How to Use the Media to Effect Systems Change

According to Lawrence Wallack, a prominent health researcher, "media advocacy is rooted in community advocacy and has as its goal the promotion of healthy public policies. It can be differentiated from traditional mass media strategies in a number of ways. Media advocacy shifts the focus from the personal to the social, from the individual to the political, from the behavior or practice to the policy or environment. While traditional media approaches try to fill the 'knowledge gap,' media advocacy addresses the 'power gap'."

 

Join us for a lively discussion with Sarah Karp, a reporter with WBEZ in Chicago. We will talk about ways you can engage the media to bring about systems change in your own communities. You will learn

 

1. What makes a story concerning systems change newsworthy 2. The differences between a news story, press release and op-ed

3. The subtle differences between working with print media versus radio and other media

3. The do's and don'ts of working with the media

4. How to ride the news cycle