Embassies Have Different Strategies for Getting Stories in News by Sean OíDriscoll The biggest publicity scoop scored by the Slovak Embassy Press Office was not when any of the countryís dignitaries came to Washington, D.C., to speak to policymakers, but when their prime minister ran in the New York City Marathon. ìI got him on CNN twice on the same day,î said the embassyís press secretary, Viera Viskupov·. ìHe was on with Paula Zahn in the morning, who told him that her grandmother was from Slovakia. At 9:30 that night, he was on Larry King Live, which was very good also.î For James Morrison, who has written the Embassy Row column for The Washington Times for the past 10 years, that kind of publicity can be very useful for a countryís name recognition even if the official does not manage to get a serious message across. ìThatís the kind of thing that will get some exposure but for a feature,î he said. ìThey wonít get their point across but itís very good for a country that is really trying to get Americans to know who they are.î The Slovak Embassy is an example of a small band of embassies that are extremely effective in getting their media message past the thousands of weekly press releases being mass faxed from embassies, think tanks and foundations across the Washington area. Unlike most embassies, the Slovaks also have a computer program that automatically addresses each of their 1,700 e-mail recipients by their first name. ìIt makes it more personal and people are less sick of [the e-mails] and more likely to respond,î said Viskupov·. ìWe got about 50 e-mails back to congratulate our new ambassador.î The embassy has an automatic e-mail sign-up system on its Web site, which produces about five to 10 new sign-ups each week, mostly from journalists, think tanks, specialist military and economic publications, and Americans who formerly lived in the Slovak Republic. The key to reaching the mainstream press, Viskupov· said, is not to blast out too many press releases. ìPeople get sick of them very quickly,î she said. ìI sent one out for our new ambassador because that is important, and then a Forbes article last week which had a positive economic message about the country.î For Morrison, however, the constant supply of faxes and e-mails is a requirement, not a nuisance. ìI can never get enough,î he said. ìI do the column five days a week and Iíll be doing it 10 years in September, and usually I need at least two items for a column, so I can always use everything I get.î Morrison said one of the biggest problems he encounters is that embassies often do not let him know when ambassadors are being replaced, which is an essential piece of information. ìI make a lot of use of invitations for receptions, and sometimes the first time I know when someone is leaving is when I get the going-away invitation,î he said. It is important for embassies to stay involved with the diplomatic columns, Morrison added, because of the difficulties in cracking into the mainstream press in a city overflowing with press releases. ìOutside of what I and The Washington Diplomat does, there isnít a whole lot really. If [ambassadors] make a speech and regular reporters are covering it, they might get a paragraph in larger stories but more often than not they are just ignored altogether.î For Matt Francis, public affairs counselor at the Australian Embassy, the key to getting media attention is to link an embassyís message to the preoccupations of U.S. foreign policy. ìThereís hundreds of embassies in this city, there are thousands of lobbyists, [nongovernmental organizations], PR firms, foundationsóthis is a very competitive market place in terms of getting a message out, and the focus of the U.S. media is very much what is going to interest American audiences,î Francis said. Before the Iraq war, the Australian Embassy Press Office worked to tie Australiaís role in the Iraq war with the U.S. mediaís insatiable interest in the military buildup in the Middle East. ìWe certainly worked actively during that period to ensure that Australiaís contribution to the war in Iraq was recognized and also the build up to the war in terms of diplomacy,î Francis said. ìYou canít take it for granted that people are going to report, as a matter of fact, what you are doing because it is such a crowded agenda.î Miltos Miltiadou, press counselor at the Cypriot Embassy, agrees that press officers must monitor U.S. foreign policy if they are to be successful in Washington. Cyprus has used this premise to raise its human rights and international law concerns against Turkey. The country has also been active in showing the American press its role in negotiating a resolution to the Palestinian occupation of the Church of the Nativity as well as its role as a base for U.N. weapons inspectors. ìThe press are here for the U.S. government, not for the embassies, and I think you have to be keenly aware of that,î Miltiadou said. ìSo it takes an understanding of the political structure and an understanding of how the press corps works. You also have to be well versed in American foreign policy because, with the exception of the major issues, you do not have a headline issue.î As with France this year, sometimes the challenge for an embassy press office is to keep its countryís name out of the newspapers. Agnes Von Dermuhll, the French Embassyís press officer, said that despite the massive controversy over Franceís position on the Iraq war, the embassy did not have too many negative experiences with the mainstream press. ìWe didnít have a problem with real journalists. I am not talking about Bill OíReilly on Fox News, of course.î One major exception was the article that ran in The Washington Times and other publications about the French government supplying leading members of the Iraqi regime with French passports. The story had huge implications for U.S.-French relations, and the embassy had to move fast to counteract the effects. ìThey reported our denials but this one journalist did it in such a way that it wasnít clear whether it was true or not, and, of course, it was not true,î Dermuhll said. The problem, she added, is that some journalists did not identify their sources, so there was no way of verifying their reports. ìSome journalists were fed quotes from anonymous officials from here or there. The allegation was simply not true, and we wanted to say that,î Dermuhll said. ìIt is OK to disagree with Franceís position, but donít say something that is simply untrue.î The embassyís request for corrections or rights of reply met with varying success. ìSome newspapers are willing to allow a right of reply, others do it with more reluctance.î Dermuhll said. ìItís not a question of honesty or dishonesty on the newspaperís part, itís a matter of reflecting the position of the one who has been criticized.î As a result of an intense campaign by French officials to counteract the purported excesses of Fox and other news networks, U.S.-French relations are improving. But for smaller and poorer nations, their ability to get a message across may be much more difficult. Morrison of The Washington Times said the lack of staff in the embassies of poorer countries could at times prevent their messages from reaching the right audience. ìThere are some embassies I would like to hear more of, and they tend to be embassies that donít have a well-staffed press office. Some ambassadors Iíll just call directly,î he said. Morrison noted that two good examples of ambassadors who react personally to media inquiries are Djibouti and South Africa. ìThe Djibouti ambassador is very good and happens to be the second most senior ambassador in Washington. When African issues come up, heís the one you call. A lot of the African ambassadors are very good,î he said. For Mourad Adjabi of the Algerian Embassy, communication difficulties can arise when diplomats specializing in, say, economic or cultural affairs also cover media relations. ìIf you have the same people dealing with economic and political affairs, itís extremely difficult to deal with everything at the same time,î Adjabi said. ìThis is one of the main reasons in the failure of some small countries to get their message across. I think we are doing relatively very well, but because of the limited staff, there are many things we wanted to get done that we havenít got done.î In the last three years, he said, the Algerian Embassy has gone from correcting inaccurate reports about Algeria to generating news coverage about events in the country. The result, Adj abi said, has been a greater interest by the mainstream media in Algerian affairs. ìIn the aftermath of the earthquake which hit Algeria in May, the ambassador gave some interviews to CNN and others, and we used our Web site to reach the public. Itís a combination of actions, but it was not easy in the beginning. We had to work hard to make it work.î Adjabi added that the poorer nations are still at a huge disadvantage when trying to grab the media spotlight. ìThis is a difficult city in which to get out your message, so itís about having the personnel and having the resources. If you have the financial means, unless you are completely stupid, you will get results.î Sean OíDriscoll is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.