The Independent's Tool-box

Media

The media, particularly your local media, will be a very important part of your campaign, whether they are printing or broadcasting your views or your advertisements.

Media Relations

A good relationship with the newsroom of your local paper/s and radio and televisions stations (which is more relevant to regional and rural electorates) will be very helpful to your campaign.

You need to build up a good list of media contacts to put together email and fax distribution lists for your media releases. Do this by ringing your local papers, radio and television stations to introduce yourself, and be sure to provide your local news editors and interested journalists with your contact details.

Your campaign manager should do this as well so you don't miss any opportunities to have your say. Make sure your local media know where your campaign office is located.

You are not trying to win favours from the media. Introducing yourself means that your local journalists will be readily able to place you when they begin to receive a steady stream of concise and considered media releases from you on federal or state government issues.

Media releases

Make sure you develop a media release template with your own design, and slogan if you wish. Once you decide on the format, stick with it.

A press release should ideally consist of no more than 10 to 12 paragraphs. Each paragraph would usually be just the one sentence. Each sentence should ideally be of no more than 40 words.

Refer to an example of a press release by clicking here.

You will note quotation marks open and close the second paragraph with a Mr/s/Ms Candidate said completing the sentence.

The subsequent paragraphs are almost exclusively direct quotes with quotation marks at the beginning, but not closed until near the last, or at the last sentence. The penultimate paragraph (par) might end with Mr/s/Ms Candidate said; then with quotations opened again and a final hard hitting paragraph, end with closure of the quotations and Mr/s/Ms Candidate added as a final affirmative statement.

The first sentence sets up the story, and if used on its own would make total sense, in effect telling the story in a summarised form.

The first sentence could be used as a headline in a radio news bulletin and tell the story 'in brief' with no further explanation needed. You should avoid starting a press release "The independent candidate for X says……".

It's far better to get to the guts of the story, with: Voters in X electorate will be outraged by the failure of the government to repair the Forty Bends Road in this year's budget, according to independent candidate for X, Bob Candidate.

Note the 'For further information' section at the end of the document. This can be you during the 12-18months when you are a declared candidate and commenting once, twice a week on various issues, but as it comes down to the campaign period, your campaign manager's number should also be there as a point of further contact.

In fact, if you have a Media Advisor/ Journalist volunteer, he/she can help prepare the press releases (and in many cases writing them for your editing and approval) and also be available to provide 'further information' on your behalf.

Advertising

The amount of advertising you do will be determined by your budget. It is not cheap, especially television advertising.

If you have the money, you should advertise in your local papers, on your local radio stations and, if you can, on local television. Again this is probably more relevant to regional and rural electorates.

You should have some advertisements ready to go as the campaign starts to boost the profile you have been building up through the year. Then increase the frequency of your ads the closer you get to Election Day.

Again, all of this depends on your budget.

With digital technology, even a quick spot recorded on a digital video camera can be close to broadcast quality, which allows you to be current with your ads and saves money on production. However, you will still need people helping you who know what they are doing both with the camera and/or editing software.

Authorisation

All of your election material, your flyers, mail-outs, posters, and especially your advertisements must carry an authorisation.

The authorisation must include the name and address of the person who authorised the ad (this can be you and the address of your campaign office) and the name and place of business of the printer who produced the material.

All electoral video recordings require the name and address of the person authorising the material to be displayed at the end of the recording.

Electronic campaign advertising is banned in the three days leading up to polling day - this is the electronic media blackout.

The best practice to adopt is putting your authorisation on everything you produce in relation to your campaign.

More information on authorisation and electoral advertising for federal elections is available from the AEC and by clicking here.