Professional Media Writing Strategy

Regardless of whether you report the news for a digital media outlet or create
advertisements for an agency, you will face the task of writing a news or persuasive piece for
your employer or client. Getting started with that writing can present real challenges to
your thinking and creative abilities. If you often have trouble getting started with a piece of
writing, know that you are not alone. Understand that media professionals use specific
strategies to begin and organize their writing. These strategies must be simple and direct,
because professionals face deadlines every day. They don’t have time to sit back and ponder
their approaches. You can benefit from their professional experience when you adopt their
strategic approaches to carry out your own writing projects. Using strategy to tackle writing
enables you to work more effectively and efficiently.

Figure 2.2 The Professional Strategy Triangle

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The Professional Strategy Triangle (Figure 2.2) summarizes a strategy that many media
professionals employ in any writing situation they encounter. We will return to the triangle
regularly throughout upcoming chapters.

As you can see above, the Professional Strategy Triangle features three corners that are
critical to every media writing task: the Situation, the Audience, and the Message. Let’s
consider them in the order that professionals do, beginning with situation:

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Situation
When you begin to write, always first assess the situation for which you are writing. Here is
a brief list of questions to ask yourself in this step to help define your situation:

News versus persuasive writing: Am I writing a news story, an editorial, a public relations
piece, or advertising copy? For example, if your editor asks you to observe a protest march
by fast-food workers demanding higher pay, and to write a piece for the evening news, you
will be writing a news story.

If news:

What type of story is this—a hard news story on a news event or a feature story based
on human interest?
What are the facts of the story? Which ones are most relevant to my audience?
Who are the key players in the story?
Where will I go to get the information I need? For instance, at the protest march, you
might interview marching workers and speak with a restaurant manager or city or
county official.

If persuasive (e.g., opinion pieces, public relations or advertising situations):

Is this a positive or a negative situation?

Who are the key players?
Which arguments should I use?
Which rational or emotional appeals should I use?
How should I structure my argument and appeals?

For instance, let’s say that you are a community activist working for an organization
advocating child adoption rights for gay and lesbian couples in the state of Missouri. You
are writing a guest editorial to submit to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a large metro daily.
You reason that this situation could be viewed as either positive or negative, depending on
one’s involvement with the issue and their personal convictions. Key players in your state
include the governor, the state legislature, activists, religious leaders, and community
members who have not yet made up their minds. Your arguments would likely include a
mix of rational and emotional appeals, including the fact that every child deserves a family,
or that people of all backgrounds can love one another and become functioning families.

In either scenario:

What are the organizational objectives for my employer or client?

How does my message advance my employer’s or client’s agenda, profit, or return on

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 investment?

In the above scenario, your organization’s immediate objectives are to encourage successful
passage of legislation allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt children in the state of
Missouri. If you write a forceful and convincing editorial that helps shift public opinion in
favor of the legislation, you will have significantly advanced your organization’s policy
agenda.

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Audience
The second corner in the triangle refers to the people who read, hear, or see your message.
You must be clear about who they are so that you can tailor your message to them.

Whether news or persuasion:

Who are my readers, listeners, and viewers?

What are their likely predispositions toward the issue?
Which of their demographic factors are relevant (race/ethnicity, sex, occupation,
income, education level)?
Which psychographic factors (attitudes, dispositions, life stages, hobbies) are
relevant?
How is my audience likely to interpret my message?
How credible is my organization in their minds?

For example, imagine that you work as a public relations staff member at a major state
university that is trying to more effectively promote its online courses and degree programs.
You are charged with creating a multimedia campaign to reach out to prospective students
and to boost the university’s reputation as a provider of high-quality online education.

Initial research reveals that your audience members are largely adult students, parents,
working professionals, and military members. They are diverse in terms of their ethnic
background; many have completed some college and want to finish their degrees. For the
most part, these students are paying their own tuition, and their families are heavily
invested in their academic success. Since many of the students finished some of their degree
work at your university, you have some built-in credibility from the start. You also know
that your audience members are likely to view attainment of a college degree as a significant
professional achievement and personal milestone, no matter how old they are. This
knowledge arms you with powerful background information on which to base your
campaign and the pieces you will write for it.

