Why do Charities Want Media Coverage?

Scientists seldom say anything headline grabbing, so it falls to charity communications teams to act as interpreters between the scientist and journalist, and sometimes the public. Their job is to translate science-speak into English, to point out what is significant, new or exciting, and to perform this job responsibly.

Sometimes this goes wrong, as happened when The Daily Mail ran a misleading story about the link between intelligence and sexual satisfaction in women. So it is little surprise that research for the World Cancer Research Fund found people were confused by misleading cancer stories and had lost trust in the media and scientists.

But perhaps it's more surprising that the charity called on other charity press teams to use restraint in their press releases. It obviously believed they were contributing to the problem.

A press officer rarely issues a release without it having gone through an approval process. So if a charity is being irresponsible in its quest for media coverage, culpability is not always with the person who wrote the material.

Charities seek media coverage for many reasons: it can boost fundraising, attract supporters and increase influence and outreach. But someone has to decide what the priority is and the extent to which scientific breakthroughs can be pushed to raise the profile of an organisation.

If the purpose of coverage is to inform patients about the breakthrough, it is unlikely that the mass media is an appropriate or reliable vehicle. If you want informed coverage that acknowledges the caveats, don't give it to The Daily Mail. Give it to an outlet that wants facts rather than headlines, wouldn't dream of taking a press release at face value and asks tough questions. At which point you might see the coverage evaporate - and, as a result, you might also have another problem.

So let's not blame the press officers or the journalists who file what their particular outlets require of them, but ask instead some tougher institutional questions about why we want coverage, what purpose it serves and which stories can be used to achieve what.

Then let's acknowledge that there is tension between the competing needs of charities and the functions they ask their media teams to perform, and let's develop some cross-sector guidelines for addressing that.

If that process is built around the needs of the end-user, the results will be challenging - perhaps revolutionary; but they will at least protect the people who are most important in all this.

FACT FILE - THE SCIENCE OF HEADLINES

Last month, a YouGov survey for cancer charity the World Cancer Research Fund found that 46 per cent of the public did not trust media stories about how food and drink affected the risk of cancer. Richard Evans, head of communications at the charity, said press officers should sometimes go against their instincts and play down the findings of scientific studies, even if this meant getting on to page 34 of newspapers rather than getting the splash.

In May, the NHS Knowledge Service criticised The Daily Mail for a front-page story claiming that new research showed "Intelligent women have better sex." The research, funded by health research charities the Wellcome Trust and the Chronic Disease Research Foundation, measured 'emotional intelligence' - the ability to identify and manage emotions - but much of the reporting suggested it measured IQ. The NHS said the headlines were incorrect and raised concern that the report would lead to changes in counselling methods.

Mirella von Lindenfels Column
PUBLISHED in Third Sector Magazine July 09