j
THE NEWSLETTER OF THE
CAROLINA GAY ASSOCIATION
VGl. 2 No. 3 May 1977
Special Conference Edition
HOW WE DID STRAIGHT MEDIA PUBLICITY
FOR THE SOUTHEASTERN GAY CONFERENCE
Tx'^o persons made coordinating coverage of the Conference
a lot easier and deserve "warm thanks. Tom Carr*s "work on Gay Media,
including preparation of four initial press releases, provided our
first materials for nexiis articles. And Mitchell Simon of the Univer
sity Press Bureau supported our efforts by x^riting final drafts of two
straight press releases and a public service announcement, and by dis
tributing through tne News Bureau mailings — a total of 455 releases,
announcements, and schedules. Ideal timing for the releases would
have been 3-| X'leeks before the conference. For various reasons, xje did
not make these deadlines. A major delay x/^as the time needed for in
formation-gathering on speakers. Conference organizers had been^
polled on speakers, x-^orkshop leaders, and participants of potential
interest to the press. These x^ere then X'^ritten and asked for mini-
biographies, descriptions of conference presentations, and times of
interviex^ availability. Late return of this information delayed our
second press release until days before April 1, lox-'jering our coverage
considerably.
Telephone checking on receipt of releases and planned coverage by
media outlets is an effective technique for increasiing press axjareness
cf an event. Ideal times for calling are one x^ieek in advance for
nex-jspapers and for media outside the area; for local radio and tele-
"vision, tx-^o or three days' telephone notice is sufficient in addition
to advance releases. We prepared a calling list of 40 target media
outlets from the Standard Rates and Data Service listings of commer
cial media. . The SRDS lists are excellent sources because they give
circulation figures for papers and program descriptions for radio and
television stations. They do not, however, list college and non
commercial media; our coverage from these sources X'jas, as a result,
"Weak, ( cont. on page five)
CGA ELECTS NEW OFFICERS
CGA officers for the upcoming year were elected at the April 18
meeting. They are; Karen Peterson, president; Jerry Pierce, Jr.,
Vice-President; and Ken Ho3sclaw, Treasurer.