We need to talk about NGO communications: is playing the ‘media game’ worth it?
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) interact with the media in a variety of ways to achieve their communications goals, but are these interactions working or just serving as a distraction from the core mission? I spoke to an international aid agency about their relationship with the media to understand the nuances of the rules of engagement, and if playing the ‘media game’ is worth it. Here is what I learned.
“We can’t connect our donors and our beneficiaries unless we tell the story of what we are working on.”
There were 364 disasters in 2012. I bet you only heard about ten. And what about the 574 reported disasters in 2015?
Though every disaster cannot make front page news, international humanitarian NGOs deploy strategies which are designed deliberately to get media attention. Communications is a vital tool for NGO brand-awareness and fundraising — who donates to an NGO that they have never heard of? — and as a result, they must “understand the news machine and how we can feed it without p***ing it off.”
I know you’re thinking, ‘so… what is the problem?’
But does giving the media what they want — or asking, “how can we make this sexier for you?” as one interviewee put it — mean that NGOs are drifting from their core mission into the media business?
Closing news desks: an opportunity for all?
As foreign news desks close, media outlets are becoming increasingly dependent on NGOs to provide news material from abroad. Perfectly placed to fill this void, surely this is an easy way to get media coverage for an international organization?
Not necessarily; the reality remains that with 574 reported disasters in 2015, only a handful can be realistically covered by the mass media. Thus, disasters will still be valued based on their ‘news value’ — proximity, casualties, etc. — regardless of NGO employees or volunteers on the ground feeding information to journalists. This means humanitarian aid organizations with limited institutional resources may waste their time trying.
Media and NGO: a mutually beneficial relationship?
Though a strong cooperation between the media and NGOs can mean more international stories in the news, the relationship is asymmetrical: NGOs are reliant on the media to further their communication aims, i.e. to raise money and awareness for their cause, but journalists’ primary role is not to promote NGOs in the field.
“You, as an NGO, are merely a vehicle for them to get stories,” one aid worker told me. The NGO must pitch stories and provide new angles which fit journalist’s needs. Consequently, do humanitarian NGOs run the risk of ‘commodifying tragedy’ to take advantage of the crisis’ coverage? Potentially.
But, ignore it at your peril!
In the early days of a major disaster, aid agencies scramble to deliver vital life-saving equipment to those most in need, but the media must also be considered an important part of this first stage recovery effort: constant disaster coverage requires an equally constant flow of information which can be an additional challenge for NGOs. The first few days of Typhoon Haiyan are in many ways case and point. Critical infrastructure damage hampered operations, and with little else to report, the story quickly and exclusively became the ‘slow aid response’. “It’s about managing expectations. (…) in the absence of any other story, a negative story will rush in to fill the vacuum,” an aid worker said.
Balancing the work and information sharing is not easy in the first days of a disaster response; so can social media provide a stopgap for hungry media in a time of disaster, spreading information freely and immediately, or is it too a burden for NGOs?
Getting lost — too many voices or not enough strategy?
With so many social media platforms available (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn, Vine, Google+ and Instagram), a quantifiable embrace of this vast array of platforms invariably stretches already limited financial and human resources and capabilities by trying to focus attention in too many directions — is LinkedIn really necessary for your organization? — and if left untended, can make the organization seem inactive.
And with so much competition between other NGOs and other kinds of news and information, social media is often reduced to simply becoming a “reminder that we are here.” Which often takes the shape of promoting the same stories as on the news, or ‘quirky’ content.
Filling the media void
Using formulaic strategies such as posing a weekly ‘question of the week’, and catching on to events like the organizations’ next training course or communicating ‘theme day messages’ arguably produces fleeting or shallow coverage.
So, what can be done? Without being known, without playing the media game, all disasters could go unnoticed; you need to tell the story that you are working on to raise funds and inform the public about an ongoing disaster, but don’t get trapped by the conventions and expectations.
NGOs should start taking the lead in their use of new media to become frontrunners in ‘forgotten’ disasters — for example, creating hashtags such as #DisastersTheMediaMissed to highlight the plight of victims across the platforms — is vital, otherwise it runs the risk of missing out on the new possibilities afforded by social media to spread their messages.
What have your interactions been like? What do you think about the ‘media game’?
