How PR + Public Affairs Helped Sink Bad Legislation Not Benefitting the General Public

26:42
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
iowapeopleworkedattorneyslegislationtalklegislatorsimpactpublic relationssituationmedical malpracticestoryclientsreporterpitchinghearfolksiowanspublic policybill

SPEAKERS
Lezli, 
Peter 
Announcer

0:03
Welcome. This is the public relations review phone calls, or programs to discuss the many facets of public relations with seasoned professionals, educators, authors and others. Now, here is your host, Peter Woolfolk.

Peter Woolfolk
0:24
Welcome to the public relations review podcast and to all listeners all across America and around the world. My guest today is Lezli Luneckas Broomhall who has over 20 years of combined experience in marketing, public relations and television news media. She joins us today from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Leslie is a former news anchor and reporter who transitioned into public relations and marketing. She is a skilled storyteller, and internationally published journalist, and a strategic thinker who helps organizations make an impact. Lezli has used her skills to help clients influence public policy. This is an area where only a few public relations professionals have the experience to successfully get involved in this particular process. Today, we will be discussing how lezlie helped an Iowa Association by mounting a serious challenge to the state legislature on a controversial bill. Now for sake of transparency, I just want to say that I too do have some experience in public policy, having worked as a press secretary on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC and in the Clinton administration and legislations a big part of those areas. So Leslie, welcome to the podcast.

Lezli
1:36
Hello, it's good to be here.

Peter Woolfolk
1:38
So let tell us first how you made the transition from being a TV news journalist and into being a public relations public policy advocate.

Lezli
1:48
All in all, it was a very natural transition for me, I think that or I can tell you for sure. One of the reasons why I wanted to be a reporter and wanted to be involved was because I wanted to make an impact and make a difference in my community, in my state in my country, and with the people that I knew. And part of that I felt was helping people to stay informed. As I made the transition, wanting to make different decisions about my personal life, meaning wanting to be a mother and a wife. At that time, I looked at my options, and it made sense for me to make the leap. What I will say is that as a public relations consultant, you're able to have much more impact, for example, you can play stories that are important that that matter and can affect the people in your area, not just at the one station where I was working as a reporter at that time or as an anchor at that time. But you're able to make impact sometimes all across the state, there are times that we play stories that run in every single market across the state, including some of the newspapers.

Peter Woolfolk
2:59
So now once you came to that conclusion, how did you? How did you go about getting involved in public policy?

Lezli
3:08
Well, I went about it a little bit differently than most folks will, I started out by opening up my hanging my own shingle. And when I did that, because of my contacts within the media already, because I came from television stations, because I had hung out at press conferences with some of the newspaper reporters. And, folks, and the thing is, is that the world of media, especially if you're looking at the television, Johnson, the television area, oftentimes you've worked with people that are at different stations in your career, or you know, somebody who knows somebody, and you're able to make that connection across the board.

Peter Woolfolk
3:48
So in terms of  public policy issues, let's say, pick one that you've had some experience with, that went the way you wanted it to. And let's talk about the strategies you developed to convince the general public that what you were offering them was the way to go as compared to what the state was putting in front of people.

Lezli
4:07
Sure. I'm, I'm going to jump back in time a little bit pre COVID. Because I think that's a better example of how we're used to our government running. We knew that that legislation was going to involve several conservative issues. And we had a majority of conservative or Republican lawmakers in our house senate and in our Governor's seat. With that, we knew that a lot of influential Iowa corporations, some powerful insurance companies, I was a big home of insurance companies. We have several here located right there in the Des Moines Metro where our capital capital city as well. They're also large medical establishments, hospital associations, those kinds of things. We knew that they wanted a new law to limit the liability for doctors and facilities that caused harm to their patients. They wanted a cap on medical malpractice, and the Iowa association of justices who I've worked with. And they have attorney members who represent medical malpractice victims as part of their practice. And if that this law would have passed, it would have seriously hampered their ability to get the compensation that some of their clients needed to just get through the rest of their lives, let alone the damage.

Peter Woolfolk
5:31
 So how did you go about formulating a strategy to combat what it was that the state legislature wanted to put forward?

Lezli
5:38
I don't want to play down the fact of what are the work that lobbyists do, because their work directly with the legislators I think is very, very important. And those relationships are very important. But we needed a way to get a hold of the message and to get it out to people in Iowa, regular constituents, voters who would reach out and contact their lawmakers, and ask them to vote no, on this legislation. So we took an approach to a set of looking at just those numbers on a page and just what looked like facts, we decided to present the human side of this issue. And to and we believe that islands is, in general, when they heard about how their neighbors, their friends, people that they knew people that were like them, how they would have been impacted, or could be impacted by something like this, that they would act.

