Atlantic-Pacific Alliance

Our Press Office

> Provides your staff with background on US policies:

· fact sheets

· visuals (pictures, graphs, charts, maps)

· lists of experts to explain in detail hot issues

· clippings: op-eds, opinion pieces, and columns

· press packets or media kits

· biographies of politicians, others

· speeches, sentences, white papers, legislative bills, think tank reports

· video and audio news releases

> Supports journalists to prepare for events like press conferences, providing them with materials and commentary.

> Gives off-the-record interviews and takes part in editorial boards to enhance your staff background on policy issues.

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> What's a fact sheet or backgrounder? Is an expanded press release that provides detailed information on a subject. It uses facts and statistics, but usually not quotations, and typically is distributed with a press release. Running up to four or five pages, the fact sheet or backgrounder should be in easily readable form, using techniques such as bullets or bold type for each new fact.

> Biography: given out with a press release, a biography briefly provides the professional record and accomplishments of a person being appointed to a new job, giving a speech, or participating in an event.

> What's a press packet or media kit? Contain several items on a single topic. The items are inserted into a folder with two internal pockets to hold them.

> Video and audio news releases, which have the who, what, when, where, why, and how of a written press release but are presented as a radio or television story. Broadcasters may use all or part of the material in a radio or television news story and identify the material as coming from a public relations source. The video news release will be presented on split audio tracks, when possible, with the narrator on one track and sound bites and natural sounds on another.

> What's an editorial board? Are meetings between us and the editor of a newspaper's editorial page, editorial and opinion writers, and reporters from the news sections to discuss a topic. Major television and cable networks also have similar meetings. The editorial board can give your staff an opportunity to explain his or her ideas in depth, which can lead the media to a deeper understanding of the government's policies and often results in news stories and editorials.

> In off-the-record meetings we meet with your reporters to provide background or context on topics of news interest.

> Advance copies of speeches, which are used to promote policies, unveil new programs, and explain positions, could be given to your staff when cannot attend a media event. If possible, when distributing a speech, it will begin with a summary of the material to give your staff a synopsis of the main theme.