Learning How To Deal With The Media
By Christopher Blackwell

It is nearly impossible to build public support for anything without getting the media to notice your goal and do so in the way you want them to, as well as do follow up. So when I was alerted that there was a class on “Media and Public Relations” available at a Pagan seminary, Cherry Hill Seminary, I decided to check on it. ( www.cherryhillseminary.org )

I am interviewing the instructor Victoria Slind-Flor, who has graciously given me her time.

Christopher: What are your qualifications for teaching this class?

Victoria: I have been a journalist for more than 30 years, working in a wide variety of media—everything from community newspapers to dailies in big cities to business publications to very specialized magazines focusing on technology and the law. So I know very well what kinds of PR works and what kind is totally ineffective. I’ve been on the receiving ends of both.

I’ve also been a member of the Pagan community for a number of years. I think I have a pretty good idea of what Pagans do, the kinds of events we hold, and the kinds of issues that come up for our community.

Christopher: How did you come to create this class?

Victoria: I was recruited by M. Macha NightMare, who is a good friend. I became very interested in Cherry Hill Pagan Seminar because I support the seminary’s mission,
The mission, of course, is to help those who serve our community develop the professional skills they need.

Christopher: I would like to get your opinion. What would you say were the biggest mistakes Pagans make in dealing with the media?

Victoria: I think the single biggest mistake Pagans make is that they are not truly familiar with the media from which they’d like to get coverage. I find that even now, I have to pitch a fit to get some of my students to read the newspapers in which they want their press releases to run. There’s this thing in parts of the Pagan community about not engaging with the mundane world, but, guess what? The media is a huge part of this world. So my number one priority is to get Pagans to read their local newspapers, all sections of those publications.

Another mistake is that Pagans sometimes do not understand how publications work. They don’t know about the long lead times necessary for some feature coverage, for example. And they don’t know who to contact at various publications. A relationship with a media outlet must be cultivated. Pagans who want to deal with the media need to know who to contact, what kinds of time frames the publications require, and which sections of a publication are likely to run Pagan news.

And oh my, here’s the really big one. Even in my classes—which are on a graduate level—I sometimes receive assignments that are ungrammatical and filled with spelling errors. I cringe when I see a Pagan press release in which words we should know are spelled incorrectly. I mean, come on, you really don’t know there’s a difference between “altar” and “alter” and you’re a Pagan high priestess? In my mundane life, if somebody sends me a sloppy-looking press release filled with spelling errors, I don’t even bother to read it. I dump it in the wastebasket immediately. And while we’re at it, I tend to ignore press releases addressed to me with my name spelled incorrectly. If you can’t bother to learn how to spell my name, how can I trust that the information in your press release is accurate?

I think these days, the Pagan community has a new challenge in dealing with the media. We are, most of us, extremely out of the broom closet these days. And, for the most part, the media loves us. They’ve discovered we’re smart, cool, interesting and fun. We are, for the most part, those “cultural creatives” that everyone wants to know and be around. So the challenge arises in maintaining boundaries with the media, in not letting ourselves be co-opted so we are the flavor of the month.

Christopher: When students graduate from your class what are the things you most want them to take away from it?

Victoria: I have several goals for my students. One goal is to make them very aware of their local media, so much so that they are reading their local papers every day from cover to cover. I personally think it’s important that Pagans know what’s going on in their communities, just on general principles, regardless of whether they do PR or not.

Secondly, I want my students to be thinking creatively about how to get coverage for their events. One thing I do every semester is to have each student plan an event—generally a public ritual—and then strategize a pitch for each different section of the newspaper. I want them to think about whether there’s a business story in their event, or whether they could maybe get coverage in the food section, for example.

The most important lesson, of course, is how to write a good press release and where to submit it to get the best possible coverage.

Blackwell: What else do you cover ?

Victoria: One of the things I cover is crisis PR. That is, what to do when things come undone and you’re getting horrible negative media coverage. So we play with various theoreticals—your high priest has been arrested and charged with child sexual abuse; several members of your coven were caught dealing drugs; there’s been an unsolved murder in your community and the cops are talking about “ritual satanic abuse.”

Another thing I work on is how to prepare someone in your group or coven for a media interview. We do this with roleplaying, and I get to play the part of the abrasive early-morning drive-time radio personality who wants to do a “gotcha” interview on Samhain morning. Of course most interviews are much more benign than that, and we roleplay our way through those, too.

I also require my students to write their own obituaries. First of all, they read obituaries in many different publications and begin to learn how even something like an obit can be used to tell our story in a positive way.

And the core work, of course, is simply how to interface with the media, how to write a good press release, how to call a reporter or an editor, how to find out what the local media outlets use, And I think in my upcoming class this semester, I’m going to spend a little time talking about how to use such things as YouTube.com to tell your story. Some Pagans are doing a wonderful job using video on such sites.

Christopher: How long does your class run?

Victoria: The class runs for an entire semester. We “meet” in cyberspace one night a week—generally Tuesday nights—and I do give a lot of writing assignments. Unlike many of the other classes at Cherry Hill, I do not have a lot of heavy reading requirements for textbooks because I want the students to spent their time reading local media, and writing, writing, writing.

Christopher: What is the cost, what supplies are needed, and how do they sign up.

Slind-Flor: The supplies needed are really very simple. I have two texts for the class. One is Macha’s book Witchcraft and the Web. The other is the Associated Press Style Book, which is a primer of newspaper style.

Sudents can find out about our fees by going to the Cherry Hill website, http://www.cherryhillseminary.org Our fees are very reasonable, $50 a credit hour. My class is a three-credit class, so it costs $150.

Classes begin in a few weeks, so if people are interested, they should check us out right away. I generally have no more than five students in my class at a time, so everyone gets lots of personal attention.

Christopher: Thank you very much for your time. I think some of our readers will find you class very useful.

Victoria: I hope so. That’s our goal. I love our huge. wonderful and only occasionally dysfunctional Pagan family. I’m proud of us and our accomplishments and our commitments to each other and to repairing the web of life. So if I can make a contribution to the community by helping people develop their media skills, I am very happy to do so.