Inside Higher Ed

Inside Higher Ed

• Aspires to honesty
• Independent news staff with beats
• Blogs for opinions

These are challenging times for higher education and they are looking for stories that tackle the tough questions in higher ed....not cutesy stories

• What is the mission of higher ed?
• How quickly should it change?
• Debate over whether college is 'worth it'
• Traditional sources of revenue are not keeping pace, what are colleges doing?
• Distance education -- people with most recognized brand names and most money are charging ahead
• Affirmative action and future of diversity on campus
• No child left behind coming to colleges -- how do institutions prove they are doing a good job?
• Stories need to be emblematic of something larger

Address these challenging topics. If you'd don't, others will do it for you

Scott Jaschik stated several times (in reference to UVA) that schools must respond thoughtfully to controversy. The public is forgiving if you own your bad story, if you are willing to look critically at yourself and put something in place to make things better.

Short pitches needed

Serena Golden runs listing of job promotions, does book coverage, (books related to higher ed), also looking for novels about life on campus, handles social media and FB, likes twitter

Attracting Television to Campus

Presenters
Melanie Jackson, NBC Today Show
Ellen Schweiger,  C-SPAN

Melanie talked about what makes a good story for television.

Showed a piece done by Jenna Bush Hager who she suggested everyone follow @JennaBushHager.
Jenna does education stories and stories that affect young people. Jenna likes profiles.

Melanie looks for trends, tragedies and triumphs.

One theme that came up several time from reporters during the conference was owning your bad stories and showing how good came from them.

"Stories start with someone who can tell that story," she said. Don't pitch someone who can't tell their story.

Tell about research from a quirky angle.

Best way to pitch: Keep it short. Send emails after show goes off the air...send links to photos and video. If they bite, make sure you help NBC get the story done by providing assistance with logistics, facilities, crews and be willing to do this at off times.

Tips from Melanie included:
• Know your faculty and students
• Pitch experts who can talk on camera, what does the expert look like, can they tell their story
• Know who is willing to talk when it's inconvenient, who is willing to go all out
• Familiarize yourself with on-air talent and producers
• Local affiliates are a good place to start...they will put the story on the news channel
• Don't send pitches too early (heard this from a number of reporters)

Ellen emphasized C-SPAN covers public affairs and not news....they are looking at public policy

• C-SPAN is interested in event coverage related to public policy, ie., a Supreme Court Justice coming to school..."Clarence Thomas is always visiting schools and we find out the day after, " she said. Yes indeed!

Symposium or lecture that national audience would be interested in? The cover it "gavel to gavel" and it will air 5 to 6 times during congressional recessions (month of August for example)


EMAIL: events@c-span.org (2 weeks notice needed) explain who the people are...C-Span is looking for up and coming speakers "biggest expert on x teaches at my school"

C-SPAN covers dozens of commencements each year.

Crisis Communication

Presenters:
Cathy Andreen and Shane Dorrill from the University of Alabama

Cathy and Shane spent their time talking about the tornado that hit Tuscaloosa last year.

They went through a play by play timeline of what happened from the time the tornado warnings were issued through the following months.

Items of interest for planning:


• 1300 students lived in homes/apts. critically damaged
• Parents were placed in recreation center with counselors on hand
• National news was the first call received after the tornado hit
• Sending students home for the year was the most critically important decision they made
• Reporters covering the damage wanted a place to work (asked to work at the university because of Internet availability
• Alumni began sending money. Had to set up a disaster fund...2.6 million raised
• University received multiple requests to use residence halls because people knew the students were gone...but much of the students belongings were still in their rooms
• Good record keeping essential because you won't remember what happened when on what day -- have a plan for this
• Reporters looking for experts to talk after the tornado
• Needed to set up a memorial page for students who were killed in the disaster

Interesting to note: University of Alabama was planning go to an online directory only. During the tornado disaster, they realized there would have been no way to find faculty/staff if the directory were not printed. They decided they would continue printing.

-- be sure to set up alternate locations for work in the event a disaster happens and people can't get to the university workspace

-- practice your plan

Understanding Higher Education Coverage

Presenters
Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report and Times Higher Education
Menachem Wecker, US News and World Report
Richard Perez-Pena, New York Times

This panel was the comic relief of the conference!

Jon Marcus

The Hechinger Report and Times Higher Education are, according to Jon, the two biggest higher ed publications you've never heard of, which feed national news. They are foundation supported.

