Publicity Officer

[Krishna Shiatis]

It will take something extremely rare like a junior to be so good, he qualifies for a World Title shot.

I don't think so.

They do not have to be the best in the world, just 'one of the best' will do.

I think we have what we need with David Howell, Luke McShane, Gawain Jones, Jovanka Houska, Stephen Gordon, Lawrence Trent to name but a few.

They have 'it'. Put them all in the media spotlight and you have a very interesting group of young, talented, good looking individuals. You just need for one of these guys to become 'a media darling' and you're off.

You are right Richard - they are getting older - so we do need to act now as we do have a strong batch at this point.

Also, Richard, I have yet to meet one of the younger generation (Under 18) who could not be spruced up and has no personality. All the juniors I have met, all have a personality, are lovely and generally could well be poster boys and girls for chess.

[Krishna Shiatis]

we need a poster boy for chess

I suggest David Sedgwick.

Aww bless!

[David Gilbert]

It will take something extremely rare like a junior to be so good, he qualifies for a World Title shot.

Indeed. A 'Magnus Carlsen' would be useful.

Quite. It's very easy to say "our young (always getting older) players are good at what they do..." but at the moment not at a level that is really likely to excite media interest. Unfortunately the only young-ish player potentially very close to the media eye-catching level is Luke with his recent performances, who obviously isn't quite the right person when he's a fairly infrequently playing amateur (albeit it is an interesting angle).
/quote]

"Interesting angle" - now you're moving on the right track. The media are interested in stories not chess. The level of publicity chess can achieve depends upon the number of personalised stories that can be drummed-up. Local media in particular and most of the general population have a poor understanding of chess, but they do know a good story when they see one. So an 8-year old winning a weekend chess congress competing against lots of humiliated adults, is a good story that will arouse media interest and the interest of local people. Even though the chess establishment know it was only a weak Under-75 beginners section. Unfortunately the 220 adult IM winning the Open Section with 5/5 isn't usually much of a story, unless he's just come round after 10 years in a coma - now that's a story!

So if you want more coverage of chess we need personal stories. Pure factual reporting of chess games will get about as far as the Editor's WPB.

[Andrew Zigmond]

And the personal stories are out there. If we wait for a comet to hit the UK chess scene we'll be waiting a long time. That's why I suggested earlier in this thread that the publicity officer is missing a trick by not looking for stories that might interest local media and making sure the local newspaper (and radio station perhaps) are made aware. They may not take the bait but they just might. I did say that it would be a fairly thankless task.

I'm not an expert on journalism but we must have people who have the contacts and the knowledge and get chess into the mainstream media, even if it's in an unconventional way. As I've said on several occasions already - this is what we need from the marketing director.

[Richard Bates]

I'm not an expert on journalism but we must have people who have the contacts and the knowledge and get chess into the mainstream media, even if it's in an unconventional way. As I've said on several occasions already - this is what we need from the marketing director.

By combining it with boxing, perhaps...?

[David Gilbert]

And the personal stories are out there. If we wait for a comet to hit the UK chess scene we'll be waiting a long time. That's why I suggested earlier in this thread that the publicity officer is missing a trick by not looking for stories that might interest local media and making sure the local newspaper (and radio station perhaps) are made aware. They may not take the bait but they just might. I did say that it would be a fairly thankless task.

I'm not an expert on journalism but we must have people who have the contacts and the knowledge and get chess into the mainstream media, even if it's in an unconventional way. As I've said on several occasions already - this is what we need from the marketing director.

Don't be too hard on Ben and others. I don't think they have the time or the opportunity to find such stories. It needs people in clubs and county associations to identify stories. The role of the Publicity Officer might be to provide expert help and support, and offer their writing skills and templates if necessary, to design media friendly press releases. Stuff coming out of the ECF in Hastings has far less chance of reaching the pages of the media than, say, a story of a Yorkshire player, issued by the Yorkshire Chess Assiciation, for a Yorkshire paper.

