The first step is to identify and locate local mediapersons who you can talk to. Get a list of media people from the local press club and meet them regularly- always with a story in your hand. Write the names and numbers of all the journalists you meet. Make a brief note of what they are like and how they treat the subject. If you are going to be involved in a long campaign keep the sympathetic journalists informed about the issues so that they do not forget about them. Make a special note of the Editors of the news papers and see if you can get an appointment with them. Offer to give them regular inputs on a daily/weekly basis. Also meet the person in charge of the letters page so that when you send a letter on a subject involving animals it gets printed. Find out who covers "Lifestyles"(page 3), children, city, crime and wildlife beats. Make sure that all these people get letters of introduction telling them about your group, if you have a shelter or ambulance and what your group does. Follow it up by sending copies of your newsletter and announcements. Find out if there are any radio or TV reporters in your district and carry out the same exercise with them.

Do not wait for the media to come to you. If they do, they will usually come only if someone has complained-which puts you on the defensive. So take the initiative. Invite the reporter to come by anytime for a visit to your office/ shelter or to accompany you on your rounds. Contact the media with relevant background information any time an issue comes up that involves animals. Do not assume that they are automatically going to think of you as a resource when they are dealing with another case- even though you may have information they may need. So always be proactive.

Always have a media kit ready to mail, fax or deliver in person to any reporter who needs it. This should contain a brochure about your group, your recent activities, the phone numbers and addresses of everyone in your group, laws regarding animals. Make sure that every reporter and newspaper have your phone numbers.

Every few days make a press note about a happening in your district with photographs and send it to several reporters. This always comes in handy when they need fillers. The press note could be about:

- Some one who is doing good work for animals in the area.

- Animals that can be adopted. Send a fresh packet of about 5 photographs of animals that can be adopted to your local papers every week, with one sentence descriptions of the animal in each photo. You can even give the background, if it is interesting, of how you got the animal. If the papers need a filler the photographs will come in handy and that will virtually assure an adoption. The cumulative effect of photographs that appear regularly is that they contribute a great deal to educating the public on animal issues.

- Unusual behaviour of some animal. - Your shelter and the animals in it

- Any tips your group has learnt to deal with a situation concerning animals.

- Any animal rescue: a monkey who has had to be rescued from a colony, snakes that have been picked up etc.

- If there is a festival, tips on how to deal with animals during that festival: e.g. Diwali, Holi, Dashera

- Any important systematic cruelty/illegality that is taking place or about to take place: rural bullock cart races, animal sacrifice, cock fights, dog killing by the municipality etc. and what your group intends to do about it.

- Specific individual cruelty to an animal and what your group intends to do about it. Someone who constantly mistreats his pet, a school that keep animals, tangawallahs and their horses etc.

- Illegal bird markets, butchershops and the laws about them.

- Any legal notices you have sent or cases you have filed

- Any drives that you have started; adopt an animal etc.

- Any fundraising events

- Any letters you have sent to a local authority should be given to the press

- If someone adopts an animal, take a photo, get a writeup and if the person is well known locally this can be made into a story.

- Vegetarian and non-vegetarian products: medical benefits of vegetarianism etc.

- Get endorsements from nationally or internationally famous people and give the letters to the press.

- Get a fax machine. This will pay for itself as it will improve press coverage in a few months.

*A reporter always wants exclusive information. If there is one in your area who is prepared to investigate issues, you can give the reporter information about poachers, shops that sell banned items etc.

*Remember that reporters always want to know who, what, where, when, why and how in that order. So start with these essentials and then give the background.

*A large number of reporters are too busy and too uninterested to do an animal story unless it is completely prewritten. Write out the story yourself, and take photographs and then give it to the reporter. Do not keep it longer than 400 words. It does not matter whose name it is published in, as long as the report appears and is highlighted.

*Newspapers like statistical data. An article giving the percentage of something and numbers is always welcome. The percentage of people bitten by pet dogs as compared to stray dogs, the percentage of people who keep dogs to those that keep cats, the percentage of bullocks that die of neck cancer, the percentage of people who go bankrupt if their animals die due to lack of veterinary services, the number of days that a government veterinarian actually comes to work, the percentage of money spent on government veterinary medicine as compared to the number of animals or money spent on renovation of government buildings, these are some ideas you can work on. Browse the internet and see if you can pick up facts that would be interesting to an Indian newspaper or magazine.

*Encourage members of your group, friends, supporters and people you know to write a letter a day on specific animal issues to different papers. The idea is to keep issues regarding animals alive in the minds of people.

*Hold one media event a month. This could be a press conference accompanied with a tea or cocktail. The occasion can be a special announcement, the start of a campaign, a response to a public issue, a fundraising event or a seasonal activity. It can even be an expose that you have worked on of some illegality. You should show a short film or photographs at every press conference. This event brings the media to your organisation and your work. Do not schedule media events in conflict with elections or other big news making events. Make press conferences brief and to the point. Always have adoptable animals present for photo opportunities.

*Share the spotlight. Invite other animal groups and members of the local veterinary community to join you at media events. Work out what you are going to say beforehand so that there are no embarrassing disagreements. This way you avoid getting a reputation as a media freak and build goodwill with other interest groups and establish a coalition that will help all of you to get things done better. Once you have established an understanding you can use the media contacts of other groups as well.