Looking for emerging national trends. Local story can be of national importance if they contains examples that resonnate. Jon likes the 45 minute rule -- every reporter gets a call back from University media within 45 minutes, even if it's just to say, "I can't help you with that expert today."

He is looking for experts who study higher ed and who can talk about higher ed. 60% of visitors to Times Higher Education are outside the UK. It is widely read in the U.S.

Stories of interest include those related to scholarship, curriculum (interesting, unusual courses, and trends like Ayn Rand being taught in business schools)

He uses ProfNet and doesn't get a ton of responses so he encouraged the group to respond to his queries. Schools can get a lot of mileage out of ProfNet if they response is related to the question and not offering some other idea.

All three reporters stressed the difficulty of finding media contacts easily from the university homepage.

Menachem Wecker

prefers social media rather than email -- collapse your story to 140 characters on Twitter

Like several reporters, he uses Twitter to mine data...looking for real students who are authentic and will respond truthfully. Does not want to talk to students who have been fed talking points.

LinkedIn: the tool he uses most--more up-to-date...pitch to him through LinkedIn

On Twitter/FB and Google+ the posts ever story he's working on.

He says they do not break news...U.S. News & World Report is a consumer publication for people trying to get answers about higher education decisions, such as…
• how to get into school
• tips for applying
• what to look for when choosing a school
• trends (international education, cost of school, online education)

Needs one or two good sentences to pitch to his editor --
• Here's the story
• Here's why it's relevant

He mentioned dontgetcaught.biz as a great read

Richard Perez-Pena

New to education beat
Bar is very high on stories...must be really interesting and unique
Trends -- point to 3 or 4 other schools doing the same thing -- provide a center of gravity for the story
Likes email/uses social media for his stories

Attracting the National Media

Presenters
Tim Goral, University Business
Mary Beth Marklein, USA Today
Ronald Roach, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education

Tim talked about the content they are looking for -- what helps presidents and administration tackle higher ed challenges

Interested in ...

Campus depts that find ways to save time and money

Experts list...he wants link to expert profile pages

Relationships with campus vendors

Construction ideas

Sustainablity in campus, energy saving

Retention

Note: Presenters agreed that finding media contacts online was difficult on many college websites.

Ronald Roach is interested in...diversity and underrepresented with

Access to college, enrollment, gender issues, disabled community, LGBT, diversity and international recruiting, movement of minorities into professions

Wants local stories about students and diversity on campus

Mary Beth gave a quick overview but more tips...

Be honest and open when pitching
If we just wrote a story on x we are not going to do another story on x anytime soon
Rarely will president or campus be the focus of the story
Need stories about places and people
Looking for how our campus fits into a national trend-or bucks it
Likes to "dispense with pleasantries" when relationships have already been established and she can contact expert quickly for good quotes

Mary Beth tweets some and has used twitter to find sources. Most reportes use twitter for data mining but Menachem welcomes users to pitch him on twitter and FB

Mary Beth hangs on to her emails and searches them by topics.

She says they are paying closer attention to Gannett papers than 5 years ago

Blog content often fuels story ideas.

Mary Beth uses ProfNet a lot more than in the past. She asks that responses to her ProfNet query say "ProfNet" in the subject line. She responded to a questions that she doesn't mind if people respond both through ProfNet and the email she provides in her query.

She had never heard of HARO or Vocus...several reporters hadn't
Ronald Roach uses PRnewswire

One school mentioned they are doing blogs with faculty experts where news reporters can grab and quotes but reporters said for this to be worth the time it would need superior SEO

Gaining Coverage

Presenters
Cutis Carlson, Nebraska (Kearny)
David Jarmul, Duke

Curt

Have to be flexible and nimble media relations
Institutions have distinct missions. Different sets of media opportunities and challenges. Understand your mission. Start there!

Communicatioms officerole is to generate pride, support the university, maintain high moral and add value for the institution.

Curt suggests organizing a public relations advisory council that meets quarterly. He will share the model he used at three different institutions. Have to email him for that.

Dos and donts

institutions strategic plan to plan media relations

Work to understand culture and environment--what works in one place usually can't be transferred to another institution

Build media relationships everyday

Don't abandon all news releases. Small town papers print news releases verbatim

Don't hesitate to describe your university's strengths, mission and goals

Highlight faculty and students -- tells human side of the story

Celebrate atheletic accomplishments at university level

More tips but nothing new or surprising.

