Simplify your message
This is our most important advice to advocates. General assignment reporters may know little about legal aid. Avoid jargon. Explain your work using analogies, images and interesting language. Show how legal aid helps protect people’s livelihoods, health, housing and families.
Even a knowledgeable reporter for a legal publication will appreciate strong stories.
Read here about messaging and talking points on civil legal aid.
Key ingredients to pitching stories
- Newsworthiness – Add a different angle to a story the media is already reporting.
- Factual support – For example, provide court data about evictions that is not available from a single national source, and help interpret it appropriately across different jurisdictions.
- Credible spokespeople – Connect the reporter with knowledgeable sources who are, in turn, able and willing to provide access to people directly affected.