Here's what to do:

Prepare a media kit

The media kit is an indispensable part of the news conference. It tells your story the way you want it told. It answers many of the questions you anticipate the media will ask. And it provides background information that will add credibility to your messages and gives reporters the opportunity to develop more deeply into the story. So, a good media kit ought to contain a news release, the full text of any prepared remarks, relevant fact sheets and backgrounders and possibly a photo and bio of the speaker.

Welcome the media

The media are there as your guests; they represent a golden opportunity for getting your key messages across to your vital publics - so treat all media people with respect. Try to make their job easier, and if need be, do it for them. This will give you greater control over the media's handling of your story.

Here's how:

Set up a table by the entrance. The PR person at the table will greet all arriving reporters, photographers and video camera operators by giving each of them the complete media kit. You may also ask the media people to sign a register or drop their business cards in a jar. But you may not get upset if they refuse. And you may not withhold the media kit.

Many executives and some PR people argue that giving out the media kit before the news conference is a bad idea because "then the reporter might leave without hearing what I have to say."

So what! If the media kit is all that the reporter needs, then why hold the news conference in the first place? Indeed, if all the reporter wants is your media kit, then you wil actually have more control over the published or broadcast news item, since the media kit - upon which the reporter will now rely - tells the story the way you want it told. And finally, when you withhold the media kit until the end of the news conference, you simply irritate the media, make their jobs much more difficult and thereby increase the likelihood that the resulting stories will be inaccurate or biased against you.

Just bear in mind that your purpose is not to get the media to attend your news conference, it is to get positive media coverage.

Start the news conference

When the appointed hour of the news conference arrives, the PR person goes to the head table, briefly thanks the media for coming and immediately introduces the speaker, who then enters the room and walks to the head table.

There are two reasons for this walk, as short as it might be. First, it adds a pinch of movement to the usually static news conference (there isn't much dynamism in a talking head), thus increasing the likelihood that the evening news will carry a sound bite. Second, it keeps the speaker under wraps until the start of the news conference. You don't want the speaker informally dodging probing questions from reporters milling around room.

Once introduced, the speaker delivers a three- to five-minute speech that contains the news, complete with key messages, that prompted the news conference. He or she then opens the floor to quesitons. The speaker recognizes a reporter, anssers the question, recognizes the same reporter again, if there is a followup question, answers that and then recognizes the next reporter to raise a hand.