David

David's presentation involved showing the different parts of Duke's website. He has a good handle on what content is going on which sites and why.

Stories that make national media are not usually about what dean wants...what dean or boss wants does not equal what news media are looking for. Challenge is to figure out the middle -- keeping both sides happy

News tips
Pitch people early for stories....look online for news tips. Anticipate news. Duke has a nice site for press releases that David says has led to media hits.

It works. No magic. If you have the right person with something good to say people will be interested in it. Reporters have a beast to feed.

Duke homepage. News by topic combine external and internal stories...powered by rss each dept stream in own content.

All news on Duke Today.

News releases. Still important. Restrict them to things that genuinely have a shot at appearing in tomorrows news or television. "I won't allow news releases to go out to satisfy internal needs. Want reporters to know news releases are genuinely important. News media will pay attention if you provide real news."

Fellowships grants, etc. are not usually news - find a way to deal with that, Professional news site.

Photos videos important for news outlets good photos help pickup.
Info graphics go viral.

Video to supplement story. Student led interviews.

Opinion sections offer opportunity for national placement. Put a lot of effort into op ed market do this with students too.

Social Media

Blog. iTunesU and YouTube. Duke on Demand. Duke version of Hulu

Storify professors live tweeting during president Obama's speech. (Cool idea provided enough faculty from different areas are willing to participate)

Mobile presence

Build behind the scenes. Provide resources for faculty, media trainings, training on how to write op ed, how to use social media. "We have a responsibility to faculty."

Duke has a policy that news releases must be distributed by the media office to control the quality of what reporters are receiving.

Inviting Campus Coverage

Panelists
Howard LaFranchi, Christian Sciencd Monitor
Mark Stencel, NPR
Will McGuinness, Huffington Post

Mark spent his time talking about the ways that the audience for NPR has changed and how the organization has had to rethink how it delivers stories and news. Talked to him quickly after the presentation. There was a long line!

About HuffPost college, Will talked about:

Creating sub communities within Huffpost college

Using a wide variety of content...something serious next to something lighter to let readers choose what they want to read. (Huffpost college receives 6.6 million visits per day)

Stories should't feel like required reading even ones covering student debt or value of a liberal arts education

New ideas for community building sub sections include:

Profs, prezzes and pitchfork

The thesis project (publishing student theses for smaller community group)

Quarter life crisis (featuring people in early 20s who do or experience something that drastically changes the course of their lives)

The college debate society (real debate around real issues, Huffpost teaming up switch largest college debate society in the world)

Howard talked about how his job has changed at the Christian Science Monitor No surprises...where he once wrote two to three stories a week, he is now writing the same amount each day. "Reporters need a lot more people, more often and need faster responses," he said.

He mentioned great work by a Notre Dame media relations person who proactively sent him information on an expert available on a topic she felt would be hot in in the news soon (anticipating news). When the news broke, she sent a follow up email with a quote from the professor to show his angle. She provided a cell phone number and the expert was available. Howard uses this professor regularly in his stories because they have a direct relationship.

"Cell phone numbers are golden," he said.

What irritates? Yep...pitching an expert, the reporter calls to make contact and the expert isn't available.

In our media training, in might be good to talk about different kinds of reporters and why being willing to respond quickly and provide a cell phone number is critical to making national news. Or have Ananda teach that part!

Social Media Bootcamp

Presenters
Tom Evelyn, St Lawrence College
Fritz McDonald, Mount Mercy University

A lot of time in this session was spent with attendee discussion on use of video.

Tufts is offing applicants the opportunity to write an essay OR submit a video as part of their applications.

Some parents in audience say their teens are using YouTube to learn more about what it's like at a school because they cannot visit all their choices.

Strategy should drive choices with video

Students go to university website for facts. They don't trust social media to get the facts right. Go to social media for flavor. What kind of students go to this school. Consider having two social media YouTube channels labeled to distinguish between media office video and student video

Better to work one social media channel well than six poorly.

Focus on approach!

Yes, the word of the day is "focus."

Too many social media channels can confuse people.

Who owns social media? Everyone isn't equally responsible. Someone needs to have management of a social media site as a responsibility.

Involve "young faculty stars" in tweeting and blogging. They are good content resources. Offers opportunity for faculty to brand themselves

Case Studies

Presenters
Tim Jones, N.C. State
Michael Petroff, Emory College

This session the presenters shared ideas about including the entire university in messaging and taking an event and turning it into an opportunity for messaging to a wide variety of constituents.