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Message
The final corner of the triangle encompasses the message. You’ve actively thought about
your situation and audience, and assembled the pieces you need to create an effective
message. What will it take to write a piece that meets the unique demands of your situation
and audience?

Next, we move to the center of the Professional Strategy Triangle, described below. Here,
you will learn about the importance of creatively envisioning your final story, getting
outside of your comfort zone to actively learn, and refocusing your thinking once more
before you begin to write.

Craft Essential: Create Your Own Professional Strategy Triangle

Employing professional writing strategy becomes a personal pursuit. You work best with strategy when you
own it. With that in mind, it is worth pausing now and thinking more about the Professional Strategy
Triangle. Record your answers to each of the following items:

1. Referring to Figure 2.2, use your own words to explain the corners on the triangle.
a. Explain the concept of situation as you see it. Situation can relate to the jobs that media
professionals do, the news articles they post, or the advertisements they create. How would
you characterize situation?
b. What does audience mean to you? Is audience a collection of individuals or a like-minded
crowd?
c. How do you define message? It certainly is more than text on a page. It refers to information
that carries meaning for people.

2. Think about a recent social media post you have created, perhaps on Twitter or Instagram.
a. Consider the Professional Strategy Triangle and your social media postings.
b. Explain how you considered (or perhaps should have considered) audience, situation, and
message as you created your social media post.

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In the Center of the Professional Strategy Triangle: The
Active Thinking Process
Notice that the middle of the Professional Strategy Triangle contains a continuous circle.
This illustrates the active thinking process that will help you gather the information you
need and determine how situation and audience will drive your message. In preparing to
write, professionals undertake an active thinking process as illustrated in Figure 2.3:

As you can see in Figure 2.3, writing is a multistep process. The quality of your final
written piece will be determined by the strength of your vision and the thinking you do in
these five steps. Let’s explore each one:

Figure 2.3 Center of the Professional Strategy Triangle

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1. Consider situation and audience together. In your mind or on paper, answer the
situation and audience questions listed above. Ask yourself how situational factors affect
your audience, and vice versa. Suppose that you work as a general assignment reporter for
your city’s television station, a local CBS affiliate. You have been covering a story on
funding for local school districts and how the state legislature’s new funding formula is
devastating their operating budgets. Recent school board meetings have been emotional
and heated. You know that many of your viewers are parents, families, and community
members who have children in the schools or work there.

2. Creatively envision the final story. Try to form a mental impression of what your
final piece will look like in a major publication. Think about how it will look, feel, and read
in finished form. Envision the characters and what they might say or do. Which visual
elements can you see alongside the story? Visualizing in this way is a powerful technique
professionals in other fields frequently use to break through to their best work. Just as a
professional composer envisions a beautiful piece of music or a tennis player can see that

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winning shot, you can envision your finished story headlining The New York Times or your
ad copy selling 100,000 new energy-saving solar panels.

Using the school scenario above, close your eyes and picture your finished story package (a
self-contained prerecorded news report) on the 6 p.m. news. You envision your lead-ins,
camera angles, and cutaways to interviews and shots of kids walking the school hallways.
You can hear the impassioned pleas of parents and troubled responses from administrators.
The story is already coming together in your mind.

3. Actively learn. Get out of your comfort zone. Head out into the world and feed your
creativity. This might mean interviewing district officials, asking bystanders what they
think and why, or researching school databases and governmental websites. Get the facts
and assemble the most complete picture possible. In this scenario, you would pack up your
camera gear and venture out to speak with average citizens about the school budget issue.
Securing advance permission, you drive over to two schools located in areas of town that
you would not normally visit. You ask the superintendent’s secretary for budget records
from last year and minutes from previous school board meetings.

4. Refocus your thinking. Stop and sift through all the information you gathered in
Steps 1 to 3. Figure out how it all adds up and which key themes and messages are
emerging. Who appears to be credible, and what needs further investigation? Run a mental
“sort” on everything you have. You can also use the FAJA Points, described later in this
chapter.

It’s getting to be a late night, but you are still going strong. Replaying your interview
footage, considering background information from anonymous sources, and reviewing your
documents, you begin to realize that the local school district has actually been operating
inefficiently for the past ten years. The district ran far over budget on several major
construction projects and spent well above the state average on coaching staffs and sports
equipment for its football program for the past eight years. You begin to see that
administrators could have better prepared their district for this budget crisis if they had
managed taxpayer dollars more carefully and built up budget surpluses in previous years.

