Wednesday 6 June 2007

NGOs and the press

Brussels, 6 June. During the Peer to Peer exchange session on advocacy, Christine Coudour, from European Voice gave an interesting presentation on the paper's cooperation with NGOs.

She argued that NGOs are still quite sceptical when it comes to contacts with the press. She described how civil society organisations can raise awareness among European policy makers by using a newspaper for campaigning.

Emphasising that European Voice is distributed to all EU policy makers, 'advertisements' are an important tool to reach target groups. Nevertheless newspapers are profit-making enterprises and will not usually offer their services for free. Although she can help NGOs to find a perfect format to suit a campaign, NGOs need to raise funds to cover the costs.

After the session two participants shared their perspectives on working with the media:


Marta Pejda - Gruppa Zagrancia (Poland):


Florent Sebban - Eurostep (Brussels):


Story by Martin Behrens

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