How to speak to the media

[everybodygoes 331]

Not that I would ever tell anyone to go to the Journal News for anything I was sent a link to a video of the LMFD Chief giving an interview. How about next time you want to give an interview you take the tobacco out of your mouth, you are the face of EVERY one of your members, the media is less than important when it would have take all of 2 seconds to take that out of your lip.

http://www.lohud.com/article/20131124/NEWS/311240022/Residents-rescued-Yorktown-Heights-blaze-video-

[Disaster_Guy 96]

You mean it's not professional to spit out your dip three times while doing a camera interview?

Here is a direct link the video: http://www.lohud.com/videonetwork/2863775695001/House-fire-in-Yorktown

[M' Ave 1,466]

Here's how to speak to the media:

In complete silence....... . That's how to do the least damage. J/k......sorta....

[X2321 133]

Complete silence is not the answer. If there is an incident the media is going to want to talk to someone. If no one on the fire side is going to talk to the media than they are going to talk to some PD desk Sgt. who wasn't even at the scene, or even worse some neighbor standing in the street who knows nothing of the incident but wants to see his name or photo in the paper. Each department should have a PIO (Public Information Officer) an ex-chief would make a great PIO. Listen its not just the Journal News and News 12, there is Patch, The Daily Voice, Hudson Valley Reporter and several other on-line news outlets trying to be the first to get their story out there.

[GBFD111 73]

The media should just get out of the Chief's face. Let him do his job as IC and talk to him after he has the fire under control, after the call is over, or overhaul

[10512 214]

The media should just get out of the Chief's face. Let him do his job as IC and talk to him after he has the fire under control, after the call is over, or overhaul

The Chief allowed the Media to talk to him. The media did not force him to do an interview. He could have said no, or later or whatever. He did not do that, he did the interview.

The Department I worked for had rules regarding Media. Basically, only certain members were allowed to do interviews.

Why only certain members?

Because the big bosses were pretty sure these certain members would not make the department look bad.

A professional image is 3/4 of the public relations battle.

Edited November 25, 2013 by 10512

[AFS1970 504]

Here's how to speak to the media:

In complete silence....... . That's how to do the least damage. J/k......sorta....

Complete silence is not the answer. If there is an incident the media is going to want to talk to someone. If no one on the fire side is going to talk to the media than they are going to talk to some PD desk Sgt. who wasn't even at the scene, or even worse some neighbor standing in the street who knows nothing of the incident but wants to see his name or photo in the paper. Each department should have a PIO (Public Information Officer) an ex-chief would make a great PIO. Listen its not just the Journal News and News 12, there is Patch, The Daily Voice, Hudson Valley Reporter and several other on-line news outlets trying to be the first to get their story out there.

Right after taking the PIO course, I was at a fire and the media was looking for a spokesman. Even though I had been on the initial engine crew, I was now assigned to something that was less critical. I went to the Chief and told him, he said he was too busy. I offered to be the PIO (after all he had approved me going to the class) however he didn't want that. So they interviewed a Police Lieutenant who knew nothing about firefighting who told them all sorts of interesting things about the fire. All in all a bad call from the Chief. Always make sure you have someone from your service do it, preferably your own department.

The media should just get out of the Chief's face. Let him do his job as IC and talk to him after he has the fire under control, after the call is over, or overhaul

Yes they should, but after meeting a few reporters in the PIO class they had an interesting perspective. Just like firefighters see it as doing their job to put out the fire and not be bothered by the media, the reporters see it as their job to get the story and to do that they want to get as close as they can and talk to as many people as they can. Obviously I think the reporters needs are at best secondary to the fire service needs but meeting them in a non incident environment made it somewhat easy to understand where they are coming from on scene.

Also while some chiefs think that they are the only ones allowed to talk, they can assign anyone they want to this task. The media doesn't care so much who they are talking to and they will go with any title you present, even Acting PIO or Incident Media Specialist. IF you don't have a rank and get this assignment make something up if you want, as long as it can be backed up later. They don't need to see a white hat because most of them are only marginally aware of what that means.

[M' Ave 1,466]

...no one understood that "j/k" at the end of a sentence indicates that said statement was tongue-in-cheek?