5. Write. Finally, it’s time to set it all down in words. As your mental gears begin to turn
and your fingers start to click away at the keys, you can see that your story is headed in an
exciting new direction. You know your situation and audience; you are inspired by your
creative vision and armed with the information gleaned from interviews and research. Now
it’s time to write a story that will be driven by facts, insights, and a new perspective.
Remember, you would have not gained all of this had you bypassed the Professional
Strategy Triangle and the active thinking process at its center. It still takes you most of the
night to assemble and edit the story, but you and your news director are extremely happy
with the final package. Best of all, the story makes a major splash on the news that evening!

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In the section below, we will see how a public relations professional uses the Professional
Strategy Triangle and the active thinking process in the center to write a news release that is
both news oriented and persuasive in nature.

The War Room

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Writing a Message to Put “Heads in Beds” and “Butts
in Seats”
Before Alycia Rea, group director with The Zimmerman Agency in Tallahassee, Florida, sets her fingers to
the keys, she first applies professional strategy to the task of writing. To her, the ultimate question is, “How
does the writing advance the client’s business goals?”

“We’re all about storytelling—how does our writing land compelling coverage that puts heads in beds or
butts in seats?” she says.

Whether Rea is creating a visual presentation outline, drafting a news release, or pitching a hotel feature to a
travel editor, she considers these types of questions:

What are hotel management’s overriding business goals? To boost occupancy rates or the average
daily rate?
Which markets are crucial for that hotel?
How do guests travel to this hotel—by air? Train? Car?
What are potential customers’ demographics?
What are the considerations related to seasonality?

“When I am writing on behalf of a client, I always begin with a sound strategy that’s going to culminate in
impactful results,” Rea says.

1. Review the above list of questions and recall the Professional Strategy Triangle. Which of them are
related to situation? Which ones are related to audience? Explain your reasoning.
2. How would situation and audience considerations impact the message you write to persuade
someone to book a stay at your hotel?
3. Go online at www.zimmerman.com to check out the work Zimmerman does for its various clients
in the hospitality and consumer industries. What types of situation and audience considerations are
evident in the work?

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Using the Professional Strategy Triangle in Health Care
Public Relations Writing
You are the public relations director for Twin Lakes Regional Hospital, which will soon be
building a new urgent care clinic in the heart of downtown Beldaire. To be known as City
Centre Urgent Care, the new clinic will expand medical services to an underserved sector of
your community. However, the project has created some controversy because its
construction will displace the New Day Homeless Shelter, which has been a lifeline in the
community for the past twenty years. Twin Lakes’ management has placed you in charge of
announcing the opening of the clinic and creating positive publicity around it. You decide
to begin by writing a news release for local and regional media to announce the project.

Situation
Reviewing the Situation corner the Professional Strategy Triangle, you quickly realize the
following:

1. You are writing a piece that, like much public relations writing, is both news oriented
and persuasive in nature.
2. In general, the story is positive. However, it also contains potentially controversial or
even negative aspects because of the homeless shelter that will be displaced. You will
need to address this.
3. Key story players include community residents, hospital physicians and staff, city
officials, people who are homeless, and their advocates.
4. You will need to conduct research on the background of the building, the homeless
shelter, and hospital management’s reason for selecting it as the new clinic site. You
will also need to interview key story players.

Audience
Moving to the Audience corner of the Professional Strategy Triangle, you consider who will
be reading about the urgent care clinic project, and who will be most affected by it, either
positively or negatively. You put together the following list:

1. Downtown Beldaire residents who will be served by the clinic

2. Homeless people who will be displaced by the project, along with their advocates
3. Readers, listeners, and viewers of local media including the newspaper, the TV
station, and two area radio stations
4. Reporters for local, state, and regional media
5. Social media users who follow the community and the hospital through Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, or other social media sites; visitors to the Twin Lakes website

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 6. Twin Lakes’ administration, physicians, and staff
7. City officials

The center of the Professional Strategy Triangle: The active

thinking process
1. Consider situation and audience together. As a savvy public relations practitioner,
you know that the strength of the writing in your news release will largely be determined by
how carefully you have considered these two factors. You are excited about City Centre
Urgent Care and the services your doctors will soon be able to provide to downtown
Beldaire residents who badly need access to urgent care. At the same time, you are thinking
hard about the homeless people who will have to relocate to another shelter several miles
away. Where will these people go, and how could their difficulties reflect upon Twin Lakes’
image as the hospital rolls out this new project? How are local and social media audiences
likely to perceive the story? What are their educational levels and predispositions? For now,
it appears that local and regional media will approach it as a positive news story, but it
could easily turn negative if not handled in a sensitive manner.

