Aggressive Media Team comes onto the field for CPF

CPF's approach to the media became more aggressive and smarter in the last few months. They are now taking a larger-scale, longer-term approach.

The motto of the new Media Team at CPF is, "We don't light matches, we set grass fires." According to John Maguire, Media Team leader, that means attempting to get coverage in several papers at once, and getting the editors of those papers to notice what the other editors are doing.

CPF's willingness to be strongly assertive, plus its newly refined media planning, has gained the Coalition much press since October, when the team began operation.

Members of the Media Team are, currently, John Maguire, Mark Charalambous, Dona Rais-Sarrateugi and Ray Saulnier. Alan Finger is handling the northeast part of the state. Pat Flynn continues his op-ed writing. But the bulk of the Media Team dog work — and many man-hours are required — has been done by Maguire, Charalambous, Rais and Saulnier.

Here's a chronology of the media "hits" they have scored since October.

Statewide AP story on the 209A reform effort. This went statewide and was a direct result of the work of Maguire, Charalambous, and Fred Preffer promoting Senate 1861, the 209A reform bill. This AP story ran in at least six or eight papers and was seen in Maine and Connecticut. (October)

Front page story in the Fall River Herald News, focusing on Ray Saulnier's arrest on a phony 209A violation a few days after he was quoted in the aforementioned AP story. Charalambous led the effort here, and pushed, pulled, tugged and charmed the paper into writing the story. (October)

Front page story on 209A reform legislation in the Haverhill Gazette. This story featured Alan Finger. It was set up by Maguire and Saulnier, who had taken the front page story from the Fall River paper and sent it around to many other pages.(Nov. 20)

Story in Cape Cod Times, as a result of a Maguire/Saulnier project in which CPF made a statement about the arrest but non-imprisonment of Myra Jones Romain. Saulnier faxed a strong statement around to his list of papers, the Cape Cod paper picked it up, and the Media Team got them more sources. (Early November)

Statewide Associated Press story about the charging of 18% interest on child support arrearage. Peter Chan tipped John Maguire, who tipped off the Herald and AP, which ran the story. It appeared in a numerous papers in the state. (December)

December 1. Press release on Judge Irwin's secret review of the child support guidelines. Ned Holstein, John Cristofano and John Maguire did this one weekend after Thanksgiving. They spent about 40 man-hours on it over two days, and hand-carried it around to the Herald, the Globe and the Associated Press.

This very strong statement, castigating Irwin for this "locked door" review, took about 10 days to find a home, but finally AP Reporter Jean McMillan put the story together from the Media Team release and their sources. It went out around the state about December 11.

This one got a great deal of play; a dozen or so papers played it prominently. Neither the Globe nor the Herald ran it, but the story probably hit 500,000 readers statewide anyway. And, a further boon, all the wire editors in the state saw the story come across their desks, even those who chose not to run it.

"A whole new way of looking at news coverage of our issues."

- John Maguire, Media Team leader

Coverage of the Kendall case. This grim story about the SJC interfering in a father's right to take his children to his church made it onto the front page of the Globe on its own news value. But the Media Team sought to get the fathers point of view out there. WBUR sent a reporter, Monica Brady, out to attend Holstein' s Metro Fathers Group meeting, and she got comments there from fathers about religion conflicts with their ex-wives. The story ran a few days after Kendall v. Kendall hit.

Coverage of the Robert Carr appeal. This was another last minute effort by Maguire, Holstein and others. They had Channel 4 and the Herald and the Globe present at the courtroom, but in the end only the Globe ran a story. However, the modest (12 column-inch story) still had its impact.

The Globe's daily circulation is near 400,000 and this certainly put the judiciary on notice that people are paying attention to the question of whether fathers may educate their children, or only transfer money to the children's mother, who does all the education. (As this issue of Fatherhood News was being printed, Channel 5 had picked up on the Globe story, and done a feature interview with Robert Carr; it was scheduled to run on the 11 o'clock news January 19th.)

Restraining order reform and the dreaded House 4440 (transmogrified in several stages into S2021) served to focus the biggest win of the season — a major broadcast story both in the region and nationally. Tovia Smith called CPF a day or two after the AP story about 18% charges, and Maguire went rapidly into action for her. Smith had sought sources to talk about the Jacques-Cohen bill, and Maguire had five or six sources for her within 90 minutes. Smith said she wanted the story to go national, and needed "national perspective" to make it happen. Maguire spent about 20 hours on the story in the next several days. In the end the story ran on WBUR's morning program in mid-December. It was re-edited, and then broadcast out over the national feed to many NPR stations nationwide on the Monday after Christmas, December 29.

The 8.5 minute feature technically covered "both sides" of the Jacques-Cohen bill, but in fact the main focus of the piece was the father-child suffering because of restraining order abuse.

The piece climaxed with a tape recording of James Parakis' eight-year-old daughter calling him and asking him when she would ever be able to see him. The answer, according to the State of Massachusetts, which has Parakis on an permanent restraining order, is "never."

Parakis was able to say — in a clear, impassioned and heartfelt voice heard all across the nation — "This is abuse. This is child abuse."

In January, the child support guidelines came out, and with the Associated Press now fully tuned to the guidelines story, Jean McMilllan got on it fast, and turned out a short but fair piece about the new guidelines. (There is little change, except that fathers are worse off with regard to health insurance coverage.) Again, this story went out across the state.

John Maguire is a former professional reporter and public relations man. He explained his philosophy for success: "Never get discouraged; if the front door of the newspaper is closed, find a way in through the back window or the side door. And see every story as part of a statewide campaign to educate editors as to what is really going on. Every local story should get a statewide echo. All we need to do is permanently change the minds of a hundred key editors in this state, and we will have changed the whole public atmosphere about fathers, children and family life. Remain calm; expressions of anger or anguish are unbearable for editors, and they will naturally shut the door on them."

- Seamus Larkin

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