Press Officer (Cover)

About the Spokesperson Network

The Spokesperson Network trains and supports people to speak on television and radio. We are substantially boosting the number of progressive, diverse voices in this space to challenge opposition narratives and boost coverage of underrepresented issues.

The programme works by training, coaching and providing PR booking support for spokespeople from civil society working on social, environmental and economic issues. So far we’ve had over 11,000 high-profile media bookings including Question Time, Newsnight, Good Morning Britain, LBC, Channel 4 News, BBC 5 Live, Today, Sky News and ITV News plus many more.

Purpose of the role

The Press Officer is central to our flagship Spokesperson Network programmes, placing people in broadcast media on a regular basis,  developing and maintaining media contacts and meeting the needs of participants on the Spokesperson Network.

Your main day-to-day role will be identifying opportunities for members of our Spokesperson Network, and then coordinating between them and producers to secure TV and radio opportunities for them. You will build relationships with journalists – and increasingly seek our print and digital opportunities too.

Most days will involve spotting opportunities in the news early in the day that would be relevant for the spokespeople we have on our books, checking in with the various spokes to see who is available, formatting pitches to put out on our media list and then fixing up the details when media bids come in to ensure that bookings happens smoothly and effectively.

Requests for the members of the Spokesperson Network happen regularly outside of office hours and during the weekend. Part of this role will involve sharing responsibility to be available to respond to these bookings and fix them up when they happen. You will be recompensed for this with TOIL.

This project is part of a wider Communications Hub in which you’ll play an active role helping to develop the overall strategy and direction of the project.

What you will be doing

Here are the key responsibilities of this role:

• Identify relevant stories in the news and subsequently pitch and book spokespeople into broadcast media (television and radio) and respond to media requests.
• Train spokespeople to speak in the media and provide media skills training for campaigners and other organisations.
• Build new media relationships to widen the range of producers working with the Spokesperson Network
• Support spokespeople, taking into consideration the ways in which broadcast media work interacts with people’s identities and lived experience.
• Work with others in the Comms Team on the development and implementation of effective messaging.
• Identifying clippable content, creating clips.
• Play an active role in the wider Comms Hub, attending and feeding into key messaging and narrative development.
• Play an active part in the whole NEON team, contributing to organisation-wide plans

Who you are:

• Experience in journalism, communications or media relations
• Experience of building and maintaining relationships with journalists
• Proven understanding of anti-oppression work and commitment to tackling all institutional forms of oppression, bigotry and exclusion
• Experience working in the economic and social justice campaigning community in any kind of capacity
• Excellent writing and editing skills, including an eye for detail
• Excellent interpersonal skills and communicating appropriately with different stakeholders
• The ability to meet tight deadlines and manage multiple priorities
• Ability to work well under pressure, at a fast pace, meet the demands of a dynamic organisation and accommodate changing circumstances
• Ability to work well in a team and also independently.
• An affinity with NEON’s aims and objectives and organisational values of solidarity, generosity and respect

Preferred/Optional

• Experience of working with an organisation with a substantial media profile
• Experience of coordinating media responses in hostile situations
• Experience in working in or with the range of groups that are in the NEON network

Values and behaviours

• Personal commitment to NEON’s purpose of building the strength of movements for social, economic and environmental justice
• Commitment to eradicating oppression and building connections with marginalised groups
• Ability to reflect and learn, including sharing failures and uncertainties. Openly taking feedback from the team and members of the community on your behaviours and work
• Commitment to learning how to align your actions with the values of NEON: solidarity, generosity and respect
• Growing levels of self-awareness, including an understanding of how your background has shaped the opportunities afforded to you and how you relate to people from different backgrounds
• Willingness to develop emotional intelligence, including a growing ability to empathise with and appreciate others, creating opportunities for those you work with to grow and develop
• Ability to work across all levels and demonstrate a team-player and ‘can do’ attitude.

About NEON:

NEON is a capacity and infrastructure building organisation that seeks to accelerate the transition to a new economy by building the power of social movements – because without strong social movements we lack the power we need to win. We deliver trainings, develop resources, facilitate collaboration and work in partnership with key movement allies, especially in the climate, housing and migration movements. Our focus is on strengthening the organising, communications and strategy skills of social movement organisations, as well as deepening movement alignment, as we believe these are key to building collective power. As part of our work, we are looking to change the starting point in social movements from “what do we agree on” to “what can we win together?”

We also aim to mirror the change we want to see in social movements in the way we run the organisation internally. To that end, we are committed to building a workplace centred on joy, care and justice, whilst maintaining healthy boundaries of what a workplace is. We do this because it is important to live our values and principles, and because strategically an organisation with a healthy culture and strong foundations ensures we are always one step ahead in the fight for a just and sustainable future.

To build a culture and community that lasts, we organise around three values:

● Solidarity – we’re here to change the system and that requires working together across issues and sectors that aren’t normally in the same room. This means placing anti-oppression at the heart of our work and building the power of people most often affected by injustice to change the leadership of our movements

● Generosity is about sharing our time, resources and learning with one another as we support each other’s work. It means being open and honest with one another, especially when we hit problems, and thinking creatively about how we positively build from there

● Respect is the bottom line for all relationships in NEON. It means being respectful of different backgrounds and life experiences and giving space for all voices to be heard. This often means listening more than we talk and being open to changing ourselves as a result of what we hear.

You can also check out our website for more info on NEON.

How to apply

We don’t want to make this process too complicated so please complete this application form.

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