I receive an email from the Pennsylvania General Assembly every morning updating me on the previous day’s session. This morning, as I write this blog, the email is 10 pages long, detailing the action taken on 68 House bills and 38 Senate bills, along with details on the 26 House bills and resolutions and 24 Senate bills and resolutions introduced the previous day. 
I can’t tell you much about any of it, though. And it’s likely there are some pieces of legislation making their way through Harrisburg that could significantly affect my life. If these bills do become law, I might read about them after the fact. I might complain that my taxes have gone up in one way or another, or, as in years past, cheer the fact that I don’t have to wear a helmet when I ride my motorcycle (though many would look at me foolishly for that one and, perhaps, rightly so).
I’m fairly young (though I can’t believe I’ll turn 40 this year), in relatively good health (though if I keep riding without a helmet that could change) and have been blessed with slightly above average intelligence and a great job. All of this is to say that whatever laws eventually affect my life, I’m in a pretty good position to take care of myself. At least I am today. I wouldn’t be considered vulnerable or among those in society for whom we need advocates giving them a voice and working to affect government.
There are, however, a significant number of people in our society for whom certain legislation can literally mean life or death. There is legislation and public policy that can determine whether patients get access to the treatments their doctors believe best for them, as well as affect the types and quality of services available to seniors, children and victims of crime. And there’s plenty of legislation that can create a strong, pro-business economy (though the business sector certainly is not vulnerable in the same way as society’s underrepresented and underprivileged) and legislation that can stifle it as well.
That’s why there are lobbyists, government relations specialists and public policy experts. Many times they work in tandem. They are highly knowledgeable, effective, well connected and can carry the concerns of an industry, a trade or a segment of the population to the people in government who can potentially make favorable decisions for those groups.
In my estimation, there are only two factions more powerful than a lobby: the constituents who put legislators in office and the media. Yet as powerful as these two groups are, they are often overlooked in an organization’s public affairs and policy strategy.
There’s no doubt a one-on-one meeting between a lawmaker and a lobbyist is effective at delivering a message. But imagine the power of hundreds or thousands of people who, by the way, also represent hundreds or thousands of votes. For example, imagine the power of a constituency of people who believe the “Greatest Generation” is getting a raw deal because lawmakers believe money meant to provide services to this vulnerable population would be better spent elsewhere.
Now, imagine the power of hundreds or thousands of people using the media as a megaphone, blaring their message in a lawmaker’s backyard and equipping a lobbyist with ammunition in the form of those same news stories to take to a one-on-one meeting with that lawmaker.
That is the power of strategic media relations. It can move the needle. Yet the concerted, consistent effort it takes to get the results that can support the work of lobbyists and government relations pros is largely missing, either because they’re not considering the power of media relations or they lack or can’t find someone who has the finesse and expertise to provide it.
Bills are introduced and make their way through the legislature daily, most of them with little or no attention except in instances where the outcome is of the highest profile and affects the majority of a state’s or country’s population. But for those who lack a strong voice yet whose issues are of the same relative importance, media relations plus government relations equals results. In the engagements where WordWrite provides such strategy and execution, we have helped move legislation. Contact us to find out how we’ve done it.
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Jason Snyder is a senior vice president for WordWrite Communications.
