I’m in Phoenix this week at the 15th Conference of Court Public Information Officers to discuss trends in court communications. We are looking at the hottest trends in communications and discussing social media, public relations, public information and strategies for communicating the message of trial, appeals and supreme courts. Representatives have arrived from 36 of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Phillippines, and Australia.
Following a session of introductions, we moved into a discussion on how to obtain a seat at the table of the CEO or Chief Judge. Court communicators face the same challenges as any public relations person: how to show our relevance to the decision making leadership of the organization. Leah H. Gurowitz, Director of Legislative, Intergovernmental and Public Affairs for the District of Columbia Courts, suggested that obtaining a seat at the table often comes following a crisis, when the advice offered by the PIO increases the stock of the communicator. She also said that trust of the CEO is earned through constant communication. “I think there is something you’ll want to know about,” becomes the best strategy to keep the CEOs ear and maintaining the importance of the public relations professional.
You also can just take your seat and not allow the CEO to push you aside. Jerrianne Hayslett, retired public information director for the Los Angeles Superior Court, took that approach during her tenure. Hayslett headed up the Superior Court’s public information office during the O.J. Simpson Trial. Hayslett said that often public relations professionals fail to take their seat even when it has been offered. She suggested that communicators must insist that they be included in planning and strategy sessions. The powerful advice offered in the series of articles, “How to Develop the Mind of a Strategist,” written by Jim Lukaszewski, ABC, APR, was offered at the end of the session and I’m looking forward to reading it.
The session, “The Changing Media Landscape,” generated a lot of discussion. Many communicators listened intently to the comments of Bob Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association. He was joined by two Phoenix journalists and John Craft, a professor at the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University. Craft pointed to the latest survey from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press that shows a growing number of people are turning off the television and seeking news from the Internet. Surprisingly to me, Internet news surfers spend only 6 to 8 minutes seeking out news from websites. This indicates to me that long posts, such as this one, are not likely to be read!
It is incumbent on communicators to get to the point quickly, especially if we hope to have anyone reading our posts. Cox indicated that relevance, and an increased audience for a message, can only come through providing value. This means more communicators have to cut to the chase, provide links to information, repurpose messages and work harder to reach audiences through various channels.
The conference runs through Friday with additional sessions on getting the word out, a showcase of new media strategies, including my own presentation on using 30 Boxes, and a look at judicial independence and the role of the PIO. I will post notes on those sessions through the rest of the week.