Peter Woolfolk
6:39
So you would put somebody they could relate to people I guess and making it authentic, because now you they will be hearing from somebody who will be suffering or had suffered, if in fact the bill had passed or something along those lines so that people could relate to who it was that was delivering the message? Is that what I'm hearing?

Lezli
6:57
Exactly we wanted it to be. We want the message to go from Iowans to Iowans, and we didn't want to talk necessarily about the legislation itself. We wanted to talk about the impacts the legislation on real people, and on future accidents that could happen in future medical malpractice, and decisions, how these decisions could affect even the person even you are not you you're not liable. But whoever was watching this, we don't know what's going to happen in our future. And we all oftentimes need a doctor. So we kind of framed it up so that it was an every man approach.

Peter Woolfolk
7:37
So then how did you go about identifying people to put in a position to be spokespeople for you to tell you about their particular situations and so forth?

Lezli
7:47
Well, our best, our very best source for those kinds of for that kind of information and for the people that we were looking for were the attorneys themselves that were members of the Iowa State of the Iowa Association for Justice. So there was an there was messaging sent out to them, please share with us our cases that you think would be good examples of how this legislation could negatively affect Iowans, their families and their communities. And the attorneys came through, you know, they contacted us back and told us about different cases. And we kind of went through that and tried to find a case within each market, first of all, and then when we have more than one case in a market, we work to be able to tell those stories differently and to pick the best and pitch the best stories to the folks that we knew identified or would watch that station that channel or lined up with their personnel. We worked really hard to line things up so that we were pitching in a very concentrated way.

Peter Woolfolk
8:56
So, was there any sort of let's for lack of a better term media training give given to the people who want it to be spokespersons?

Lezli
9:04
Absolutely, we were taught. These were everyday islands. And some of them have been through horrific experiences, problems. mothers who were talking about a problem at birth with their child, we had a man who was misdiagnosed and not diagnosed with a flesh eating bacteria and who faces several problems, health problems, and we'll deal be dealing with this for the rest of his life. We talked to a woman who for 20 years has been an advocate because her grandmother suffered from medical malpractice in a nursing home in an Iowa nursing home. So what we needed to do is to talk to these folks and to get them over any First of all, any nerves. We want to talk to them and make them very comfortable about talking about their stories and some of them are because they've already been deposed.  Your court cases, or they've already worked with their attorneys to be able to discuss their cases. But we also wanted to make sure that they were set up for success. And that the story that they were telling was their own and that they felt that they had they had control, rather than the reporter who was talking to them.

Peter Woolfolk
10:19
Did you also set it up so that folks would hear Okay, well, fine. If in fact, this law goes through, you would have lost X number of dollars as compared to what you received. As it stands now, did you make that sort of comparison?

Lezli
10:35
Well, we really felt strongly that talking about dollars and cents, and those kind of figures was not the important message here. Because every situation was different. And we all have different ideas of how much a certain amount of money is, based upon our experience and our earnings. So we didn't want to talk about the money, we wanted to talk about the fact that music people who would these are the kinds of people who would be impacted by this, people who were severely injured by a medical mistake, and to talk about the fact that that will present a lifetime of extra care a lifetime of changes in their daily routine that they can no longer do their jobs that they were doing for all of those things, their earning capacity and potential is gone. We want to talk about those types of things, rather than boiling it down to dollars and cents, because the fact is, that as humans, it's easier for us to relate to each other on the basis of humanity rather than dollars and cents or facts and figures, we care about people.

Peter Woolfolk
11:46
Well, what I was looking for is to trying to understand how you get people to understand that if the legislation passed what it would they would be losing! How did you emphasize that in your messaging?

Lezli
11:58
Well, we, that was handled mainly through our press releases that we sent out when we pitched the story. So that we didn't need are the clients or the people who were medical malpractice survivors, we didn't need them to talk about dollars and cents, or how it would have impacted their lives because we dealt with the fact whatever facts, here's here's how we dealt with it, whatever items or information that the other side was trying to put out there as the reason why they needed this legislation. When they zigged, we that we found out we put up the truth, the facts of the situation, the situation in Iowa is that they were trying to say that this was limit access to doctors in rural areas, or that you would have to go to a big city in Iowa in order to even see a doctor, that kind of thing. We actually had statistics that showed that access to health care in smaller rural areas is consistently growing in Iowa. They, they tried to suggest that, you know, this would make medical malpractice insurance go higher. A soft cap was put on a couple back in 2017, I believe. And we were able to, you know, we knew and had in our back pocket, that when that soft cap was put on a soft cap means that in order to take a case to court, that would get a decision or was eligible for a decision that was higher than that soft cap, that certain hoops would have to be jumped through by the attorney or they would have to verify that this case, qualified. So that was already done. And with that soft cap, we checked with asked around, found that no medical malpractice insurance premiums had gone down due to that. So it didn't affect it one way or another. So we basically made sure that we have the ability to react to everything that was being said, and sound fat.

