Join the Utah PIO Association and the Utah Association for Government Communications for our March luncheon as we explore how Utah communities are preparing to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary!

July 4, 2026 marks the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence. America250 Utah is leading statewide efforts to educate, engage, and unite Utahns in this historic milestone. During this session, attendees will learn how local communities are participating and discover practical ways to communicate about our state’s history, programs, and events.

Featured Speakers

• Nicole Handy, America 250 Executive Director
• Ellen Weist, America 250 Utah PIO
• Renee Leta, America 250 Director of Communications

Event Details

Date: Thursday, March 12
Time: 11:30 am to 1:00 pm (stream begins at noon)
Location: Utah Department of Natural Resources
1594 W. North Temple, Salt Lake City
First floor, DNR auditorium

Parking & Entry
Please park in the visitor parking area in front of the building. Check in with security in the lobby for directions to the auditorium.

By Jenna Ahern, Communications Manager | City of Vineyard

For government communicators, media relations isn’t about “spin” or chasing headlines; it’s about building trust, sharing accurate information, and helping the public understand how their government serves them. When done well, strong media relationships can amplify your message, reduce misinformation, and ensure your agency is seen as a reliable, transparent source.

If you’re new to media relations or looking to strengthen your approach, this guide breaks down how to establish productive relationships with journalists and work with them to earn positive, accurate coverage for your agency.

1. Understand the Media’s Role (and Pressures)

Before reaching out to reporters, it’s important to understand their world:

• Deadlines are tight. Reporters often need quick responses.
• Accuracy matters. They rely on credible sources who can explain complex topics clearly.
• News value drives coverage. Impact, relevance, timeliness, and human interest all matter.

Approaching media as partners in informing the public, not adversaries, sets the tone for a productive relationship.

2. Identify the Right Media Contacts

Not every reporter covers government, and not every outlet is right for every story.

Start by:

• Researching reporters who regularly cover local government, public safety, growth, education, or infrastructure.
• Following them on social media to understand their interests and recent coverage.
• Building a media list with names, beats, and preferred contact methods.

Targeted outreach is far more effective than blasting a press release to every newsroom in your region.

3. Be Proactive, Not Reactive

Many agencies only contact media during crises, but proactive engagement builds credibility long before issues arise.

Proactive strategies include:

• Sharing story ideas that explain projects, milestones, or community impacts.
• Offering background briefings on complex topics (budgeting, zoning, growth, policy changes).
• Pitching human-centered stories that highlight employees, residents, or partnerships.

When reporters already know and trust you, they’re more likely to call you first when news breaks.

4. Make It Easy for Reporters to Do Their Jobs

Government information can be complex. Your role is to make it accessible.

Best practices:

• Respond quickly, even if it’s just to say you’re working on an answer.
• Use plain language and avoid jargon and acronyms.
• Provide clear facts, timelines, and context.
• Offer visuals, data, or site access when appropriate.
• Be honest about what you know and what you don’t.

Reliability is one of the most valuable traits you can offer the media.

5. Prepare Spokespeople for Success

A knowledgeable but unprepared spokesperson can unintentionally derail a good story.

Support your leaders and subject-matter experts by:

• Sharing key messages and likely questions ahead of interviews.
• Emphasizing clarity, brevity, and empathy.
• Practicing responses to tough or controversial topics.
• Reinforcing the importance of staying within their expertise.

Confident, prepared spokespeople build trust with reporters and the public alike.

6. Build Relationships Outside of Breaking News

Media relations are strongest when they’re built over time, not just during emergencies.

Consider:

• Introducing yourself with a simple “here if you ever need anything” email.
• Thanking reporters for fair and accurate coverage.
• Correcting inaccuracies politely and promptly, without defensiveness.
• Hosting occasional media briefings, tours, or informal meet-and-greets.

Mutual respect goes a long way in long-term media relationships.

7. Measure Success Beyond Headlines

“Good press” isn’t just positive press; it’s accurate, balanced, and informative coverage.

