Strategies for Working with the Media

A friend in Ohio asked a question on Facebook that generated a flurry of discussion, including a lengthy response from me. The critic in question is one I knew well, as I had rejected (for all the reasons JT Buck sites in his inquiry below) his appeals that I employ him as a reviewer both when I was at the newspaper for which he now writes and when I was at the magazine. Given the volume of commentary and general feedback about my remarks, I thought they merited sharing here, as well.

ORIGINAL POST BY JT BUCK:

Statement and Question: I just read a review of a local theatre piece in a weekly paper, written by a well-established critic with advanced academic credentials. While the review was positive in its appraisal of the show overall, the production team and audience were still done a disservice. Said review was so full of poor writing (theme misidentified with plot, logical fallacies, factual errors, confusing structure) I actually felt embarrassed for both the author and paper. In a sophomore communications class this would be C work at best. Worse still is that this seems to be a common occurrence not only from that particular outlet, but from several in the region.

We have an amazing arts scene here which requires and begs for intelligent and skilled coverage (both critical and feature) in our local media. Yet such coverage (with some notable exceptions) is too often not available.

So, Question: how should we in the arts community best respond to incompetent critics? Remember that the institution in question does a fine job of relating to the media on the marketing and editorial side. This is specifically a case of a critic who simply isn’t doing the job well, and doing harm to those he’s covering in the process.

MY RESPONSE:

As someone who’s worked the media side, the performer/producer side, and the arts advocate side in both Ohio and in Seattle, I offer these thoughts as starting points for actual discussion in your community around the question JT asked:

1. The media outlets are under no obligation to cover theatre at all, so first it’s important to be grateful that there’s still anyone at a paying publication writing about theatre at all. Send thank you notes after you’ve been reviewed — to both the reviewer and the editor — no matter the substance of the review. Goodwill gestures are not futile.
2. The media outlets are businesses, and they don’t cover theatre out of any sense of altruism or “greater good of art.” They cover it to the extent that they can make money: that they can secure advertisers willing to pay to support it. This means the arts orgs — large and small alike — should feel an obligation to advertise if they want coverage of the art form at all. (NOTE: Buying an ad doesn’t define the kind of coverage or review they’ll get, and no org should expect it to. You’d be amazed the number of conversations I had with theatre org administrators irate that their production did not receive glowing reviews even through they advertised.)
3. The large houses need to budget adequately for stand-alone advertising. The small houses need to develop a cooperative advertising model that allows them to pool resources and possibly negotiate better rates.
4. The PR kit you provide will go a long way to assisting in the quality of the work written about you. Draw out the major themes, structural elements, etc., that you are working with. Point critics in the direction of the historical and critical context you’d most like to see them tap into. Provide resources for further reading. Without descending to empty, unsupported hype and/or hyperbole, help them see your work as part of the larger (state, national, global) picture — not relegate it to the local/not-Broadway/inferior zone. They’re still going to write what they want, but you have done what you can to shape initial perceptions.
5. I can’t stress enough the importance of cooperative efforts such as mentioned in #3 above.
6. Develop a professional relationship with the reviewers and arts editors. Appropriate opportunities for a phone call or other communication — with realistic expectations for timing/frequency/significance/etc.
   Ex: If you’re launching a season announcement, it’s not a bad idea to help them understand important community tie-ins, special interest stories, etc, to help them decide if there is justification for a feature in advance of one of the shows’ openings… or which 1 piece of the season (assuming they’ll do advance features on no more than 1, at best, for a smaller house) you think might merit extra attention.
7. Provide them with plenty of lead time to plan coverage. Unless they tell you otherwise, 4 weeks’ notice isn’t enough. For calendar entries, at least 6 weeks’ lead (gives the media time to process it, and gives you the best shot of having it hit at least 3 weeks in a row before your show opens so it can solidify as a real thing in people’s minds… in general, people need to see things 3x at least before they take action). The media outlets need time to process your info through their operations, decide what/how to cover it, etc. And you want to give them every opportunity of getting any advance coverage they might do published far enough in advance for their readers to have time to fit it into their social calendars if they want to.
8. Never miss a deadline or ask for special favors (ex: calendar entries, advertising).
9. Provide quality images to accompany your advance kit and your reviewer kit. A less-than-stellar production with great images is going to have a better chance of good coverage than a great piece with crappy (or no) photography — or images conveying no action or other interest.
10. Develop a solid, non-media network for effective and coordinated postering, postcard distribution, etc. — as well as communities of visibility and conversation (in person and via social media) around your work. The onus is on you to get people interested in supporting your work, not on the media outlets. But if you successfully generate the right kind of buzz, the media outlets will notice and will want to be part of it.
11. Don’t expect review coverage for runs of 2 weeks or less. Especially for the weekly publications, it makes little sense for the publication to invest in review coverage of something unless their readers will have adequate opportunity to take action on their review… i.e. still be able to go see the piece.
12. Be prepared for the possibility that their response to your request for better coverage of your work is something along the lines of “Then do better work.” What does this mean? Always take a professional approach. Work together. Demonstrate that the theatre community is a force, not disjointed happenstance. Exude quality in every element of your administration and interactions with them — including providing the highest quality content and materials you can. Be so good and professional — and helpful in providing them with content/materials that make their work easier — that they really, truly want to help you and to see you succeed.
13. Be honest with yourself and them about the work you do. Give them reason to trust what you say about the work you are doing. It’s not all good. It’s definitely not all great. Indiscriminate use of words like “brilliant,” “innovative,” “unique,” reads as sophomoric and untrustworthy … and it’s certainly not your place to tell them whether something is going to be the “theatre event of the year.”
14. Expanding upon #13: Don’t conflate YOUR production with “the Tony-Award winning” production [insert whatever NOT your production accolade you like]. If the thing wasn’t said about YOUR show [ex: “…a laugh-a-minute rollercoaster of fun” ~NY Times], don’t put it on your poster (or in your pr materials unless you attribute it clearly as having been said about someone else’s production). You’ll dupe some unsuspecting community member who doesn’t understand it’s not about YOUR show… who shows up at your venue expecting something of a quality that’s toured from NY and is neither impressed nor amused… and who then relays the disappointment to their friends. You may have gotten a few more people in to see your show, but you’ve done a larger disservice to the rest of local theatre community because you’ve likely driven that person to only take a chance on the big theatre institutions in the future.

Read the original post and full comment thread here:
https://www.facebook.com/jtbuck1978/posts/10152390203211496

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