2. Creatively envision the final story. Because you have invested time thinking about the
situation you face and the audiences who will be affected by your news release, you can now
begin to creatively envision the final story—even before you know everything about it. You
picture the story being picked up by The Beldaire News-Herald, your local newspaper, and
running on the front page of its website with a photo of hospital leaders at the clinic site.
You think about the overall positive tone of the story, and how much local residents will
appreciate a new urgent care clinic downtown. You also envision the story playing out on
the Twin Lakes Facebook page, and how you can tweet the story link out to your followers,
who will comment positively on it. Just for fun, you brainstorm some possible news leads
and jot down a few.

3. Actively learn. That afternoon, you get busy with research and interviewing. After
reviewing internal planning documents and blueprints for the clinic, you get out of your
office to interview Yolanda Graves, your hospital administrator, along with two physicians
who are spearheading the project. Next, you run some online research to review recent
media coverage of the hospital and the downtown homeless shelter. Fortunately, the
coverage is mostly positive. You pore over the hospital’s Facebook page and community
blog postings to get a sense of what people are saying about the new clinic.

The next morning, you drive downtown to check out the clinic site and interview Jennifer
Longhurst, the director of New Day Homeless Shelter. She says her organization regrets
giving up this location, but she is now finalizing plans for a new location only two miles
from the current site. Longhurst invites you to attend a meeting of the shelter’s board
members the next night so you can learn more. You gladly accept the invitation.

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On your way out of the shelter, you engage in a conversation with a middle-age woman
and her friend, who are both homeless. They tell you how distressed they are to see that
their shelter will be moving somewhere else, and say they are against the City Centre
Urgent Care project.

Curious about the conversation, a younger man joins you. In excited tones, he tells you he
is glad to hear about the new clinic. After all, he says, there are no others in the downtown
area, and his family may need urgent care sometime. You make careful mental notes of this
information.

All three community residents agree to let you interview them for the news release. Once
you are back at the office, you place a call to Ken Jorgenson, Beldaire’s director of Zoning
and Planning. He fills you in on more project details and enthusiastically expresses his
support for the project, which has been developed in partnership with the Beldaire
Community Redevelopment Council.

4. Refocus your thinking. Fast-forward two days. A draft of the news release is due to the
hospital administrator in four hours. You begin to pore through all your information,
reviewing your planning documents, website research findings, and interview notes.
Focusing your thinking sharply, you consider the following:

1. The type of story is this shaping up to be, and how to tell it in the most positive way
possible for your organization while still truthfully representing it to people on all
sides of this issue.
2. Whether the media is likely to approach it in a positive or negative manner, and how
community members are likely to perceive it.
3. The information gaps and anything you need to further investigate or verify. For
example, what if you discover that the project is being slowed by costly construction
delays? Or what if you find out that a small but vocal group of homeless advocates is
planning a demonstration on the urgent care center’s opening day? What does all this
mean, and how might it impact your story?

5. Write. Finally, it’s time. You think one more time about what you want to say, how to
best say it, and where you will start.

Message
Moving to the Message corner of the Professional Strategy Triangle, you once again
consider situation and audience. What type of message best addresses this situation and all
of the concerned stakeholders who are interested in the new urgent care center? Three
hours later, you email the copy (Figure 2.4) to your hospital administrator:

Figure 2.4 City Centre Urgent Care News Release

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As you can see from the above example, strategy plays a critical role in crafting a piece that
is newsworthy, well researched, and built around key messages that the medical center’s
diverse publics will understand and appreciate. An afternoon’s worth of work invested in
active thinking and getting out of one’s comfort zone can result in a piece of writing that is
much more likely to be picked up and run in traditional and social media channels.

