Media Guidelines for Aging Services Organizations

Updated: May 2004


The way in which you portray your aging services organization to the media can either enhance or detract from your organization's reputation in the community. Most AAHSA members have implemented a wide range of quality of care and quality of life programs and features.

In light of the public's (and the media's) increasing interest in long-term care for our aging population, now would be a great time to let the media know about quality in your organization and your AAHSA Quality First commitment.

You may want to contact your local media and offer to do a background briefing on quality in aging services in general, and your organization in particular. In many cases, establishing a working relationship with the press and laying groundwork can mean the difference between a reasoned news story and a negative one.


There are many opportunities for you to talk with the media concerning quality of care in aging services and AAHSA Quality First.

The responsibilities of your spokesperson will be:

• To cooperate fully with the media and place a positive perspective on quality of care and quality of life in aging services organizations.
• To be readily available to the media when they call.
• To maintain credibility at all times.
• To be available to the reporters until they determine that the story is over.

Develop your major messages:

• Understand the AAHSA Quality First programs in your organization so that you can explain them in your own words. Avoid jargon or acronyms and use layperson’s language.
• Understand the information about your aging services organization that is included in federal and state government and other “report cards” or ratings.
• Decide on the major messages you hope to convey, and frame them succinctly.
• Make some notes, particularly of any (easy-to-understand) data and facts you plan to include in your answers.
• Prepare a 1- or 2-page fact sheet of general information about your organization. You may be able to include this information in your answers to convey the important role your organization plays in the community: name of your organization; contact person and phone number; services offered by your organization; specialties of your organization; not-for-profit status; religious affiliation (if any); number of people served; number of people employed number of volunteers; names of well-known board members; history of the organization.
• Prepare a 1- or 2-page fact sheet of Quality First information about your organization. Based on the most recent version of the AAHSA Quality First Self-Study that your organization has completed, develop a fact sheet of your quality-related programs, initiatives and goals.
• Bottom line: Quality of care and quality of life in your organization should be something that you feel very comfortable discussing with the media.

Tips for talking with reporters:

• When you hear from a reporter by phone or when you are interviewed in person for print or broadcast, don’t panic! Reporters are good folks who have a job to do: they need to prepare an article or broadcast and the reality is, information about the quality of aging services providers is news. Your job is to provide them with accurate, useful information that meets their need for information and your need to disseminate your message.
• Resist any tendencies to refuse to return the reporter’s call or to reply “no comment.” In almost every case, there is SOMETHING positive that you can say about your organization in reply to a question from a reporter.
• When you receive a voice mail message from a reporter, make every effort to return the call within two hours; often, reporters are on tight deadlines.
• When a reporter contacts you, be sure to ask if s/he is on deadline and when s/he needs information from you.
• Ask the reporter what kind of information s/he wants to know so that you can prepare. There’s nothing wrong with telling a reporter that you don’t have some information and that you need to call him/her back shortly.

Press conferences:

• As reporters have gotten busier and the flood of information has increased in recent years, reporters are less likely to have the time to attend press conferences. At a traditional press conference, an official makes a statement, and then responds to questions from reporters. For the most part, reporters can get the same information in a quick phone conversation.

Letters to the editor are good ways to respond to news coverage, columns, or editorial cartoons or to express your views on any issue that has been in the news. If you see something in your local newspaper about quality of care in aging services organizations, you may want to take the opportunity to send a letter to the editor about your organization's AAHSA Quality First initiative.

Here are some general guidelines for writing letters to the editor:

• Know the newspaper’s rules regarding letters to the editor. They must be signed and include the writer’s address and daytime phone number. Some papers ask for a home phone number as well. Many papers will accept letters to the editor by e-mail; follow the instructions on the paper’s editorial page or Web site.
• Write letters within a day or two of when an issue arises in the newspaper.
• Stick to one point.
• Use simple, declarative sentences.
• Be brief! Check the length of the letters in the newspaper; often they are 150-200 words or less. Sometimes the best letters are just one or two paragraphs.
• Discuss an issue in terms of how it affects people.
• Try to connect with readers by appealing to their sense of logic or fair play.
• Express your convictions strongly, but don’t be harsh, cynical or disrespectful.
• Add a motivational line or “call to action.”
• An upbeat letter may be more persuasive than one that scolds, blames or complains. Again, look at the tone of the letters the newspaper publishes.
• It’s fair for the editor to cut part of your letter. The best way to avoid the editor editing your letter is to be brief.
• Check a dictionary, and always have a second person proofread your letter.

Op-eds (opinion pieces that run on the page “opposite the editorial” page in a newspaper) will allow your aging services organization to present compelling arguments on behalf of quality in your organization. They work best when they are written under the byline of a person in authority — for example, the senior staff person or board chair of your organization.

Here’s how to go about asking for an opportunity to write an op-ed:

• Call the newspaper and ask to speak to the editorial page editor, op-ed editor or managing editor or, for radio and TV on-air editorials, the public affairs editor.
• Ask for the opportunity to write an op-ed piece or guest editorial in response to a recently published article, editorial, or op-ed.
• Ask about rules for publication, such as space limits and deadlines.
• Be clear and persuasive in stating your position. Focus on a positive representation of your views, not a negative response to the original editorial or opposing viewpoint.
• Use “real life” examples that illustrate how people are affected by the issue.
• Consider closing with a “call to action” that compels people to do something, such as beginning to think about how they should choose an aging services provider or judge its quality, or holding a meeting at their workplace or organization on choosing aging services.
• Remember the “new” in news. A request for an op-ed must be made within a day or two of when an issue to which you wish to respond arises in the paper.