Tim talked about State's decision to put strategy before tactics. Something that was difficult to do during the initial rush into social media. The healthy "communication ecosystem" is one where every channel supports every other channel. "The goal of communication is not to communicate but to influence actions and outcomes," he said.

He described how State took an event, 125th anniversary, and made it more than an event by deciding on the messages for the event and sharing with the university community how to talk about that event in an effective way - making the theme general enough that every school/ department could apply it to its messaging.

They created examples of print, email, social media pushes, blog posts and news releases to help the campus talk about the university. This messaging architecture will help them as they launch their capital campaign in 2013, he said. Everyone will be spreading the same message

Nice tip: Use a question on twitter as a fun way to link to research.

Focus was a big issue in this session. Social media channels need focus. A good case for keeping the. WF News Center twitter focused on news. Tim said that the way to earn credibility on social channels is to stay focused and not try to be all things to all people. Cultivate relationships with reporters by focusing Twitter and FB channels on news. People will learn to trust your channels with consistent content.

Focus=Credibility

State is testing google plus to refine focus on even more specific areas of research they want to highlight.

Mark also talked about connecting brand to messaging to audience. It requires collaboration and patience.

The content drives discussion as to what platforms to share content on

Mark gave great ideas for orientation

Help alumni reconnect by posting older photos of move in days and orientation. Ask alumni to send photos

A welcome class of 2016 site where community can leave messages

Repurpose content such as move-in tips, things to do when you arrive...we have other new student content as well

Build excitement 2 weeks before

Use the event to promote new administration (photos of new provost meeting families)

Create page where students can leave advice for entering students on FB page

Have students submit move-in orientation photos for possible posting on web

Repurpose content and storify-- especially good for parents and grandparents who don't use social media

#wfuwelcome

Collect flip cam video during the event

Recap and extend content life by updating storify

Plus to using storify is that it looks good on mobile...especially good for universities w/o mobile friendly sites. Send link directly to storify rather than embed for best mobile results.

Social media, Web, and Mobile Content

Moderators

Krista Halvorson, CEO Brain Traffic
Melanie Moran, Vanderbilt

Before this session, I was convinced that other schools had the answers to the social media and Web content quandries. Turns out that most of those in the meeting, including Vanderbilt, struggle with similar issues: information and work silos, media team players focusing on many responsibilities and too many communication outlets without focus.

Tips from this session:

Metrics: Pick the metrics you want to track before someone else picks them for you. Present those metrics on a one page sheet, once a week. These might include the top 5 stories on our site for the week, number of twitter followers, FB likes, engagement stats -- pick those things that are most helpful. For example, Vanderbiilt's campaign focus for the Web is positioning itself as a top research institution. They choose metrics that help them see how and where this message is reaching the audience by seeing who is reading the stories and clicking the links.

Content: Vanderbilt is creating its content based on its key message goals and pushing the same content out to sites with different looks based on audience - alumni, parents, faculty/staff, admissions

Field of Dreams: If you build it, they will not necessarily come. Be strategic, stay focused, use resources wisely and include other people outside the news group in discussions

Tags: Tag stories with the name of research funding organizations to make it easy to search, ie, NSF etc.

Create your own identity as an office: Referring to departments as clients helps clarify that the communications office is a content adviser not content producer. Consider the role of content therapist...listen to find out what's working for clients and what's not. The news office is not a store.

Identify issues: Is it a people problem (one that requires the content therapist role) or a tools problem

Heading to the College Media Conference in Washington, DC, on Wednesday! Plan to keep a good record of meetings and workshops. Wednesday focuses on social media strategy...inviting campus coverage from online outlets. Looking forward to hearing how best to use twitter/FB to share story ideas with reporters.

Newswise announced a new service to help journalists find experts for stories. For a few months it's a free service. Is this something journalists will take time to search?

Since we're not sure exactly where to put our experts and how to be most helpful to reporters looking for them, there's a tendency to be drawn to the latest offering -- hoping we'll gain visibility and better connect writers and experts. I'm having an epic battle with one of our services -- trying to input data, upload photos, PDFs, video. Is it really worth all the time it's taking? Now with the newswise service, there's another avenue to explore... what if we upload all of our experts there as well? Then we can have them in three places instead of one.

Next issue: updating profiles not just on one platform but three. How are other colleges handling the deluge of options, and where are they finding success?