advice on talking to media?

[sheila miguez]

Would someone be willing to call and talk to me or my friend on the
phone to discuss how to talk to the media about this or projects like
it? I'm helping with a mentoring project and today some people from
the media will be there today.

--
sheila

[Gregg Lind]

Today is a bad day since I will be traveling from SF to Minneapolis,
but here are some (unsolicited) advice points.

1) Write down / decide your talking points. Is this about variation
of ideas? Democratizing knowledge? STEM issues? Opportunity?
"Teaching the Computer Who is Boss"? Find ways to involve them in
your story.
2) Find an anecdote or one-liner for your talking points. Make it
easy for the media to write an article. The tagline "Programming
Workshops for Women and Their Friends" was chosen not for it's
accuracy, but for its ease of quoting! Have a half-page takeaway for
the media with contact info, major players, highlighted backgrounds of
involved people etc. Arrange such a document "press release style"
with the major points first.
3) Breathe easy :) The media just wants to write good stories on
interesting topics. They are people like us, who are mostly very
curious about the world and tech, and just require a bit of education.
4) Some of my talking points: "Programming Workshops for Women and
their Friends", "Wizards are made not born", "In the 1980s, computer
science programs were at gender parity, but have since gone to 80%
(check this!) male", "putting you in charge of your computer",
"fulfills the open-source movements promise of access for all", "tech
is one of the fields where demonstrated ability still matters more
than credentials", "fostering diversity makes a bigger tech
community", etc.

Best of luck and congratulations on the media interest!

Gregg

[sheila miguez]

Thank you very kindly! I shared this with my friend so that she could
be interviewed. Someone from Univision is here is interviewing her
now.

I am helping this group and being mentor mentored. :)

--
sheila