Evaluate your efforts by asking:

• Was the information correct?
• Did the coverage reflect our key facts and context?
• Did it help residents better understand an issue or service?
• Did it build trust in the agency?

Sometimes success means preventing misinformation or ensuring nuance, not only glowing praise.

Final Thoughts

Strong media relations are built on trust, consistency, and service. By being proactive, responsive, and transparent, government communicators can help journalists tell accurate stories that serve the public interest.

In the end, effective media relations aren’t about controlling the narrative; they’re about contributing meaningfully to it.

By Faith Heaton Jolley, Public Information Officer | Utah Division of Wildlife Resources

The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources experienced a series of chaotic, “dumpster-fire”-esque events during a six-month period between the fall of 2022 and spring of 2023. Much of the mayhem involved record-breaking snowfall, which was great for combatting ongoing drought conditions, but also wreaked havoc on wildlife in several parts of the state. 

Millcreek Canyon cougar incident

The first situation involved a woman who was leapt on and scratched by a cougar while trail running in Millcreek Canyon near Salt Lake City in September 2022. Thankfully, she wasn’t seriously injured and was able to make it down the trail and to a local hospital. DWR biologists and conservation officers responded to the scene and were able to locate the cougar involved. Because it had injured a person, the cougar was euthanized, per DWR protocols. 

Because the woman had called emergency dispatchers, a local media outlet (listening to police scanners) was alerted to the incident. After providing information and doing a virtual interview, the PIO (me) felt confident that the TV station was satisfied and had what they needed. However, the reporter then showed up on the scene unannounced to get additional footage of the area. The search for the cougar was still underway, and the reporter was there and heard the gunshot of the cougar being euthanized.

Lesson learned: Be prepared for reporters to just show up on scene, even after providing them with information. Have a prepped outreach/communications employee there, even if you aren’t planning to hold a formal press conference. This will allow your employee to intercept reporters and visit with them in a predetermined staging area. This will also help keep media personnel out of areas where an investigation — or other follow-up activities — are still occurring, so they don’t impede ongoing work or see or hear something you don’t want them to. 

Diamond Fork cougar incident

In April 2023, there was another very similar incident. A man was hiking in Diamond Fork Canyon, about 70 miles south of Salt Lake City, when he encountered a mountain lion and was also severely scratched. He was able to hike back down the canyon and drove himself to the hospital. The local county sheriff’s office received a report of the incident and shared it through social media late that same night, which of course, alerted reporters to it. Because so many media outlets wanted information, the decision was made to hold a press conference the next morning.

I told our conservation officers to ask the victim if he was comfortable doing media interviews at some point in the future, in case the media asked — thinking that media could just be referred to the man if they were interested. However, moments later, an officer informed me that the man who’d been attacked was on his way to the press conference — a definite curveball to controlling the narrative at the media event. Thankfully, the victim’s account of the incident was straightforward, and the press conference went smoothly.

Lessons learned: Make sure you are coordinating with other partnering agencies so you can help control the timing and messaging of any public information that is released. And make sure you communicate very clearly about the plans for any public outreach so that everyone is on the same page (and you don’t have the victim inadvertently show up to the press conference!) 

Winter mayhem

More than 900 inches of snowfall in parts of Utah during the 2022-23 winter caused multiple issues for the state’s wildlife. Here are a few of the incidents and decisions that had to be communicated to the public:

• Elk take over Salt Lake City: In search of food, a herd of roughly 200 elk migrated onto a golf course next to a major freeway on the east side of Salt Lake City. They caused countless traffic concerns on nearby roadways, and despite numerous attempts to herd them out of the area, they kept returning and stayed there for roughly 2 months.
• More elk chaos: A separate herd of elk migrated near the freeway about 15 miles from the first location, and 15 elk were hit by vehicles during one weekend. The DWR had to partner with the Utah Department of Transportation to lower speed limits in the area and post warnings on electronic road signs.
• Emergency deer feeding: In an effort to help deer herds that were struggling in deeper-than-normal snow, the DWR implemented emergency deer feeding in some parts of northern Utah. This also required nuanced messaging to explain why the public should not feed deer or other wildlife on their own. 
• Emergency shed hunting closure: The DWR announced a statewide emergency closure to shed antler hunting during these months, also in an effort to help wintering big game, particularly deer populations. 
• Closures to wildlife management areas: While several wildlife management areas in Utah have annual seasonal closures to help protect wintering big game, those closures were extended this year due to the weakened condition of deer in northern and central Utah. 