Pro Strategy Connection

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The Top Five Things That Chris Kraul Loves About
Being a Journalist
Chris Kraul, a freelance reporter in Bogota, Colombia, and twenty-two-year veteran with the Los Angeles
Times, loves what he does. Here’s why:

1. Journalism is a license to find out all kinds of things.

2. The job allows him to meet new people and have new experiences all the time.
3. Deadline pressure brings an adrenaline buzz. You stare at that blank piece of paper and wonder,
“Will I be able to do it this time?”
4. There’s no limit to what you can do as long as you can package your writing and sell it to your
editors.
5. Seeing your own name in the media is a thrill.

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Using the FAJA Points in Your Writing
The FAJA Points stand for Fact-Analysis-Judgment-Action. Every message should contain a
basic organizational structure that fits the situation and audience needs. Broadly speaking,
there are four basic types of message structures:

1. Messages based on simple facts, such as a news story about a recent Supreme Court
decision regarding national health care.
2. Messages based on more detailed analysis of facts, such as a news story examining
what the Supreme Court decision means for individual states and the people who live
in them.
3. Messages that use judgment to show what is positive, negative, or otherwise about an
incident or event. This could include an editorial about how the Supreme Court
decision will benefit large numbers of people who do not currently have health
insurance.
4. Messages that encourage the audience to take action, such as an online petition for
signatures in support of a decision the writer wants the Supreme Court to make.

How do you choose the right structure for your message? Expanding upon the Message
corner of the Professional Strategy Triangle, the FAJA Points provide a starting place for
the more specific kind of thinking you need to do to begin your piece. The points feature a
series of questions that you apply to your topic. Memorizing them gives you built-in
starting points every time you begin a writing task.

Photo 2.3: The story is much livelier and interesting when a journalist has done
their homework, researched the subject, prepared good questions, and can
provide insights based on their findings.

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You may need to address the basic information, or facts, behind a news event that occurred.
Perhaps you need to dig deeper into the definition of exactly what something is—providing
analysis. Or, in persuasive writing situations, you may need to persuade an audience that an
idea or product has essential aspects that make it positive or negative, happy or sad—
discussing judgment. Finally, you may be seeking to move people to do something—to
adopt a companywide policy on sick leave, to purchase a prescription medication, or to try
a new vacation destination. All of these ideas suggest an action to be taken.

Notice how the four structures are focused on particular media writing tasks. Writing news
largely employs the fact and analysis components. Creating opinion and editorial pieces and
writing for public relations sometimes involves the judgment component. And finally,
advertising focuses on persuading people to make a judgment and to take action and

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purchase something.

Here is a list of the questions to clarify each of the FAJA Points:

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Fact
This relates to questions that identify the essential details of situations and events. Suppose
that you are working as a general assignment reporter on your campus newspaper. This fall,
university police have reported an unusually high number of sexual assaults in two
dormitories on the west end of campus. Your editor has assigned you the story. The
following questions will help focus your thinking as you begin your initial research and
interviewing:

What happened?
Is there a problem or issue?
How did it begin?
What are its causes?

We’ve noted that journalists use fact-based questions to work on straight news stories. At
the same time, however, public relations and even advertising writers also need to consider
these questions in persuasive situations.

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Analysis
Analysis questions help define and explain situations, problems, or issues. Again, these tend
to be largely news oriented. Returning to the campus sexual assault scenario, you decide to
do some investigative reporting. You learn that sexual assault is a major problem on many
college campuses across the country and suspect it may indicate bigger societal problems
behind the scenes (alcohol abuse, unhealthy sexual attitudes, or a lax university culture, for
instance). These questions would help you to analyze what might be operating underneath
the initial facts of the story:

What kind of problem or issue is this?

To what larger class of things or events does the problem or issue belong?
What are the pieces of it, and how are they related?
Which experts support this analysis? Which ones reject it?

While fact provides only the initial information and surrounding details, analysis gets at the
heart of what explains or defines a situation or issue. Both fact and analysis are essential
starting points for journalists. They also provide “first stops” for public relations and
advertising writers.

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Judgment
Judgment enables you to apply critical thinking to judge a situation, issue, idea, or opinion.
In the campus sexual assault scenario above, a fellow student or the director of your
university counseling center might submit a letter to the editor or opinion column
addressing the issue of sexual assault or sexual violence. He or she would be likely to
consider these questions in drafting the piece:

Is this a positive or negative situation?