*Ask a local paper if you can write a regular column on animals (please refer to the pamphlet on How to Write a Column). You can even make quizzes and other interesting things that you can give them for a children's page. If you get a column or anything regular, make everyone you know write letters to the papers congratulating them so that they feel they have increased their readership.

*Every town has its own local TV channel and they are always looking for programmes which are free. If you have an interesting and startling expose done in a reasonably competent fashion, this can be offered to local channels. You can even send it to the national channels. Get the phone numbers of all the channels in advance as they do not have reporters all over India. To get them interested you can do a short write up of what you have and fax it through first with your phone number and address.

*You can also ask the local TV cable operator if they will carry an adoption film every week or month. Film the animals you have that can abe adopted with a pretty girl, and talk about each one and where they can be taken from for adoption.

*Make small cinema slides on animal laws or the work of your group and ask local cinema houses if they will show it during the interval.

*Earth Day, Animal Fortnight, Environment Day come around every year and each newspaper has to bring out something on them. Give articles in advance to the papers to be slotted for these days. You can give messages to the local radio stations and fax ideas to TV stations as they would like to do justice to these events but usually do not have information.

*Negotiate with a newspaper to insert flyers about your group. They usually give a cheaper rate to public interest organizations. Ask a local shop/industry if they could pay for it and they can put their advertisement on your flyer.

*Many newspapers carry a regular column on helplines where they give the numbers and addresses of police, child welfare agencies etc. Try to have your group's helpline number put in it. The same thing applies to magazines, tourist guides etc. Companies that are publishing their own tourist guides can be asked to include this information.

*.Look at peripheral newsletters such as that of the Rotary, Lions, FICCI or business groups etc. and see if you can get a small piece about your group in them.

*Respond immediately to media inquiries. Media people are always on a deadline. If they can not get your side of the story straightway they will opt to do without it. If you can not respond, get someone in your group or staff to answer the questions and call back the reporter yourself with further clarifications if necessary.

*Do not speak off the record with a reporter who does not know you. If you must speak off the record, give the reporter a means of verifying whatever you are explaining. Otherwise it will seem that you are attempting to influence a story with unverifiable hearsay, eroding your credibility as a source.

*Complaining: If we do not complain the media may not pay attention at all. Redressing exaggerated stories is difficult, time consuming and often very frustrating, but sometimes it works. If we don't complain, the media will feel free to repeat the same thing again and again, so it's worth trying, even if it ends in failure.

*If you are well off, have been named in person and something untrue has been written and have lots of free time, sue for libel. It is not an option for most of us , but if you know a lawyer who is prepared to work for free and the case is a clear cut one, it is worth sending a notice. If it is sufficiently convincing, it might prompt the paper or programme to issue an apology and to be more careful in future. The downside is that the reporter may get even more vicious and react by continuously writing anti-animal stories. Also, the journalistic grapevine is influential. You may suddenly have an onslaught from different journalists who will attempt to prove the correctness of the first story by becoming even more vicious. However, if there is a reporter who consistently files untrue and misleading stories which are heavily slanted as for instance, the dog killing issue - meet the editor with all your facts on paper and ask him to sort it out. This usually works.

*If you get a good story written about an issue, remember to thank the reporter and the editor. Your response will be remembered because no one ever thanks the press for a story.

*If you or your movement have been written about unfairly in the papers, but there's no possibility of legal redress, there are several other options. None of them are ideal, but they are all better than doing nothing:

- Write a letter for publication. Make sure it is short, pertinent and full of data. Humour and irony are particularly useful weapons.

- If you can bear to, talk to the journalist. Be ultra-reasonable and put your case calmly and clearly. Occasionally, this works, and he or she will relent and write a follow-up piece, putting your side of the story. Never telephone a reporter with a complaint. Either meet them or write it down.

- This is very long shot but, if you have got good writing skills, see if you can persuade the comment editor to let you write a column to put forward your case.

- Appeal to the Press Council. It's code of practice includes guidance on respect for privacy, the right to reply and a journalists' behaviour. However, it is not very effective and redressal takes months.

*Remember humane issues are very low on any media priority so you will usually be dealing with younger and less seasoned reporters. Most reporters will appreciate a friendly response to an unfriendly story and perhaps you can get them to do one later. Very few reporters have an axe to grind, so you can keep trying to change their attitude with data and photographs. Do not shy off the press because of one bad experience. There are many reporters for the same paper.

• A number of local small time reporters are also in charge of getting local advertisements for their papers. You could get sympathizers of your group to place small local advertisements in return for a story.

Create and organise events that are attractive to local media

Organize events that are of media interest. Invite local families, schools to participate in events to benefit the animals. Get local artists and designer's to donate their talents. Even persons who can sing and dance or perform in any way could be roped in. You could reserve a local park for the day and get in touch with the concerned authorities. You can hold different events like walks, talks, musical and other cultural events; organize adoptions of stray and ownerless pets medical camps; an auction of animal friendly items.... there are hundreds of things that will bring both media attention and donations. Invite national celebrities to come and give a talk on animal issues. Even senior government officials will get attention.

Take photographs of the events that you hold. If press people do not attend them, make a press packet of the event and send it to them. Make sure that press people are given invitations to all the events you hold. A great day from the point of view of getting publicity is Sunday, as it is a lazy day for events and journalists come in late. A press packet with photographs stands a better chance of being noticed and used as a filler.

So make sure that you keep the cause of animal rights and welfare alive in the minds of the media and through them the public.