The concurrent, multi-month crises obviously provided some challenges and increased workload for both myself and my communications team. But there were also some valuable takeaways and lessons learned. 

Here are a few: 

• Keep providing updates to the media, even if there isn’t much of an update to share. They are anxious for more information each day. Always be responsive and just tell them that there isn’t any new information, if there aren’t any updates that day.
• Have an emergency response plan (particularly for wildlife attacks or other major crises that occur from time to time) and train staff to know what to do and what their role is. This should all be done in advance and routinely brushed up on so that everyone feels confident in what to do when the actual crisis hits.
• As much as possible, prep evergreen statements, draft messaging, etc., and get it approved in advance. This will help speed up your emergency communication efforts. If you have preapproved statements or information,  you can reuse it — or easily modify it — in applicable situations.
• Don’t forget about your internal communication! So often as communications professionals, we are focused on our external audience and the general public, but we need to loop in our internal staff as well. This was an oversight when we closed shed antler hunting, and then our front desk staff began getting calls and had no idea what was going on or what to tell people.
• Train your coworkers to loop you in when crises arise, particularly ones that may hit the media or that the public could learn about. This will help you to prep messaging and talking points in advance so you are ready when reporters do reach out.
• Use all your channels to get your messaging out. This will help magnify your message and help you reach more people who may get their information in different ways.
• Don’t be a hero — ask for help! When everything is on fire and chaos is raining down, don’t try to do everything yourself. Lean on your team members to help prep messaging, put together communications materials and handle media interviews. 

By Marie Magers, Communications Manager/PIO | City of West Jordan

I have never considered myself a “data person.” Full honesty: math has never been my thing. But digging into analytics has completely changed how I approach messaging and how city leaders trust the work we do.

The good news? You don’t have to be a genius to understand data. Modern programs make the numbers easy to translate. Once you start paying attention, you realize analytics are less about math and more about people. They show you what residents care about, what confuses them, and what you can get ahead of before they even reach out.

Social Media and City Newsletter: Follow the Engagement:

Every month, I look at what’s working on our social channels and our newsletter (we send two a month). The posts that get clicks, shares, and reactions? That’s what residents really care about. The posts that don’t? They tell us how to tweak the messaging next time.

If you’re already looking at engagement metrics, here’s the next step: compare them with your newsletter clicks, website traffic, and even call trends. Patters start to emerge, and suddenly you’re not just seeing what resident like, you’re seeing what they need from you.

Web Views & Calls: Real-Time Resident Signals:

Our website and call data are just as important. A spike in page views, or questions popping up in our WJ Info Hub (our Teams chat where call takers across the city share what they’re hearing or questions they are getting) – usually means it’s time to push messaging sooner, more clearly, or maybe in a different format.

Case in point: seasonal cans (our city’s former green waste program). If Info Hub starts getting questions earlier than usual, we know it’s time to start messaging sooner. That’s not guesswork – it’s evidence.

Why This Works for Any Team:

Small Team: analytics give you focus and confidence. You know what to prioritize and can back it up. Large Team: analytics help everyone row in the same direction and keep messaging consistent.

Here’s the part that can get overlooked: it’s the connection between the data sources that really has an impact. Together, social engagement, newsletter clicks, website hits, and calls paint a clearer picture than any single metric alone.

Final Thought:

Using analytics isn’t about numbers, it’s about building trust. It helps us communicate smarter, act proactively, and show our leaders (and residents) that we have the proof to back up our decisions.

The numbers don’t lie. And when we follow them, across channels and across teams, our messaging does exactly what it’s supposed to do.