Peter Woolfolk
14:08
So you let's call this sort of a rapid response team to listen to what was being said to support the bill, and then fire off information that demonstrated that that what was being said was inaccurate. Now who exactly did you begin to give this information to to media contacts so they could dispute it on air?

Lezli
14:30
We worked really hard if we felt that something was being put out there. There wasn't a message that would be well received by islands. We didn't worry that much about it. If we felt that people that they were gaining and it needed to be talked about by Iowans over the water cooler, at work, over dinner tables then reacted and you work in those situations. You have to remember that your clients that the IAJ the Iowa Association for Justice. They're the expert on what their, what their members need. So when you're talking about public policy that could affect them and their clients, my job is to listen to them, and to take what they what's in front of me, what they're giving me what they need, and make sure that we find a way and a path to get that message out there.

Peter Woolfolk
15:27
I guess there's a certain way you have to frame it to so that it is palatable and easily understood by the listeners will receive this of the information?

Lezli
15:36
Absolutely. You don't. For example, with this situation, attorneys are not necessarily your best storytellers in this situation. Because there are some people who don't like attorneys or have a preconceived notion or prejudice against who attorneys are and what they do. But we're talking about attorneys who fight for the rights of Iowans or fight for the rights of people who are devastated by a medical mouth mistake. And I can tell you that in prepping these individuals for their interviews, I heard some of the worst, some of the status and also stories of folks who are just so strong and kept going and are living their lives and doing their absolute best with what has been handed to them. And those inspirational things are the things that I need to make sure get out there. And that are, that are translated in a way where that person's story is honored, as well as their struggle. And there's a parallel made, not just oh, wow, look at what this person was able to accomplish or able to do or how they're they took on this situation, not just that, but so that they're relatable. And you and I or anyone watching it can say, well, that matters, I need to, I need to be aware of this problem, I need to be aware of the situation. And I need to get involved, I need to make a call, I need to write email.

Peter Woolfolk
17:13
You know, when we were talking earlier, one of the things that you mentioned to me that I thought was really ingenious was that you had enough people so that you did not have the same person telling the same story to two TV stations, you had enough that each station or each market could get a different story. So that just the breadth of things could be could be spread across Iowa.

Lezli
17:35
Exactly. And that kind of situation isn't always possible. And it takes a lot more legwork takes a lot more planning. When you also don't want necessarily some markets, I can tell you there's one market that if I'm going to pray, place a story on the same, the exact same issue. But we're going to put out different different individuals or different subjects have that story to talk about it. There's one market in Iowa that I absolutely want them all to go on the same day. But there are other markets where I don't need that to happen, or I absolutely don't want that to happen. So you kind of have to be aware of where you're pitching. And how about market, you have to be aware of the television stations, and I'm talking about television specifically, because for us with this particular subject, this was the best place for us to reach out to the ability to show the person in their current physical steady state, the ability to show photos or videos of them prior to the medical malpractice, those kinds of things they mattered and this particular issue, translated best to television, that's the other thing you need to think about it you need to know that you're pitching in the right place. There are some times I have several clients who are attorneys, there are times when you have to be very careful if the story is being talked about on television, because that the time limits that they have in order to tell that story and to get the point across is so tight. And there, they may not have the time to do the research that might be needed or to fully understand the legal concepts that are going into it. And that's no fault of the reporter. That's just a time constraint. Whereas if you're working with someone in print, they might have more time or be able to put together something over a series of days rather than just in one day.

Peter Woolfolk
19:40
Now, primarily you went after the the news folks to get this out to them worthy opportunities to have it where they have public officials where they can talk about the particular issue in detail that you are able to access or considered accessing.

