8 Steps for Not-For-Profit Media Leadership

While researching my new book, The Media Savvy Leader, I found an authentic leader in the field of not-for-profit organizations who knows the importance of managing the message in order to achieve consistently outstanding media coverage - Layli Miller-Muro, founder and head of the Tahirih Justice Center.

While Miller-Muro appreciates the power of television news to reach broad and general audiences, the impact does not last very long and does not always achieve the center’s objectives. Print coverage, on the other hand, conveys greater credibility and lasts longer because it is archived by the large databases, including LexisNexis. Despite the current troubling trend of mainstream newspapers struggling to stay in business, print works best for the Justice Center because it targets the right audiences.

When Miller-Muro or the Justice Center makes news, they find that print media is most powerful because people can cite it and quote it as an authority. Print media is far more influential in the field of The Media Savvy Leader human rights advocacy. Conversely, the general public has little direct influence on a court decision or piece of legislation.

To this day, the Tahirih Justice Center has never hired a public relations agency but prefers to work on a personal and pro bono level with a few communications consultants who believe in the work of the Center and who willingly give their expertise for developing talking points or sharing media connections.

Long ago, Miller-Muro accepted responsibility for guiding the brand reputation of the Tahirih Justice Center and, in the process, developed a personal style to achieve consistent, meaningful coverage.

You can benefit by following Miller-Muro’s formula:

• Treat news releases only as a way to maintain awareness from reporters. Never expect a story to result from sending a release.
• Focus on a few journalists with whom you have a relationship to pitch stories to or to ask for advice, avoiding mass outreach.
• Give reporters timely and relevant legitimate stories angles, with personal stories that illustrate your point.
• Craft a page of five to ten sentences—talking points or messages—that you want to say in an interview before ever speaking with a reporter.
• Develop healthy and respectful working relationships with journalists, which means being immediately responsive to their calls, respectful of their deadlines, and corresponding in a professional manner.
• Readily admit when you are not an expert on an issue and refer journalists to other sources who are.
• Before speaking to a reporter, look up their past coverage and understand their likely biases before talking to them.
• Ask the journalist to use the name of your organization when quoting you so that your comments are best put into context.

The responsibility for developing and guiding the Center’s media strategy is always handled personally by Miller-Muro and her staff. That level of ownership and accountability is clearly one reason for the organization’s enduring record of achieving important and sometimes life-changing media coverage, and it has put Layli Miller-Muro into that exclusive group of leaders who are among the world’s most important communicators. Following her method can help you become a worldclass communicator, as well.