PT Insights

Jan
20

Editorial Boards: Keys To The Kingdom

Bob Brody

Let’s say a healthcare client is seeking a briefing with a prominent newspaper editorial board. Ultimately, the client would like to see an editorial come out that reflects its views. In the best of scenarios, that’s exactly what happens.

Sometimes, though, a healthcare client goes to a briefing improperly prepared – either underprepared, overprepared or just plain poorly prepared. Luckily, Joe Rago, a senior editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal, recently shared some insights with us about how clients can fare well in such briefings. Joe, who writes all the healthcare editorials in the Journal, conducts such briefings regularly.

The timing of this advice is fortuitous. With the debate over healthcare reform flaring white-hot over the last 18 months, more than a few health care clients have asked us to set up editorial board meetings (in many cases, we’ve suggested the idea ourselves). The controversy over the Affordable Care Act will most likely continue unabated in 2011.

Here, courtesy of Joe Rago, are the top 10 tips for editorial board briefings:

1. Establish the issue in play. Define it explicitly – its implications, its potential consequences. Overregulation, perhaps?
2. Zero in on a highly specific problem. Pinpoint a particular piece of legislation, say.
3. Present a conflict. Every issue has at least two sides. Demonstrate dramatic tension.
4. Show a trend. Changes already afoot or still in the offing are automatically interesting. Document the dynamics.
5. Convey a clear-cut point of view. Forgo fence straddling, never mind the on-the-one-hand-this-on-the-other-hand-that syndrome. You’re there to take a stand.
6. Propose a solution. Expressing a grievance – about federal policies that hamper technological innovation, for example – is only half the ballgame. Lay out your answer with authority.
7. Deliver a narrative with a theme. Everyone loves a story well told. Follow a sequence that creates suspense. “We make medical devices. Some say they’re too expensive. We say they save both lives and money. Just ask Patient ‘A.’”
8. Provide facts in abundance. Bring in a big binder. Toss out copies of letters you’ve sent to Congress.
9. Go broad. Think beyond your own company, even beyond your own industry. Show you recognize how healthcare itself might be at stake.
10. Avoid being overtly self-serving. See “9.”