Working With The Press for Men's Health Week

Tips for dealing with journalists and traditional media to ensure coverage of your activities and Men's Health Week's themes.

You can get tips for Twitter and Facebook promotion on the Using Social Media for Men's Health Week page.

If you organisation has a press office, staff coordinate with the relevant people; they will have media contacts and expertise. Make sure you contact them in plenty of time to organise an effective media strategy.

Sharing details of the event with the local press is important, explaining what you are doing and why men’s health is such an important issue. They may decide to send a reporter/photographer to cover the event, although consider how you will manage this. For example, some men may be uncomfortable with journalists present at a health-check style event.

Ensuring you cover a range of different outlets, across a range of different media, to cover different audiences and demographics. Traditional print media may be less read amongst a younger audience, whereas radio could be used to target commuters driving to work, or even specific 'in-house' stations, such as hospitals or universities.

Ensure someone is around to deal with media enquiries, especially on the day of an event. Nothing can be more detrimental than people trying to get information and not being able to.

Building Coverage

Press releases are key, either before an event or afterwards, telling journalists what you did and including photos. You can find our sample press release to help you write your own here.

When talking to journalists and media sources, highlight that your event is part of the national Men’s Health Week – knowing that it is part of a bigger, national story will typically generate more interest.

After sending a press release, it is often useful to phone up the publication or outlet to see if they will cover the event. This way you can also provide more information and quotes if needed.

Example Press Coverage from Men's Health Week 2014

The Times - Men and Coping with Job Loss (£)
Huffington Post - On Being Told to Man Up
Western Morning News - Is Stress Killing Breadwinner Stereotypes?
Voice of Russia - Men's Health Seriously Affected by Unemployment
Yorkshire Post - When Work Becomes Too Much To Bear
Premier Radio - Interview with MHF CEO, Martin Tod
Marketing Magazine - Digital Male Health
HR Magazine - Health Issues of Unemployment
Eastern Daily Press - Wellbeing Service for Men at Norwich Pub
National Student - Biggest Issues Facing Young Men Today

The Men’s Health Forum need your support

It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking.

In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to.

It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for.

We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing.

Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.