[Andrew Zigmond]

And the personal stories are out there. If we wait for a comet to hit the UK chess scene we'll be waiting a long time. That's why I suggested earlier in this thread that the publicity officer is missing a trick by not looking for stories that might interest local media and making sure the local newspaper (and radio station perhaps) are made aware. They may not take the bait but they just might. I did say that it would be a fairly thankless task.

I'm not an expert on journalism but we must have people who have the contacts and the knowledge and get chess into the mainstream media, even if it's in an unconventional way. As I've said on several occasions already - this is what we need from the marketing director.

Don't be too hard on Ben and others. I don't think they have the time or the opportunity to find such stories. It needs people in clubs and county associations to identify stories. The role of the Publicity Officer might be to provide expert help and support, and offer their writing skills and templates if necessary, to design media friendly press releases. Stuff coming out of the ECF in Hastings has far less chance of reaching the pages of the media than, say, a story of a Yorkshire player, issued by the Yorkshire Chess Assiciation, for a Yorkshire paper.

I'm trying not to be hard on anybody and certainly not on Ben who has had the courage to admit to failings. Perhaps what we need from this thread is clarification of what the role of the Marketing Director and the Publicity Officer actually is (is their remit to promote just the ECF or chess in general) so we can move forward constructively.

[David Sedgwick]

we need a poster boy for chess

I suggest David Sedgwick.

Aww bless!

What can I say?

[Andrew Camp]

Given that I am listed as a female in the British U140 online pairing list, I clearly must have the kind of looks and figure that will appear to a wide-ranging audience.

Unless of course, the controller thinks I'm Susan Boyle's identical twin.

[Paul Cooksey]

What can I say?

It is not important that you say anything. But you may want to work on Blue Steel

[Kevin Thurlow]

I agree that local newspapers are much more likely to be interested. When I reached the Countdown finals, the programme contacted the local newspaper, who then contacted me and they put a good-sized report in the paper. Then when Richard Whiteley died, they rang up and did another half page. Thus they could deal with a story of national interest and anyone reading it would not care that the extensive interview was only with me.

Local papers are always desperate for news.

[Alex Holowczak]

Given that I am listed as a female in the British U140 online pairing list, I clearly must have the kind of looks and figure that will appear to a wide-ranging audience.

Unless of course, the controller thinks I'm Susan Boyle's identical twin.

This is because of Swiss Master.

The "flag" field is being used to display clubs. It wasn't designed for this; it was designed for the characters "w" meaning female. If a club appears with a "w" in the field, it removes the "w", and turns the gender to female. This meant that for a time, you played for Colyn Bay, not Colwyn Bay. This was fixed manually, but switching the gender back might have been missed.

So the issue is known about. I'll mention it to the people running the SM file when I bump into them later.

[Neill Cooper]

Local papers are always desperate for news.

I wonder how many chess players send in their results/reports to their local newspaper? I haven't done it very often but they are keen to send along reporters and also like to have photographs - particularly of junior events.

[Krishna Shiatis]

Given that I am listed as a female in the British U140 online pairing list, I clearly must have the kind of looks and figure that will appear to a wide-ranging audience.

Unless of course, the controller thinks I'm Susan Boyle's identical twin.

If in doubt Andrew, you could always post a picture here for us to look at? - by the way, we have already seen the picture you put of Russell Crowe earlier - so don't try and bamboozle us with that one!

[Louise Sinclair]

Unfortunately exposure to local newspapers won't hit the radar - most people don't bother to read them. Todays focus is on the tabloids. Tabloids thrive on sensationalism and controversial people - the national journalists are skilled at getting people to be presented in print in the way that the newspaper wishes to present the article.Any featured young person needs the wisdom of Solomon to avoid pitfalls.
This is something I am knowledgable about. My cousin is a journalist and previous editor of Punch and one of my aunts used to be a journalist.