Communicating Crime Reduction

Making the most from broadcast interviews

How can I work with them?

Programme makers want to bring issues to life for their listeners and viewers, using spoken words, and pictures for TV. To work successfully with the broadcast media, you need to think about who can be interviewed and appropriate places for filming, as well as about the words to use in your press release. 

Interviews can provide the opportunity to express a point of view, draw attention to something new, or to clear up misunderstandings. But whatever you hope to achieve, you need to be certain that the outcome will be beneficial, and not ultimately damaging, to your CDRP and its work.

The news media may contact you to follow up a press release you’ve sent, but they are also likely to approach your CDPR as an official body, asking for comments to balance a report they are working on. This is something you should encourage. Establishing yourself as an authoritative local voice on crime reduction and community safety issues will help build the Partnership’s media profile.

If a news item is going to include negative comments about your CDRP, then you should be invited to defend its reputation as a matter of course. However journalists may also be looking for an “official” comment on a local situation, if for example they are working on a general report about crime trends in an area or talking to victims of crime

Such requests provide an opportunity to talk about your work, but you should beware of your CDRP being made to appear responsible for something beyond its remit.

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