First, the good news: I just posted a news item from Georgia on yet another soon-to-open local railroad museum, on the ex-L&N in Georgia.

Even better: I found the news item linked at a national news source website.

Now the bad news: OpinionJournal.com, the editorial website of the Wall Street Journal, chose to lump this story in its satirical "Bottom Stories of the Day" listing, in which it lists headlines of, and hot links to, stories deemed either utterly predictable or completely banal and uninteresting.

Heck, at least they avoided the "All Aboard!" and "Chugs into Town" cliches......

Sandy,

I don't think the Wall Street Journal is entirely our target demographic.

While I don't disagree that we have ways in which we've yet to tackle the "image problem," the inclusion of an article about a railroad museum as a mere space-filler isn't much to boo about.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110010685

They think the "news you can use" are articles detailing the benefits of "playing with small blocks," and why people should "deal with acrons." Now, them dang acorns are a problem...but small peanuts compared to a fiery hot box, bent rod, or busted rail.

No news is the real bad news!

Kelly Lynch

Sandy,

I don't think the Wall Street Journal is entirely our target demographic.


Thats a problem. A LOT of people read the WSJ, its not the house organ of a few plutocrats or eccentrics who can be ignored. If you ignore the journal, you are ignoring Main Street, not just Wall Street.

These are the people who SHOULD be the target demographic.

Well Sandy, it may get worse. A brother journalist of yours from that last outpost of civilization north of DC actually contacted me through another board hoping that I could give him background on the growth of short lines and a certain local (to you) entrepreneur…

GME

There's an old saying in broadcasting. I don't care what they say as long as they get the call letters right. That can be applicable in this case.

What you need to do is wrap every press release in the flag or Mom's apple pie.

"We are helping keep alive an American heritage that vanished when (insert event.)" Localize your examples.

Then tell why that heritage is important. For example, "The streetcar was the family car of its day because few families owned either a horse or an automobile." or "In the days before good roads the interurban car was the quickest and most convenient way to travel between towns or between the farm and town." or "Good rail transportation made possible the suburbs that we know today."

Railroads have huge amounts of heritage as almost the only way to travel rapidly between cities. Railroad freight made possible the industrialization of the United States.

Even railroad depots have tons of heritage especially in small towns. They were the place where people met their friends who were arriving or leaving. They were a place to pick up express shipments. They were places where people gathered to hear speeches by politicians delivered from the back of a train. They were not the shabby structures in a decaying part of town that they became.

Welcome to show biz.

OMG what Wall Street Journal do you read? It's been a joke of a house organ for years, and I would expect it to get even worse under Murdoch. It is happily ignored by many people, and I would expect the coming "Foxification" will relegate to be as meaningless as the rest of the empire.

However, my own distaste for the WSJ aside, getting worried about negative news is a waste of time. As Dear Abby tells John Prine, "Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood."

The only way to combat the issue is to work on getting good news coverage. Pointing out the chaff wastes time that could be used to focus on the wheat.

I still maintain that press operations are the single most important administrative function of an organization after proper book keeping.

Want to change the tune? Play a better one. The news industry is waiting for you to give them something to use.

Rob

Let's do our best--if at all possible in America today--to cast aside "Red State/Blue State" labels for a minute......

Superheater and Kelly point out the vast differences in strategy available to us.

Hint: The B&O Museum didn't recover after the winter roof collapse a couple years ago strictly from insurance payouts--there was a substantial shortfall. Nor could the difference have possibly been made up by every American railfan, or every B&O retiree, sending in a post-collapse donation. Have every Trains Magazine, R&R, and TrainOrders subscriber send $10, and that's about $1.2 million. Tops. NRHS? Let's not go there tonight.

No. The B&O Museum officials did what they were hired to do, and damned well: They networked, schmoozed, and begged among local foundations, local charities, and local politicians. And it worked, as far as I can tell--I haven't seen any newspaper articles of museum officials in Baltimore being accused of stealing or misappropriating money anywhere, which is more than I can say for a certain big institution several dozen miles to my southwest.

THOSE PEOPLE--the very people we should be courting MUCH more--DO read the Wall Street Journal. And the [Big City Name] Business Journal. And business magazines. Even the dot-com millionaires register on that scope. If we are to write them off strictly because some of us don't care for their politics, or capitalism in general, or whatever, your hopes of finding appropriate "angels" are slim indeed.

Decades ago, one of my mentors in this avocation emphasized to me in no uncertain terms, "Never forget that we depend on angels. Ninety percent of what we do is made possible by five percent or less of the warm bodies and wallets. If we didn't have [the founder of our operation] writing a big fat check every time we have an emergency, we wouldn't be here. If [a foundation] hadn't written a big five-figure check, we wouldn't have that motorcar running for every bus tour."

What if the Gates Foundation offered to underwrite the return of your steam locomotive and train to service, or match emergency funding to repair your flood damage? Are you going to sit and grouse that Microsoft is an "evil monopoly"? If Wal-Mart did the same, are you going to return the check because you think "Mal-Wart" destroys small towns, enslaves Chinese children, and eats puppies with hot sauce in their corporate cafeterias? Well, fine, send them to me (Windoze XP on my computer, shopped at Wal-Mart earlier this week for cheap cr@p), and I'll be more than happy to redirect their money to worthwhile rail projects!

