In the wake of any large news event, like John F. Kennedy Jr.'s tragic death last month, planned news events get pushed into the background or out of the picture altogether.
There's no way to tell in advance if the news of the day might minimize the initial effectiveness of a planned announcement, but there are ways to recover from such an occurrence.
PR executives we spoke with recall times when a breaking news event put their own PR events in limbo. Sam Waltz Jr., chief executive officer and chairman of the PRSA as well as owner of Sam Waltz & Associates Business & Communications Counsel, Wilmington, Del.
"Twenty years ago, I was conducting my first major press conference for DuPont Co. We had a 'great room' rented out at the Hotel DuPont, with national press coverage. The announcement was the first human powered flight across the Atlantic. DuPont made the Mylar polymer that covered the vehicle, helping make the trip possible. In the middle of the event, the press started leaving, and I couldn't figure out why," Waltz recalls.
The reason was the Three Mile Island disaster, which occurred only an hour's drive from Wilmington.
Though the immediate coverage suffered, the second day and subsequent coverage made up for it, Walton says.
"I stayed in close touch with the editors," Walton says. "You may not get the same play that day, but if you stay in touch with the editors, you hope to get good coverage later."
In addition to building good lines of communications with editors and reporters, make sure the event or announcement is newsworthy in the first place, Walton says. "You need to have a unique, dynamic announcement to make it work."
If the event wasn't newsworthy to begin with, not only is it doubtful the media will pay much attention after the fact, the public relations professional should also question whether it was proper to stage the media event in the first place, Walton says.
"I spent more of my time discouraging press conferences," Waltz explains. Press conferences of items that are company "ego boosters" with no real news value "are a waste of time." If there are too many of them, they can also lead editors to pay less attention to announcements, even when one does have news value.
Others agree that working closely with the media can avoid a public relations disaster in the event of a news disaster.
"We've been lucky that this kind of thing hasn't happened to us, because we have a client that sponsors "Extreme Athletes" and if someone is going to land at the South Pole a particular day, you can't change it," adds Julie Wellik, partner with Communications West, San Francisco.
If such an event were to bump up against more important news of the day, the best bet would be to repackage the information with good photos, etc., to still make it of interest to the media, even though some of the timeliness is lost, Wellik adds.
With "evergreen" events, like photo opportunities, it should be relatively easy to reschedule the event, says Robyn Zieglar, senior media specialist with J.C. Williams & Associates, Chicago.
Other events might be more time-sensitive, but if a reporter was truly interested in the first place, he or she will probably be interested in doing a follow-up piece, says Zieglar. She also recommends looking for reporters covering related beats if the reporter scheduled to attend an event gets called away on a breaking news item.
(Sam Waltz Jr., Sam Waltz & Assoc. Business & Communic. Counsel, 302/777-4774; Julie Wellik, Communications West, 415/863-7220; Robyn Zieglar, J.C. Williams & Associates, 312/565-3900)