Lezli
19:55
Yeah, those are out there and we have those in every market across the state. This was a campaign that we ran pretty much within just within the legislative period. And as long as we were able to keep things kind of moving and going forward, we didn't feel the need to try to get our medical malpractice. Survivors on, like a talk show like that, except for one instance, in Des Moines, there was a, there's a program where they will give you a longer period of time to talk about it and to talk about the instance. And I think that if, you know, even if you go to check out our website, that link is there, where they had 10 minutes to talk about what this fam the denim family had gone through. And their attorney was able to talk about the legislation and how it could affect all of us. And so the other thing that comes into this is that we talked about the Seventh Amendment, your right to a trial. And that was part of the messaging as well. So when you were talking, and that worked to have the attorneys talk about, right, because that was something that they could speak with authority on more so than your average I when might be able to, however, the personal side of the story and telling that was best handled by their clients.

Peter Woolfolk
21:19
Very good. Tell me what was the eventual outcome of this particular legislation? What what happened to it once you did what you did, and and the legislators did what they wanted to do? What was the what was the bottom line on that?

Lezli
21:33
Well, that legislation did not pass. And I'm talking about is, at the end of the legislative session, it didn't pass. And my clients checked in and they had more calls and emails than they had ever had, with any of their efforts or campaigns in the past.

Peter Woolfolk
21:53
Do you know, perhaps the outcome or any of the legislators who supported that bill, they suffered any any consequences as a result of being behind that?

Lezli
22:04
I would say that, that doesn't happen so much. Here, we are in a state where we have, like I said, at this time, we have a republican controlled house, Senate and governors and executive branch, due to that, there's not a lot of backlash about something that is, you know, this is maybe a subject that it's okay to consider and to talk about and to review and make sure that you're doing what's best for Iowans. And I don't think that and we certainly never put anything out there to say, you know, these people for even suggesting, you know, this legislator, you for even suggesting this happens, you know, that person is obviously you shouldn't vote for them. Again, we never give anything like that. It's and that is not a situation that we really work to get into. Because, you know, that dirty politics or the fact that not everybody agrees and taking that situation and trying to make it a negative when you're trying to positively impact legislation, I think is the wrong way to go.

Peter Woolfolk
23:10
Very good. Leslie, you've provided us with an awful lot of information, any sort of closing remarks you'd like to give to the audience?

Lezli
23:18
So, I just, I would say that there are a lot of states where it seems that legislation can just get passed through and folks don't know about the laws or the new laws that are coming about until they're impacted by them and what those laws are going to mean, and how they're going to affect your future lives. I would say that if you're in a state that seems to be passing things quietly, and without a lot of discussion, that you find a way to get involved, and you find a way to help help the people of your own state help the folks who need it, who will be impacted by the legislation, to at least be aware that it's happening. And if you're in PR, we have the ability to make an impact.

Peter Woolfolk
24:03
Well, let me add one other thing to that, too, as I said, having worked directly with Congress is that and probably this works with most legislators that elected officials tell you what they want you to hear legislation, a lot of times it's several hundreds of pages, what do you need to concern yourself with? A lot of times what it's you don't hear. So that was my recommendation for getting involved. Listen to both sides of the story, so that you can make the best decision possible.

Lezli
24:34
Not only that, but make sure that what you're being told is the whole story.

Peter Woolfolk
24:39
Well, that's exactly what I mean. When I find out what else What is it that's not being told, because as a press secretary, I saw those 400 page bills, and we're only giving you a minuscule amount of information. So there's a lot that you don't know simply because there its too big to give you all at one time.

Lezli
24:59
A legislator goal is to be reelected. Absolutely right. And to and to be able to and to get votes the next time that they say they raised their hand and say I want this job. So when they are messaging and talking about a bill, and if they may or may not be leaving things out, it has to be what they want to be what they want to excuse me what they want to communicate to their constituency. And the fact is, that, if you have the ability, you should make sure that their constituency knows the stuff that they're not talking about, especially if it could impact you,

Peter Woolfolk
25:39
Leslie Luneckas Broomhall has been my guest today. And I really, really want to thank you, Leslie, for taking time out of your day to join us here on the public relations review.

Lezli
25:48
And thank you so much for inviting me.

Peter Woolfolk
25:50
I really appreciate it. Thank you. Absolutely. This is a topic I've been wanting to cover for a long, long time and I certainly hope that our listeners have have enjoyed it and learned something from that and if so, obviously, we'd like to get a good review on the on the show and for happy to have you tell your colleagues. So please join us again for the next edition of the public relations review podcast.  Lezli can be contacted at:  IowaPRandmarketing.com

Peter Woolfolk

26:16
This podcast is produced by communication strategies, an award winning public relations and Public Affairs firm headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you for joining us.