1993)
Michael Levine
HarperBusiness
New York, NY
Captures the spirit of PR.

Guerilla Marketing (2000)
Jay Conrad Levinson
Houghton Mifflin
New York, NY
Levinson's series of books deserves the wide attention it has garnered.

Feeding the Media Beast (2002)
Mark Mathis
Purdue University Press
West Lafayette, IN
Funny, energetically written, and inspirational-even if doesn't have much nuts-and-bolts, practical information. Tilts to the right politically.

You can save trees and find most of the media tips you need online. Start with these web sites:

Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
www.glaad.org

Green Media Toolshed
www.greenmediatoolshed.org

The Spin Project
www.spinproject.org

Community Media Workshop
www.newstips.org