CHAPTER 4 MEDIA RELATIONS Media  relations  is  an  important  facet  of  your  public affairs office operation, yet it is often underemphasized or taken for granted. Depending on the events at your command, media relations can be your number one priority and easily consume most, if not all, of your public affairs workday. Whether it be a colorful change of command ceremony or a plane crash with several fatalities, you can count on interaction with the media. Therefore, you must understand the complex media machine–its   parts,   strategies   and   concerns.   This understanding will help you recognize the elements that form the foundation of good media relations. Also, you must know how to establish credibility for yourself, office and command, and recognize strategies you can use to release information to media. This chapter covers these areas and more. IMPORTANCE OF SOUND MILlTARY/MEDIA RELATIONS the the Learning  Objective: Recognize   the   importance   of sound  military/media  relations. Americans deal with large amounts of information every day. The Navy and the American people are now being led by a television generation of workers and young leaders. To reach the public in this age of instant television,  you  must  understand  the  strengths  and weaknesses of the mass news media and know how to use them most effectively, particularly the television medium. TRENDS Two trends in American society make the task of communicating  the  Navy’s  message  more  demanding. First, since the military draft ended in 1973, fewer and fewer  Americans  have  had  firsthand  military experience. This group cannot adequately judge the fairness of military information in news reports. The public must rely on the reporter to balance his story, which may or may not apply, depending on the reporter and  the  editors  or  producers. Second, a generation changing of the guard has come  to  the  journalism  industry.  When  the  draft  ended, the news reporters who usually showed up at military events were most likely high school teenagers or college students. Reporters who are now in their late 20s or early 30s (as of this writing) were in journalism schools in the late 1970s when the military image was shaped by anti-Vietnam  and  post-Vietnam  trends  on  the  campuses of  America.  Therefore,  these  reporters  are  skeptical  at best, and hostile at worst. With this in mind, you and the PAO must reach out and educate the new generation of reporters and the public. The best way to do this is to open a dialogue with the news media by learning to communicate better. PUBLIC OPINION We   are   now   in   the   post-cold   war   period experiencing  a  major  change  in  how  American  society deals with domestic and international relations. There is a   new   world   order   with   more   multipolar   power dispersal.   Worldwide   economic   competition   and domestic concerns, such as the war on drugs, AIDS, the federal  deficit  and  environmental  problems  are  at  the forefront of the American agenda. As American priorities change, it is important to talk to Americans in a manner that relates to these changes. We must note that, regardless of the American public’s mood of the moment, its confidence in their military is strong. This is reflected in the Gallup public opinion poll in figure 4-1. News Media Role One characteristic most Americans have in common is that we begin our day watching, listening or reading the news. What the public thinks depends largely on what the public hears. The American news media are the American   citizen’s   “intelligence   network.”   The headlines  of  the  evening  newscast  tell  us  what  is important  in  society. In the past 10 years, the worldwide Cable News Network (CNN) has become the electronic “plug-in” news source of choice for military command centers, newspaper  editorial  offices  and  business  travelers around  the  world. 4-1