Mini-Case Study Scenario Questions

You are the public information officer for the state Chamber of Commerce. Each year the Chamber produces an economic outlook for the state. It contains projections on numerous economic factors for the upcoming year. It is generally viewed as being accurate and is, therefore, hot news to state media. Wanting to be fair to all media, you distribute the information through a news release with a publication date (sometimes referred to as embargo date) that falls on Wednesdaythe day that most weeklies publish.

You mail the release Friday before the Wednesday release date, because if you wait until Monday to mail it, weeklies will not have time to include it in their Wednesday editions. One of the states twiceweekly newspapers publishes the story Tuesday, however, scooping metropolitan papers and knocking the story off the front pages of those papers. Editors of several of these papers telephone, accusing you of playing favorites and saying that next year they will not honor your release date.

1. How would you release the economic projections next year?

A. Send out the information as soon as you have it and let the media determine the cycle in which it breaks.

B. Attach a letter explaining the problem and asking for editors cooperation in observing release dates.

C. Announce the results first at a news conference at Chamber headquarters so that media wanting to carry the story first will have to attend.

D. Announce the results at a news conference in one of the states major cities, rotating the site from year to year.

E. Dont release this information at all, only respond to media inquiries.

2. Assume that before you release the information next year, the same reporter who violated this years release date bypasses your office and calls the director of economic outlook research. When the director tells you that he gave the reporter the highlights of the report in a telephone interview, you realize that the reporters story will run the morning of the day you plan to release the report. What should you do?

A. Have the Chambers lawyer call the reporter and threaten to sue.

B. Call a press conference and release the information now so other news media will have the information before the story runs.

C. Secretly release the report to another reporter who typically gives the Chamber favorable coverage so she can scoop the offending reporter.

D. Go ahead with the scheduled release of the report, but give it to other reporters who ask for it before you release it generally.

E. Go ahead with the scheduled release, but next year prepare a false report to leak to the reporter who releases the economic data before the release date.