Newsletter #2: Questions to Elevate Black History Month Purpose with Content Planning
Introduction
Welcome to this week’s edition from snowy, icy, and freezing Omaha!
Take a look at the four foot snowdrift outside of my office window.
Coming out of the debut newsletter, several Easter Eggs went unclicked. For a few weeks, I will highlight eggs in yellow.
Thanks to the first 200 subscribers! So glad to have you!
Today, we will navigate narratives and cover:
CONTENT: Questions to make content for culture awareness celebrations, like Black History Month, more effective.
MEDIA RELATIONS: What can we learn from the Windsors of the United Kingdom?
STATE OF THE MEDIA: Hint: more bad news.
SURVEY OPPORTUNITY
Content with Purpose
As Black History Month approaches, I'm diving in to explore some lingering questions to help guide me in learning the most authentic, respectful, and effective ways to celebrate cultural awareness holidays and months. If I am asking these questions, maybe others are too.
Gaining clarity on these questions could increase confidence among communicators and strengthen the impact of a content plan. While my focus in this article centers on the upcoming Black History Month, the insights and questions raised are universally applicable to other cultural awareness events.
I am “working in the open,” a concept I learned from the visionary Michelle Wingard, the CEO and Founder of Dynamo, that allows multiple people to check in on a document to monitor progress and contribute ideas. I will post this article on LinkedIn, and I invite you to add, subtract, or critique either the questions or the answers.
Exploring the Ideal:
How does a communications lead/team ensure a Black History Month content plan 1) aligns with the celebration's objectives and 2) remains authentic and informative?
What does success look like at the end of a well-planned and well-implemented cultural awareness month content plan?
The Barriers (challenges) —> The Bulldozers (solutions)
Are the objective/s of Black History Month well known?
Path to Clarity: We must know the purpose of the month. Research the history and clearly understand the intent then align your plans to effectively contribute to supporting progress:
Black History Month was established to celebrate and acknowledge the significant contributions and history of African Americans, aiming to rectify their historical underrepresentation and marginalization in mainstream narratives and historical records.
NAACP: “Carter G. Woodson's devotion to showcasing the contributions of Black Americans bore fruit in 1926 when he launched a history month in the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Woodson's concept was later expanded into Black History Month.”
Library of Congress: In 1975, President Gerald Ford issued a Message on the Observance of Black History Week urging all Americans to "recognize the important contribution made to our nation's life and culture by Black citizens."
How can a planning process thoughtfully include Black voices in the conversation without unfairly placing the burden on them for the content's development. What is the best way to ask for feedback on a communications plan from Black colleagues?
Path to Clarity: Have the confidence to apply your communications training and simply do the work, and then figure out the authentic way to vet plans and invite advice and feedback.
In a recent webinar on “The Real World Impact and Importance of DEI and ESG,” LaTricia Woods, APR, and Founder and President of Mahogany Xan Communications in Chandler, Arizona, had words of wisdom to share: “What I wish people would know, don't grab your favorite Black person or Hispanic person and ask them the best way to celebrate Black History and Hispanic awareness month. Let’s not do that.”
It’s important to balance the responsibility of the communications team to lead the development process with the inclusion of diverse perspectives. It’s crucial for communications professionals to trust in their training and expertise. This means having the confidence to initiate and develop the content plan based on their understanding of communication strategies, audience engagement, and the historical and cultural context of Black History Month. As Woods aptly points out, it's not about relying solely on individuals from the Black or Hispanic communities to guide or validate the process. Instead, communicators should apply their skills to create a plan that is informed, respectful, and aligned with the celebration's objectives.
What measures or indicators will effectively determine the success and cultural appropriateness of a content plan?
Path to Clarity: Effective cultural awareness is achieved when the recognition and lessons of dedicated observances, like Black History Month, are seamlessly integrated and actively reflected in our daily work and life practices.
Possible Measures:
Reframe the timing: Think about Black History Month as a year long practice with February as the “annual report period” where you reshare and celebrate Black contributions and history spotlights that have been promoted throughout the year. Ensure the intentionality and lessons of Black History Month are not just confined to February but are a consistent and integral part of an organizational culture.
Woods supports the year-long approach: “It is a really great time that if you have an employee resource group — and a lot of larger companies have ERGs — to amplify the work they are doing all year long.”
