Hints to get press
PA Nonbelievers have been sending PANviews to the religion writer at a local paper for many years, and the papers are now apparently also monitoring our website for news about upcoming events.
The religious section ran a small piece about “Theology on Tap,” the latest “outreach” by local Diocese to bring in “young adults” over 21 back into the church.
The paper perhaps wanted some balance in the piece and included Harrisburg’s Drinking Skeptically as a mention. Hey! If the paper can report on the Catholics getting hammered for Jesus, they can report on atheists drinking responsibly for reason (or for no reason). In fact, the headline for the article was “Drinks all around.”
So, for those atheist/humanist/skeptics groups out there looking for some extra press, try delivering your message to the local religion writers. They just might go for the “balanced” view and include your events.
how would i go about forwarding it to my local papers religion writer if my paper even has a religion writer. i would also like to forward any press relses by pan to the local radio station which i have much more experience with.
chris feaster
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PAN doesn’t issue many press releases. The problem is that most of our events aren’t really wide open to the public. We need to screen people first. That’s not to say that believers are unwelcome, but we just like to know in advance, if possible, where they are “coming from”. Also….and this is very important: you probably should not widely advertise (in a general circulation newspaper, radio, tv, etc.) the restaurant you are meeting at unless you have permission from that establishment to so advertise. Some establishments don’t want the public to know that they accommodate groups of atheists. Of course, if they allow religious groups to advertise meetings, then they’ll have to allow atheist groups to do similar. The Drinking Skeptically events aren’t really PAN events, so we really have no control over how those events are advertised. I doubt that most bars would have a problem with atheists promoting such events.
We really do need some kind of news or PUBLIC event of our own to justify a press release.
And most smaller papers don’t have a dedicated “religion” reporter. But it doesn’t hurt to call the paper and ask who covers church events; then have a brief chat with the reporter, inviting him/her to a future event, etc., with the prior knowledge of your members. The Patriot had a BIG feature on our Lemoyne group a few years ago, when Mary Warner was still a reporter. The new religion reporter has had zero contact with us, and is heavily involved herself with Christian medical missions. The religion reporter for a smaller newspaper in South Central PA is
a friend and occasional attendee at our meetings.
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