How serious is the situation or issue?
How does it affect people?
What standards should be used to judge its effect on people (happy versus sad,
fortunate versus tragic, etc.)?

News audiences often criticize media organizations for saying they are delivering straight
news, when in reality, they are essentially making judgments. For example, regardless of
whether they are liberal or conservative, not many television news viewers would argue that
commentators Rachel Maddow on MSNBC or Bill O’Reilly on Fox News are just
delivering straight news, devoid of any judgment. In this environment, judgment seems to
be inseparable from the facts and analysis behind key news issues of the day.

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Action
Throughout the ages, communicators have used various theories and techniques to move
people to action. From the days of Socrates to the modern marketing era, professional
persuaders have made a living creating messages to change behaviors.

The action starting point identifies what the writer must persuade people to do—for
example, to support a new policy, purchase a product or service, or vote for a candidate.
The action questions are as follows:

Why should action be taken?

What kind of action should be taken?
Who should take the action?
When should the action occur?

The FAJA Points trace their roots to ancient times. In the days of the ancient Greeks and
Romans, before paper was used, people organized their thoughts to deliver speeches by
using a system of “starting points” to ask questions about the topic and the material they
would use to deliver it. You may have learned in another class that one system was called
stasis, or starting points; a second was called topoi, or topic points.

Figure 2.5 Using the FAJA Points (Fact-Analysis-Judgment-Action) to Focus Your

Thinking

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Figure 2.6 How the Professional Strategy Triangle Leads to FAJA Points

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Remember that the FAJA Points are just that—starting points. They are also thinking
points that help you quickly find the focus of your piece. Professionals become so
accustomed to these questions that after a short time they begin to use the questions like
automatic tools they can quickly put to work. Whether you are working as a journalist, a
public relations practitioner, or an advertising copy writer, the FAJA Points serve as
valuable tools in your writer’s toolbox (see Figures 2.5 and 2.6).

Next, let’s take a look at three media scenarios utilizing the FAJA Points:

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Scenario 1: The Journalist and the Straight News Story
Katrina Sweet works for a small-town newspaper located in the Midwest. Called to the
scene of a major car–truck accident on the nearby interstate highway, she arrives and
surveys the situation. As she pulls out her notebook, she knows she has to begin to ask
questions, establish the facts, and get the details right within a few short minutes. Her story
is due within an hour. To begin, Sweet focuses her mind on the fact questions from the
FAJA Points:

When did this accident occur?

What exactly happened in this accident?
How did this accident occur? Was it caused by a person or persons, the weather,
mechanical failure, or something else?
Who were the passengers?
How many people were hurt? Were there any fatalities?
What do road crews have to do to clear the accident?
What impacts did the accident have on traffic?

Once Sweet has the answers to these questions in her notes, she will move on to writing the
story. When she arrives back at her desk in the newsroom, she will pull up her notes and
think about the answers to these questions. The facts she chooses will serve as the lead for
her story. They will probably center on the number of people killed and/or injured. Sweet
has used the fact portion of the FAJA Points to quickly gather the details she needed to
work with later at her desk. Thinking ahead helped her to write an accurate and concise
story on deadline. This is how journalists work on a daily basis.

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Scenario 2: The PR Professional in Crisis Management Mode
Ryan Southerman is a junior-level public relations manager at a major hospital in a
Southwestern community. One Saturday afternoon, he gets a text message from the
administrator, his boss, that health officials suspect a major MRSA (a type of staph-related
infection) outbreak in his facility. Several elderly patients are near death, and one child is
showing early symptoms of the infection.

First off, Southerman needs to determine the facts of the situation. Next, he analyzes the
extent of the problem, working to understand how hospital management and staff are
focused on addressing this crisis. Then, he uses judgment to create messages that
communicate the good work being done by hospital employees to contain the MRSA
outbreak. Finally, Southerman will advise audiences on what needs to be done to control
the outbreak and ensure the safety of patients and employees (action).

Southerman’s audiences will likely include hospital patients and their families, employees,
the media, and community members. His questions will likely focus upon the following:

Fact

What was the situation leading up to the outbreak?

What has caused the outbreak?
What type of germ is behind the outbreak?
How far has the outbreak spread?

Analysis

Is this outbreak connected with a larger trend occurring at hospitals elsewhere?