Track the Content: Have a quarterly system to monitor how consistently Black history and contributions are highlighted on your owned, earned, and paid channels. If you aren’t measuring; you won’t know.
Social Media Audit:
Evaluate who you follow and who follows you.
What content and professionals do you engage with? Who engages with your content? What content do you share?
What other questions would you add to help clarify pathways forward to plan impactful content for a culture awareness month? Do you agree with the answers presented above? Check out my LinkedIn page this afternoon and share your expertise.
I See What You Did There: Bundling Bad News
From a serious topic, above, to a media relations timing tactic through an unfolding drama in the House of Windsor:
Big news out of Buckingham Palace this week with not one, but two medical alerts: Kate is in the hospital and off duty through Easter and Charles will have surgery this week.
Of interest to this newsletter is the strategy by the Royal Communications Office to bundle the two “bad news” updates, a tactic where an organization or individual releases several pieces of negative information simultaneously. This approach is based on the idea that it's better to disclose all bad news at once rather than spread it out over time. The rationale behind this strategy includes:
Minimizing prolonged negative attention: By releasing all the bad news at once, the organization aims to limit the period during which it is in the negative spotlight. This is based on the hope that stakeholders and the public will process all the negative information in a single phase, rather than repeatedly focusing on the organization each time new bad news is released.
Creating a clean slate: focus on recovery and positive developments without the risk of additional bad news surfacing and derailing efforts.
Psychological impact on media and audience: There is a psychological rationale known as the "peak-end rule," where people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak and at its end, rather than the total sum or average of every moment of the experience. Bundling bad news is one way to create a single negative peak, rather than multiple negative moments.
However, there are risks to this approach to consider:
Overwhelming Stakeholders: Releasing too much bad news at once can overwhelm stakeholders, leading to stronger negative reactions.
Credibility and Trust Issues: If stakeholders feel that the organization withheld information to bundle it, this can lead to trust issues.
Context and Nuance Loss: In the flood of negative information, important details or nuances may be lost, leading to misinterpretation or generalization of the issues.
This strategy, where both the King and Princess Kate simultaneously shared their news, proved more effective than sequential announcements. It not only consolidated media coverage but also ensured ongoing updates are efficiently combined in merged stories, avoiding repetitive frontpage cycles.
KEY CLARITY POINT: When you have bad news occur in your work world, that will most likely be public facing, ask the question, “Is there any more bad news coming?” If yes, get your arms around all of it and analyze if the bundling approach makes sense.
For fans of the TV show West Wing, we saw something similar with bundling news in the “Take out the Trash Day” episode explained to us by Chief of Staff Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) and his assistant Donna Moss (Janel Moloney). (Come back West Wing show, we need you now more than ever!)
News in the News
Sports Illustrated
The layoffs this week at Sports Illustrated are as startling as the recent upheavals at National Geographic, underscoring that even seemingly invincible brands are vulnerable. Certainly not new news, but hard to watch the continued erosion in real time.
SI was the past generations' weekly sports social media feed, eagerly anticipated each week and always worth the wait. Dave Zirin, MSNBC: “Growing up, I waited for Thursdays the way the other kids in school yearned for Fridays. On Thursdays, I knew Sports Illustrated would be waiting for me in the mail. I’d snatch every copy as if it were the last piece of bacon at a breakfast buffet, jump face-first on my blue comforter and devour it. Sports Illustrated accounted for a large percentage of all the reading I did as a kid.”
Pitchfork
After 139 years, the Omaha World-Herald’s newsroom leaves downtown. The newsroom will now be located “out West.”
Reporter Molly Ashford and the Omaha World-Herald Guild are offering views into the latest developments at the storied paper.
Former OWH columnist and comms pro Erin Grace wrote to me with some thoughts: “The OWH, regardless of address, is still needed, is still relevant and is still doing important work.”
Compare the two OWH newsroom images: the top image, from the OWH Guild, shows the end of the downtown newsroom from this week, and the bottom image shows journalists in action in the 1970s. For eagle eyes, that is reporter and fashion icon Jim Fogarty typing up a column in the bottom right corner.
Need your Feedback
The EO Report will be participating in a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults, aged 18 years old and up.
I am narrowing down topics and questions to ask that can help strategic communicators learn new information.
Please email me with any ideas, erin@claritychannels.com. The questions and survey answers will be shared in an upcoming newsletter.