Press trip
Suitable for:
Medium to large organisations
What is it?
A press trip offers journalists the chance to gain first-hand experience of a place or a particular situation. In Occupational Health and Safety campaigns, press trips are often organised to go and visit best practice factories and companies.
Benefits
- A press trip enables journalists to have first-hand experience of a place or a particular situation.
- Journalists like to get their own facts, to ask questions and they like to have ‘stories’ to tell based on real examples.
Limitations
- Organising a press trip involves bigger costs than other ways of communication.
- Organising the trip can also be time consuming.
Preparing the trip
When preparing the trip:
- Select your case study/studies or trip purpose.
- Select the location.
- Provide information in advance to journalists about the trip and the programme to insure your journalists are ready.
Who to invite
- Select the media you want to invite. Think of mostly specialised Occupational Health and Safety press and regional press.
- Choose at least 8 but not more than 15 journalists. Not so few that the organisational costs become proportionately too high and not so many as to make the individual management of the media difficult.
- Ask the media in advance who they would like to interview and try to organise attendees accordingly.
- Select the people you will meet and interview. Your trip should give the media the opportunity to speak to people who have very different positions in order to present a balanced story. For example, for a factory visit, you could put journalists in touch with a manager, a member of staff and an Occupational Health and Safety specialist.
