[by Bruce Hennes] In my last post on this subject, we started with George Clooney publicly pointing the finger at The Daily Mail for publishing a story he said was untrue from start to finish. We then discussed pausing before acting, handling small errors of fact, egregious errors, using blogs, submitting short statements to media outlets and letters to the editor.
But there’s much more you can do when the media gets it wrong. Here are six MORE steps you can take:
- An op-ed piece is another well-established way of getting your point across. The best way to ensure use of your op-ed is to be certain it’s submitted in a timely manner and that you rigidly adhere to the length guidelines usually found on the news outlet’s website.
- When errors are repeated, or the reporter simply isn’t “getting it,” you can request a meeting with the reporter’s editor. If you do this, we strongly recommend you give the reporter the courtesy of letting him/her know you’re doing this. Rarely will an editor turn down a meeting request like this, and you should be prepared for the reporter to be present at that meeting.
- If you can’t persuade the news outlet to issue a correction, consider a paid advertisement. A “Letter to the Community” ad will allow you to fully present your side of the story – in the same outlet that carried the original offending item. (This one can often be a hard to sell to management – “Why should we give that paper one dime after what they did to us?”)
- If you believe a given reporter will never write an accurate or fair story, you can try (emphasis on “try”) to have him/ her removed from your beat. We call that the Nuclear Option, because once you try that, it’s pretty much a given you will incur the enmity of the reporter from that point forward, whether they’re removed from your beat or not.
- Hate the article and can’t get any satisfaction from the media outlet? You can sue. But we warn you – this rarely works and more often backfires by bringing more eyeballs to the story by prolonging its existence into multiple news cycles.
- Finally, you can appeal to the public and its sense of fairness. And that’s what George Clooney did when he called The Daily Mail out on the story referenced above. It was a risky move, but he pulled it off.
For the full story about George Clooney and The Daily Mail story, click here.