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PREVENTION

Making the News
How the Canadian Avalanche Centre works with the media for avalanche safety

By Mary Clayton
Communications Director, Canadian Avalanche Centre

Canada is an alpine nation, yet most Canadians have little or no effective knowledge of avalanches. The Canadian Avalanche Centre (CAC) focuses a lot of effort into building cultural awareness of avalanches and avalanche safety strategies. The aim is to broaden the public’s awareness of the avalanche phenomena, as well as expand the reach of programs and services. Some of the most effective tools in these efforts are the electronic and print media.

Reactive mode

To an increasingly urbanized population, conflicts with nature are shocking. Anything shocking or out of the ordinary is newsworthy. When avalanches cause deaths, close highways or isolate communities, media attention is immediate. However, the reporters involved often have no background knowledge of snow or avalanches. The pressure to get the story first may result in information being published or broadcast that could be erroneous or harmful.

In these situations, we are challenged to facilitate the distribution of accurate and timely information relevant to public safety, without fueling the fires of sensationalism. In our role as the “go-to” office for all things related to avalanches in Canada, we have given as many as 30 interviews in one day after particularly newsworthy events. We have learned ways to prepare for these onslaughts and how to ensure that our spokespeople are briefed and ready with the messages that we feel necessary to convey.

It is critical that our role be crystal clear. At the CAC, we speak with authority about snow stability, how avalanches are formed, Canadian avalanche statistics, and all sorts of interesting related topics. However, our focus remains public avalanche safety in the backcountry and our spokespeople know which questions they can answer and which ones need to be deferred to other organizations.

We know that the media’s focus is on the newsworthy event. We try to anticipate what questions will be asked so that we are ready with answers that serve our purpose – public avalanche safety. Our spokespeople have had media training and rehearsed interview strategies in order for them to be able to answer reporters’ questions while promoting our safety message.

Proactive mode

The CAC works with the media when trying to promote their organization’s message. Photo Credit: Canadian Avalanche Centre

The CAC often seeks out the media to cover stories that we have created. The challenges lie in providing newsworthy content that will attract media coverage, and convey our safety messages in a way that resonates with the public, all in a cost-effective manner. It is a tall order, but it is worth the effort.

It is important to remember that “newsworthy” means anything out of the ordinary. To most people, the CAC’s work is out of the ordinary, so the organization is a step ahead already. However, snow sliding down a mountain isn’t enough – there needs to be a focus, a “hook” that will make a reporter want to tell the story.

We go to the media with a wide variety of stories throughout each winter. Some are vital to public safety, others are more human-interest oriented. All of them start with a press release.

Newsrooms are flooded with press releases, so it’s important to spend some time on them. Releases should be written like a newspaper article – concise, plain language, and with the most important information at the top. Including a quote from a spokesperson is always a good idea and provides a good opportunity to deliver the message in a colourful and hopefully, memorable way.

The idea is to make the reporters’ work easy. The main purpose is to get wide coverage and a lot of interviews. When this occurs, we know that we have done our best to get our prevention message out.

Lessons Learned

Regardless of whether we are engaging the media on our terms or in reaction to an outside event, there are communication essentials that apply across the board. We have found it best to stick to just a few key messages, usually no more than three. It is important to decide who will be speaking to the media, and who will not. All spokes - people should have had some media training, and should know how to present messages in a systematic manner.

Over the past few years, we have seen a marked rise in the public profile of our organization. Our avalanche forecasters are becoming “regulars” with a number of media outlets, and we feel that we are on the right track in our quest to build avalanche awareness. The time invested in preparing for the media has always paid off.

The media is a tremendously powerful tool. We’ve made mistakes along the way in our attempts to harness it, and we have learned valuable lessons as well. Our aim is to help Canadians understand and appreciate avalanches as a natural part of the winter environment, intrinsic to many winter activities and generally manageable through informed decisions. The media is helping us achieve that aim.

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