Thursday’s= Governance
What do your policies say about talking to the media? If you have been paying attention to best practices, then your policy about media says that only, a designated person is allowed to talk to the media. Who should that person be?
If you have a communications chair then he or she would be a likely person to speak on behalf of the organization. Other choices would be the executive director, the president and/or the chair of the board.
What should be clear to the remaining board members and employees is that they are not authorized to speak to the media. Anyone who is going to talk to the media should have media training.
Does your policy include social media? Who is allowed to post on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn? Arguably, social media is the same as the traditional media – in fact there may be more people watching your group’s social media sites than reading newspaper articles about your group. Do you have different people authorized to post on Twitter than you do on LinkedIn?
Your group may want to have a list of topics with your positions outlined, to provide guidance to those who speak on your behalf. You will also want to have policies about topics that your group does not speak about such as politicians or religion.
Every group needs policies about who is handling media, social or otherwise.
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