Building an in-house newsroom in a Brussels organisation
As you all know, any communications work starts with strategy. And I love seeing so many communicators in Brussels come up with creative strategies to help their organisations meet their overarching goals. Kudos to you!
What would a newsroom built for an advocacy organisation based in Brussels contain?
Press releases (your standard run-of-the-mill, absolutely necessary news that the Brussels or trade PRESS must know. Mind you, I said PRESS! NOT POLICYMAKER. If you are in a Brussels org still using press releases as a channel to communicate with policymakers, get ready to be made fun of by multitude of well-connected, well-regarded Brussels influencers).
Insights (reports, fact sheets, annual reports, essentially data storytelling of the know-how that is absolutely YOURS, unique to you, that long-standing historical context only those in your organisations know).
Voices (your space for telling people stories. Stories that spotlight to the researchers, your customers, your member company employees, their jobs, that local farmer who comes up with creative solutions, that diabetic patient who bikes from Germany to Spain each year, and so on ....).
Oh man. There is so much opportunity to overcome the obstacles we all face, particularly in telling stories that traditional media isn't telling and in sharing information with policymakers that they need to know now.
Warning: All of this in-house newsroom work will only deliver your policy objectives if your in-house communications lead is given the freedom to do their job. Otherwise, the newsroom becomes yet another policy position that has been refined to the point, which is inauthentic and simply serves to satisfy internal egos while eroding perception and, ultimately, trust. hashtag#justsayin
