Coming To A Town Near You

Being a small town kid, I'll always have a soft spot for small towns.  It also gives me a unique perspective on how the big city handles the small towns.

You see, the only time big city media types invade the small towns, it's for negative news.  Disasters and tragedies.  Both are obviously unthinkable events.  Unexpected.  And it creates a problem for everyone involved when the expectation in both camps is so vastly different.

From the small town perspective, you're simply not used to having 15 media outlets (or more) converge on your community.  At most, you might have a weekly newspaper, maybe a regional radio station that stops by once in a while.  But that's it.  So you're completely unprepared for what's about to come.  About five years, I attended an emergency preparedness conference in Banff, where the vast majority of municipalities I spoke with said their plans don't/didn't include how to handle media.  Standing in front of one microphone was nerve-wracking enough, let alone 15 with reporters yelling questions.

From the media perspective, you're used to getting the big city response.  The cities have multiple spokespeople/communications people, whose sole job is to organize the message being sent out and to get back to us media types.  The cities develop strategies on communications for everything from a new park opening to an emergency.  The towns, well, don't.  The speakers are well-coached and are used to handling the pressure cooker of a scrum.  It's a totally different world between the two.

So I tend to give smaller communities a little more leeway in terms of answering interview requests when disasters or tragedies strike.  It's not a ton of leeway.  But it's enough to make sure to say to them "we're looking to help you pass along as much information as possible to our listeners/viewers/readers, who also happen to live in your community."  The relationship needs to be perceived as being mutual.  It's an idea that's sometimes foreign to small town spokespeople, who are already resentful that the only time media types are talking to them is in the most inconvenient time.

I've covered so many of these situations.  High River, Claresholm, Sparwood, Innisfail, Brooks.  Even the bigger small cities like Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and Red Deer.  For the most part, I don't believe that they're trying to dodge questions.  They're simply not as prepared to deal with the barrage like Calgary and Edmonton are.

That being said, I will 100% advocate for all communities to be prepared.  The person in charge of communications, whether it be internal, external, or both, needs to realize that the media is going to go looking for information to pass along to listeners/viewers/readers, especially when natural disasters hit.  So to help your own image (whether it be on the "open and transparent front" or on the "let's quell any rumours that might be out there), the only option you have is to plan for the media to arrive.  Plan regular updates.  Communicate your plans.

Media can and will be the conduit from you to your residents, if you utilize it correctly.