Olly Olly Oxen Free! Welcome to PR’s Version of a Safe Space – the Friday Before Election Day
If you've been waiting to get something out that you don't want out, today's the day to do it.
Heading into the last weekend before the election, I am grasping at straws for a topic to write about that isn’t overtly electoral. I thought about discussing my recent spate of Florida-centric TikTok videos, which were less about serious political analysis and more about me scratching an itch and getting comfortable editing longer shortform vertical video (lord, what a cursed phrase).
I also considered getting into the preparations brands should be making for the potential pandemic and spread of bird flu, but jeez, I mean, aren’t we’re all dealing with enough this week?
This is a communications newsletter, frequented (hopefully) by professionals in the communications industry, so instead of doom and gloom and in the interest of not completely ignoring the quadrennial 800 pound gorilla of news stories, I figured I’d give some helpful advice as we wrap up Halloween and head into the last weekend before Tuesday’s election. Let’s talk about the unique opportunity offered by the next few pre-election news cycles.
A JAM-PACKED NEWS HOLE
When I was a young reporter covering the weekend metro breaking news beat, I’d always be sure to check out the Saturday, Sunday and Monday edition makeups ahead of time. These were pre-early edition digital mockups usually stored on our shared servers, laid out on Adobe InDesign. Days in advance, you could see enterprise news stories, features, blocked space for articles about things we knew were going to happen, ads, photo layouts and basically an early draft of the news.
As a reporter, I cared about this because it helped gage how much I could “write to” – that is, how much space I would actually have for newsgathering of unanticipated goings-on around the city. Murder, scandals, accidents, traffic, natural disasters, protests and more would fill in this remaining news hole. Some weekends, the pre-ordained content out-clipped the column inches left for me to such an extent that I knew I wouldn’t be able to squeeze many stories into print.
Today, print is no longer the dominant form of newsgathering and wide swaths of America don’t even have newspapers. But if you were to imagine the contemporary media’s collective attention span as Friday’s draft of a traditional Sunday Edition, this weekend’s makeup pages would be jam-packed.
Editors today (to the extent that editors still exist) are looking at “makeup pages” that are almost entirely dedicated to the election, local news about the election, the election, election polling, early voting, mail-in voting, macro business trends that inform the potential outcome of the election, fallout from gaffes and statements made during the election campaigns, and the election. It promises to make an either boring or busy weekend for reporters, but for stories with no connection to the election, it offers comprehensive camouflage.
As a young reporter in 2006, on a weekend like this, I’d probably kick my feet up on the desk and hope for quiet.
GET IT OUT NOW
In that quiet, there is opportunity. Cynical opportunity, but our business often relies on our tolerance for cynicism, so suck it up buttercup. As I hit publish on this blog, it is the early afternoon on the east coast.
So, you have time. You have veritable hours to dust off that press release announcing that product recall your ops team has been waiting on. You can hastily assemble a response to that brewing controversy that the executive leaders have been whispering about. That one business vertical that hasn’t turned a profit in 10 quarters? Maybe today’s the day to quietly admit it wasn’t your best idea and shutter it.
The only caveat here is reductions-in-force (layoffs to the laymen). Not because of my inherent, closely held belief that nobody should lose their job the day after Halloween, but because any news of hirings and/or firings are sure to be lumped in with larger political debates, the economy, cost of living, inflation, and before you know it, you’re down the same coverage rabbit hole you sought to avoid.
Now, I’m not advocating dishonesty. Manipulation, sure, but not dishonesty. Brands that knowingly carry around an affliction must always have a plan for the moment when it’s time to take their medicine. As a communications professional, much of this falls to you. We consider the timeliness of the news we make every day. There are good and bad times to make any announcement. That decorum and judgment is part of what makes you valuable.
DAY 2 BECOMES WEEK 2
If you decide to do this, be ready for an elongated “Day Two” story cycle. Depending on the story, it might take a few days or even weeks for any scrutiny to arrive, but arrive it will. Be sure your key team members have memorized your key messages and are well-coached.
Also, just because you get the news out doesn’t mean it’s over. I’m working very hard not to make a “flushing the toilet” metaphor here, but that’s kind of what it’s like. Be prepared for things to come bubbling up later in the doldrums of Q4 when journalists have more time on their hands. Whatever the news, keep it dry, anodyne and boring. Scrub it of human angles, wherever possible. Keep it on a spreadsheet, or in programming language, or even in modest dollars-and-cents. Don’t proselytize, evangelize or editorialize.