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| Putting Global Media Fascination of Israel to Work for You |
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Current wisdom has it that Jerusalem hosts the third largest global media
concentration — with its 400-plus permanently stationed foreign correspondents —
in the world. Only Washington, D.C., and Moscow have larger representations.
But what does that have to do with me, asks any reasonable start-up CEO or brilliant R&D
mayven? Surprisingly, the answer might well be "plenty."
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 We all know that the world is fixated on Israel as a news subject, and has been
for at least 20 years. Veteran Middle East correspondent and author Tom Friedman even wrote a
cover story some years ago in The New York Times Sunday Magazine exploring precisely
this phenomenon. For our purposes, the "why" is really not as relevant as the "what."
Which is ...? They are HERE. Hundreds of reporters and broadcasters who must constantly
justify salaries, staffs, cars, rented houses, offices and editors’ interests back home.
Clearly, they are here mainly for the death of Arafat and the politics of disengagement and
the occasional terror attack. But guess what? That still leaves a fairly generous chunk of
time. My firm has consistently mined those "down-times" for many, many years, resulting in
positive coverage in places ranging from The New York Times and Business Week
to Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. I remember one red- letter month in which we
secured no less than seven non-political (business-related) placements on CNN worldwide
alone!
Two quick cases in point:
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Given Imaging, developers of the the fascinating camera-in-a-capsule
diagnostic device, was set to launch their product a few years back at a major medical trade
show in California. Working together, we decided to conduct a pre-launch from Israel to
generate serious international buzz. With such a creative innovation as our showpiece, the
plan worked like a charm. A high-powered press conference in Bet Agron in Jerusalem attracted
nearly 50 foreign media, and the world already knew about this device when they walked into
the trade show less than one week later.
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Another client told me that he wanted to raise his organization's profile in
Israel. They gathered significant contributions from Christians overseas for distribution to
worthy projects in Israel. This was September. I told him to open his datebook and mark that
he needed to be back here for a media event in Israel on December 17. He agreed but naturally
asked, "What are we doing then?" to which I honestly answered, "I don’t know, but that's when
we’re doing it!" We all know that every newspaper in the world has Christmas-related
coverage. All the more so, every foreign correspondent in Israel doing his or her "Holy Land"
contribution. In the end, we designed a poll by Israelis regarding their perspectives of
Christians and Christianity, which we released a week prior to the holiday, branding the
client as the "Christian experts" viz. Israeli public opinion. Subject and timing were
thankfully impeccable, and significant global coverage resulted.
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If you have a decent product or can associate your company with a larger industrial or
economic trend; if you grasp the importance that timing plays for journalists or play a role
yourself in a sexy or cutting edge sector (homeland security, for example, or biotech), then
media doors in Jerusalem can most assuredly be opened that will communicate your story and
benefit your business objectives literally around the world.
It doesn’t even take much digging to track down the likeliest reporters. They have a funny
habit of adding their names right on top of the articles they write every day!
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Charley J. Levine, CEO
Ruder Finn Israel
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About the author: Charley J. Levine, a veteran media relations
consultant based in Jerusalem, serves as CEO of Ruder Finn
Israel. RFI proudly counts
Trendlines amongst its special, wise clientele.
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