How to prepare media releases, images, presentations, and media packs for minimal damage to the poor hacks who receive them. Which might help when it comes to choosing to use them

1. Basic principles
In the care and feeding of the media
Martin Hatchuel
www.barefootclients.co.za
June 12

2. We suck at collaboration
- Ron Mader

3. Menu
Hors d'oeuvre
The journalist’s dilemma
Entrées
Media releases
Images
PowerPoint presentations
Desserts
Media CDs & memory sticks
Bornuppa Tree!

4. Deadlines!
Deadlines!
Deadlines!

5. The staple diet of the greater spotted media mogul
Contacts
Stories
Images & videos

6. Home Economics 101
Cooking the perfect
media release

7. Start with your headline
“You’re not actually writing the headline.
You’re finding out what your story is really about”
- Tom Whitwell, assistant online editor, The Times
www.slideshare.net/TomWhitwell/how-to-write-awesome-headlines-presentation

8. About headlines
Gimme the whole story
Sucks if you try to be clever
Sucks if you try to be funny (punny, too)
Sucks if you over simplify or patronise
“The difference between a good headline and a weak headline isn’t 5% or 10%,
it’s 10x, 20x or more” - Tom Whitwell

9. Six words - max!

10. Learn from fiction
5 essential elements of a story
Characters (who)
Setting (where)
Plot: the action from start to finish
Conflict (what)
Resolution (how)

11. Learn from fiction:
7 basic plotlines

12. 1. The Quest
Central character: distant goal
Harry Potter
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Lord of the Rings

13. 2. Voyage and Return
Central character: learning new things
Alice in Wonderland
The Wizard of Oz
...Calvin and Hobbes?

14. 3. Rebirth
Central character: imprisoned by forces within
A Christmas Carol
Beauty and the Beast

15. 4. Comedy
Aristotle: comedy shows people to be worse than they are
When Harry Met Sally
All’s Well That Ends Well
The Mexican

16. 5. Tragedy
Aristotle: tragedy shows people to be greater than they are
Hamlet
Macbeth
Bad Education

17. 6. Overcoming the monster
Evil creatures/people/things
The Silence of the Lambs
Dracula
Hansel and Gretel

18. 7. Rags to Riches
From zero to hero: and often back again
Aladdin and the Genie of the Magic Lamp
Cinderella
Great Expectations

19. Media releases:
The five basic food groups
Logical order
Verifiable quotes
Verifiable facts
Spellink & Gramma
Links (real world & online)

20. Stories: the golden rule
“Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.”
- Every teacher who ever lived

21. By Me: great Twitterature
in 140 characters, 29 words,
1 paragraph
She came to my room. She was pretty as a
summer sunrise. We argued about the
state of the place. She left and I’m sad. Ooh
look! She’s back!

22. Media releases:
The dry ingredients
Date & embargo
Image information (who’s who?)
Word count
Who ordered it
Who wrote it

23. Date (no embargo here)
Image information
Story
Contacts
Word Count
Who ordered it
Who wrote it

24. Media releases: serving
suggestions
E-mail
.txt
.pdf (*Burp*!)
Microsoft Word (Comme ci, comme ça)
Open Office (*Puke!*)

25. Media releases:
Forbidden foods
Never, ever, ever embed images
in .pdf or Word files.
No! Not ever!

26. Images
“Every picture tells a story”
- Every photographer or artist who ever lived

27. Feeding images to
Print publications
.jpg format
300 dpi
250 mm wide or high (give or take)

28. Feeding images to
Online publications
.jpg format
72 dpi
Standard 1024 x 769 pixels or 800 x 600 pixels
Useful toy: Photo Gadget Picture Resize
www.xemico.com/photogadget/freeware.html

29. The staple diet of the
Picture editor
Composition – Unclutter! Zoom in!
Exposure – Not too dark, not too light
Lighting – Side lighting is nca! (Trash the flash)

30. Does your picture tell your story?
Google: ‘Free online lessons digital photography’
29,700,000 results
Useful presentation: It’s not the size of your camera
www.slideshare.net/n8vision/its-not-the-size-of-your-
camera-digital-photography-in-3-parts

31. Images: Forbidden foods
Date stamps
Instagram effects
Photoshop ‘roid junkies

32. PowerPoint Presentations:
Dietary basics
Bullet points, not paragraphs (Less is more)
Remember the golden story rule!
Spellink & Gramma
Print to .pdf

33. Media CDs & memory sticks:
Dietary basics
Media releases
Biographies
Feature articles
Facts sheets

34. Media CDs and memory sticks:
Dietary basics
Documents
.pdf AND text or MS Word formats
Images
.jpg, 300 dpi, 250 mm wide – or wider
Text information about each image

35. Media CDs and memory sticks:
Dietary basics
Videos
AVI
Presentations
.pdf only!

36. Media CDs and memory sticks:
Dietary basics
Achtung! Verboten!
Password protection
Images embedded in .pdf or Word docs

37. A pantry full of learning
BBC – Online learning, support & advice
www.bbc.co.uk/learning/subjects/media_studies.shtml
Free online courses
Harvard Extension School
www.extension.harvard.edu/courses
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Open Courseware
www.ocw.mit.edu/courses/
Ron Mader’s Planeta Wiki (Ron certainly doesn’t suck at collaboration)
www.planeta.wikispaces.com/media
Martin Hatchuel:
Managing Perceptions: The Care and Feeding of the Media
www.slideshare.net/MartinHatchuel1/managing-perceptions-the-care-
and-feeding-of-the-media

38. Baie dankie!
Ndiyabulela kakhulu!
Thank you so much!
- Every poor hack who ever received a media release, image, or media pack

39. Martin Hatchuel
martin@barefootclients.co.za
www.barefootclients.co.za
www.thistourismweek.co.za
www.twitter.com/@martinhatchuel
Attributions: Images
Sushi
www.flickr.com/photos/thinkdraw/
La Tomatina
www.flickr.com/photos/flydime/
All other images are in the
public domain and were
found on
www.commons.wikimedia.org