All of this is simply advocating for "thinking outside the box". Yes, we need to market to Joe Tourist and his family, and the Thomas The Tank Engine crowd, and even Little Billy Future Historian and Rosie the Apprentice Riveter. But we also need to broaden our appeal (our image, not necessarily our begging) to Scrooge McDuck, J. Montgomery Burns, Richard Bramson, and the like. Though I still think the inclusion of the original item up for discussion in my original post as a "Bottom Story of the Day" was unnecessarily snide, it should be a wake-up call for all of us.

I don't know what universe you've been calling home Mr. Davis but the WSJ is consistently ranked as one of the most respected and successful daily newspapers in the world and one of the tiny few who has managed to increase readership during the internet blossom.
It commands the highest advertising rates in the business and the demographics of its readership reads like a who's who of America.
You obviously disagree with its editorial page--but don't let that blind you to the facts.
A favorable article in the WSJ would greatly advance our cause and I'm hopeful someday we'll get one!!
Ross Rowland

Hi Mr. Rowland,

I guess I'm in the same universe as "Mr. Davis". I get a free day-old copy of the WSJ Monday through Friday at my local coffee shop. I don't read it, but I take it and the other day-old papers home to recycle it because the coffee shop doesn't recycle.

I'm going to start reading it when it gets down to tabloid size which should be before the end of the decade.

No brag, just fact!

Cheers, Mr. Kirkpatrick

It is possible that the editor found the concept of a small museum stuffed with some relatively unremarkable items (pictures, lanterns and shovels) rather dull. Add to the fact that the museum was not deditcated towards railroad history, but also sharing it's mission showcasing the significance of talc. Later the story goes on to state that one woman will have birdhouses on display and quilts by Henrietta McDaniel will be on display.

I see a few problems here, however - this sounds more like a museum that showcases the founding and evolution of the town of Chatsworth, more so then what is implied by the editor as an uninspiring small train museum. That being said... who is the WSJ to imply that this show of small town pride is a dull topic? Such institutions and comunity involvement are what make these towns so interesting and appealing.

Put this story on the top of the other list, sell me a ticket (oh, wait, they are free), and I'll see you by the HO layout talking with real people at the museum.

/Mitch

*

My universe has many outlets for news, and fortunately one can get by w/o the WSJ - and I am talking about the whole rag.

The larger point is that non-profits have a lot more control over the news than it might seem. If you want to land positive coverage in a major paper, you need to cultivate it.

I fear among many that there is this notion that reporters spend time looking for news, when in reality most of it comes to them. At smaller outlets it is relatively easy, but if your sights are set on the big guys you may need to really work at building a relationship. The results, if done well, can be very rewarding.

At many news outlets the staff is so overworked that you could almost hand in completed text and pictures to have it run as-is.

The key is to have someone in your group who knows how to think like the media and work all the angles.

Exactly Mr. Mitchell.

However it isn't just retreating to the overly simplified red/state blue state labels. Doctrinaire politics that so deludes a poster as to put (in writing) a summary dismisal of the premier business journal or an off the cuff remark that says thats not our "demographic" is not only myopic, its paralyzing.

The B&O Museum's mobilization and response to the roof collapse should be required reading by every MBA /MPA seeking a career in the non-profit sector. Strasburg is the flagship of for-profit heritage sevices, ditto.

To paraphrase Peter Drucker: A business has but one purpose: to create a customer. The chronicles of the most sophisticated organizations in the world, Toyota, Coca-Cola, McDonald's are in the WSJ and Forbes (which I'm sure would be as repellant to some), Fortune, Inc., etc. Ignore those journals at your (organization's) peril.

It is very important to be able to produce a press release that reads like a story. Cultivating a good relationship with an organization like a state's Travel Association or Tourism Bureau also helps, as your releases can be circulated through them. I did a press release on NS Steam trips in Virginia (but to sell Roanoke Railway Festival trips) for the state Tourism Bureau in 90 or 91. It was released by them and picked up by the AP. It ran in about 30 or so papers nationwide, including many major markets. Needless to say, the trips were a quick sell-out.

Note to self and memo to PR Department:

Start sending the press releases to both the broadsheet papers and the National Enquirer/Star/Parade/Weekly World News. Maybe I can manage to get some WWN press if I offer Batboy a cab ride.

<:-)

(And, yes, I heard the WWN is toast.)

On a more serious note, my mother edited a weekly local newspaper. For every press release sent that stood a chance of running (almost never verbatim, however), another twenty or more fueled the furnace incinerator in the shop basement.

Do your research. Direct your releases to the right editors. Hell, rewritten correctly, I could get a newspaper to run Kelly Anderson's Strasburg shop news, provided I found the right papers and angles! Also, be aware that newspapers are always wary of seeming/sounding like a free publicity machine for a given operation/attraction.If they run the full article on your Thomas trip or Easter Bunny trips, don't expect similar treatment a month later.

If you play your cards right, who knows what could happen. I'm looking at the Catskill Mt. RR series of updates by Ernie Hunt being routinely posted here, and I would say "shame on them" if that isn't somehow being routinely covered in a gradual series of articles by, say, the Kingston or Poughkeepsie papers.