I just want to reiterate here that the asthma/breastfeeding story was
carried by the wire services in the late afternoon/early evening on the east
coast) well after the time necessary to do any fact-checking.

This is standard operating procedure if you want your message to get out
unimpeded.

It is also standard operating procedure for an organization to have what's
known as a "rapid response" capability. This means tracking news and issues
and responding with competing messages when appropriate.

We all try to do this - McKenna and, (I think it was) LLL issued a statement
after the first CPCS adult bed safety announcement. Australia and Unicef
Baby Friendly came up with statements on the asthma study a few days after
the news broke. It's hard to do this on an ad-hoc basis but this effort
helps.

It's most effective if you can jump into the fray within a few minutes,
hours at the most, so you can catch the news editors and reporters in the
same news cycle.

Even then, it's a tough game.

I wouldn't bypass the local news organizations - they are the ones who carry
this stuff unimpeded. They are greedy for content and don't have big
newsroom budgets to go out and get all their own stuff, especially in the
health care information area. They are also struggling to make national and
international news relevant for their local audience and if you can tap into
this need, you will have success in getting your message across.

But it can't be done overnight.

The ad hoc media strategy for our fledgling action group in Edmonton is to
develop relationships with the news editors and health reporters so they
will think of us when one of these stories comes across the wire, and
consider using our spokespeople for the local angle.

It's starting to work. The biggest local television station in our market
called us before they went to air with the asthma/breastfeeding story. After
talking to us they decided to kill the story. I think it's because the
*real* story was too complicated for the 20 seconds they had allocated, so
they just went with something else.

-- Jodine Chase
News analyst by day, Lactnet addict and media relations volunteer for BACE -
http://www.mediaworkswest.com/BACE/ -  by night.


> From: Sherry Weersing <[log in to unmask]>
>
> Guess we should bypass the local news organizations and go to the big guns
> to point out the problems with these studies? This was in response to a
> letter I wrote on the asthma/breastfeeding studies recently published. Sherry
> Weersing RNC
>
><snip>
> Hi Sheryl,
>  The news releases and wire copy I wrote the story from never mentioned
> formula. It only defined the study participants as "having been breastfeed
> for at least 4 weeks.
>  We did not, and do not routinely, get full copies of studies, but utilize
> news services like Associated Press, Reuters, and others who do see them.
>
> Thanks for your input!
>
> Dawn Heefner
> HealthCheck Producer
>

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