Will this outbreak cause panic or anxiety among community members?
What are the short-term and long-term outlooks for resolving it?

Judgment

How serious is the MRSA outbreak?

Is the outlook for resolution negative or positive?
Are the costs (human, financial) of a permanent solution affordable?

Action

What needs to be done to control the outbreak and ensure the safety of patients and
employees?
Why is this the best course of action? Is the hospital doing these things?
What are the possible consequences of each course of action?

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Southerman immediately begins making calls to hospital administrators and health officials
to establish the facts of the situation. He glances at his phone and notices that two reporters
—one from the local television station and another from the nearby metro daily newspaper
—have each called several times. They are already working on stories and plan to run them
whether hospital officials return their calls or not.

Once Southerman has tracked down all the details, he begins to draft an initial media
statement and news release for the television and newspaper reporters. He also knows he
needs to get busy assembling a news conference for tomorrow morning. This will require
fact sheets, a background paper, and other written pieces that the hospital’s chief
administrator will need to have in hand when she addresses members of the media.

As you can see, Southerman is concentrating on analysis and judgment, the two FAJA Points
he needs to understand this public relations crisis and to prepare the communication pieces
that will help hospital administrators resolve it. These public relations pieces will become
part of an overall crisis communication plan to include news releases, media statements,
fact sheets, backgrounders, and perhaps position papers. Once Southerman has written
these pieces and gained management approval, he will post them to the hospital’s website,
update the hospital’s Facebook page, and notify his media contacts of the pieces via
Twitter.

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Scenario 3: A Local Radio Salesperson Writes a Commercial
Rosalina Martinez, a salesperson with WCTP-FM 98.5, is working with a local auto
dealership in Connecticut that plans to hold a clearance sale of certified used vehicles next
month. Martinez meets with her client and seals the deal for a series of thirty-second spots
to be aired over a period of ten days next month. Like many other radio salespeople,
Martinez wears two hats. She sells the advertising, but she also writes the ad copy because
she knows her clients.

Martinez begins finding selling points for her client by drawing upon the fact and action
starting points:

Fact

When does the sale take place?

What vehicles are included in the sale?
How long does the sale last?
What do customers need to do to participate?

Action

What do customers who show up for this sale gain that they would not normally gain
at other sales?
How do customers benefit from buying the high-demand vehicles in the sale?
What price savings come from buying during the sale?

Following these starting points, Martinez drafts three copy ideas. In one, a personality at
the auto dealership yells responses that answer the above questions she just listed. The
second version is a brief narrative to be read by a radio DJ and focuses on the high demand
for and price savings on the vehicles. The third idea enlists an actor playing a husband
explaining to his wife why they need to go to the sale to replace their car.

Martinez reads each of the three copy ideas over the phone to her client, who says he likes
the first and the last ones. She turns the copy over to the production engineer, who
produces rough copies of both ads over the next two days. Martinez brings the semi-
finished commercials to the auto dealership managers for final approval. They decide they
would like to go with commercial three. The production staff finishes the commercial the
following week, and it is ready to run in time for the sale.

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Summary
1. Describe the changing landscape of twenty-first-century media. This landscape is
uncertain, yet full of opportunities for aspiring journalists, public relations
practitioners, advertising professionals, and others who are strong storytellers, able to
write well across media platforms.
2. Discuss the major professions in today’s media environment. These include print
and digital media, broadcast and cable, and strategic communication in terms of both
public relations and advertising.
3. Explain professional media writing strategy in terms of the Professional Strategy
Triangle. Media professionals use the Professional Strategy Triangle to understand
situation, audience, and how these two factors influence one another as they create a
message. This process involves considering situation and audience together, creatively
envisioning the final story, actively learning, refocusing thinking, and writing.
4. Apply the Fact-Analysis-Judgment-Action (FAJA) Points to the writing process.
The FAJA Points enable media professionals to determine the facts of a situation or
issue, to analyze those facts, and in persuasive writing, to make judgments about
them and encourage audiences to take action. Answering key questions from each of
the FAJA Points will enable you to begin any type of news story or persuasive piece.

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Key Terms
journalism 24
public relations 25
advertising 26
strategic communication 28
Professional Strategy Triangle 31
active thinking process 35
FAJA Points 43

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