[Sca-cooks] SCA media relations

[Tara Sersen Boroson]

>
>
>Having been an "Avant Courier", which in Caid
>means the Media Liaison, I can tell you that what
>you have written is not what most reporters want.
>They don't want to be escorted.  They don't want
>to have already established interviews.  They
>want to "experience the event" on their own and
>find their own interviews and put their own twist
>on us, despite however much we protest or
>establish rules and such.  There will be a few
>who will do as we ask, but most want to be
>"investigative" reporters, which means that they
>will do whatever they please, whenever they
>please and feel that rules don't apply to them. 
>We can only hope and pray that they will write a
>positive story about us.  The more hostility,
>negativity and rules that you throw at them, the
>worse the story they write will be.  And believe
>me when I say, unlike the movie industry, for us,
>any publicity is not necessarily good publicity. 
>We can't control the Press and they don't want to
>be controlled.  I have been there, tried that and
>failed miserably [to control them, that is].
>  
>

As a general ethic, we don't really *want* the press to be easily 
controlled.  While we might wish we could direct them when they're 
reporting on our particular hobby, if you generalize that to every story 
a reporter works on, we'd never have important stories like the Food 
Lion tainted meat scandal from a few years ago, or the child slavery in 
the chocolate industry story from last year.

Besides, a reporter with half a brain cell could easily figure out how 
to register for Pennsic, buy a tent and come up with some garb, and come 
in completely legally and under the radar.  The reason one might not do 
that is that he knows he'd have a hard time understanding what was going 
on around him and ingratiating himself without any guidance.

Have there in fact been bad stories about us?  I've seen a number of 
good ones in the last few years - in our local papers as well as 
national venues like Games Magazine.  Personally, I've never seen a bad 
one (though I do not doubt they could exist.)  If these reporters, rogue 
or otherwise, are generally saying good things (even if they're not 100% 
accurate,) why are we so worked up about them?  Just because they refuse 
to let us tell them exactly what they must write?

-Magdalena

-- 
Tara Sersen Boroson

You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find it for himself. - Galileo Galilei