Working with the Media

---

Guidelines for FA members sharing the message of recovery with interviewers and photographers

Guidelines for Working with the Media

There are so many suffering food addicts in the world who have not heard about FA recovery. Eating disorders and issues with food and body image are often highlighted in the media, especially around holidays and through local or national events such as National Eating Disorder Awareness Week in the United States. As members of FA, we have a unique and powerful opportunity to carry the message through interviews with such media, as print, radio, podcasts and television.

Here are resources for sharing the message of recovery with interviewers and photographers:

1. Responding to media requests and securing an interview
2. Sample Press Release/Article Template
3. Sample of stories about FA from various news outlets
4. Helpful hints for being interviewed
   • Prepare for the interview
   • Focus on FA as a program of recovery, not a diet
   • Keep your language clear and simple
   • Remember to provide the FA website address and literature
   • Have photographers at Meetings
   • Remember to pray, let go and let God

1. Responding to media requests and securing an interview

We should return inquiries from the Press promptly. Reporters are often working against deadlines. However, do not let this sense of urgency pressure you into an interview before you are prepared. Remember, you need two years of abstinence to be interviewed. Members outside your area can be made available if no one in your area meets the abstinence requirement. Ask members who have varied stories and backgrounds to participate in the interview.

1. FA members who are asked to speak to the media should contact the WSI PI Committee prior to the interview for additional tips and support. Contact the committee via email: pi@foodaddicts.org.
2. If the interviewer pushes to have a name and face associated with the interview, offer suggestions on how they can protect your anonymity while still telling a compelling story, i.e., blurring faces in photography, pixilation, using “fake names,” silhouette lighting, or shooting from the neck down or from the back.
3. Only changed names are acceptable, i.e. you may use a pseudonym or your middle name.
4. Anonymity can make a reporter uncomfortable or suspicious if they are unfamiliar with FA or other 12 Twelve Step programs. If they will only run a story using full names or faces, then the article wasn’t meant to be. You can also refer them to the Anonymity Letter to the Media and other articles where anonymity has been protected.
5. Provide support for yourself!  Take two members to the interview, because this gives one member an opportunity for reflection while the other member is being interviewed.  It also gives you both an opportunity to support each other.  It can make the interview a little more relaxed.
6. If the media will only allow one person to be interviewed or if there is only one eligible person available, one person may participate in the interview after discussing it with the WSI PI Committee at pi@foodaddicts.org.
7. Members speaking with the media should have a minimum of two years of continuous FA abstinence, have completed an FA AWOL, and should currently be sponsored by an FA member.

2. FA Press Release/Article Template

3. In the News-A Sampling of Stories about FA from News Outlets

1. Stick to your own FA experience and story, no need to embellish. Our stories speak for themselves.
2. You do not need to be an expert on FA to interview. As a general rule, it’s best to comment on your own personal story of recovery from food addiction, rather than on the FA fellowship as a whole. If you are asked a question about FA that stumps you, try not to refuse to answer a question or to say “no comment,” but simply let the reporter know you’ll follow up later with the answer, i.e., “I don’t know the exact statistics for long-term recovery in FA, but I can try to find the answer to that for you. What I can tell you is that in the meetings that I attend, there are many members with over three and some with as many as ten years of abstinence.” 
3. Think of an interview with the media as if you are speaking directly to a newcomer;  that is who you are really talking to – the newcomer who reads the article or listens to the program. This can help you relax and get to the heart of your message – your own experience, strength, and hope as a recovering food addict.

4A. Preparing for the interview

Read FA pamphlets before the interview to remind you of the purpose and focus of FA. You can also study the Twelve Traditions. Read over Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) About FA. If you’re unable to answer them, ask the WSI PI Committee or other experienced FA members for help.

1. If you can, take some quiet time before the interview and ask God to speak through you and to help you “lighten up.” Service is a privilege, and there is nothing to be afraid of or anxious about. You are the expert on your own story. If, at the end of the interview, all that you’ve communicated is the www.foodaddicts.org website, that is enough!
2. Stick to your own FA experience and story, no need to embellish. Our stories speak for themselves.
3. You do not need to be an expert on FA to interview. As a general rule, it’s best to comment on your own personal story of recovery from food addiction, rather than on the FA fellowship as a whole. If you are asked a question about FA that stumps you, try not to refuse to answer a question or to say “no comment,” but simply let the reporter know you’ll follow up later with the answer, i.e., “I don’t know the exact statistics for long-term recovery in FA, but I can try to find the answer to that for you. What I can tell you is that in the meetings that I attend, there are many members with over three and some with as many as ten years of abstinence.” 

4B. Focusing on FA as a program of recovery not a diet

1. Wherever possible, stress the benefits of FA rather than the process we use. For example, if you are asked, “What does your ‘diet’ consist of?” an answer that highlights the benefits of FA could be: 
   “The food I eat is simple and nutritious. I eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, grains and protein."  If you are asked about getting on the scale, you might highlight the benefits of FA by saying, “I maintain a healthy weight and at the same time, I’m finding peace around food and my weight that I never had before.”
2. Try not to get into specifics of the actual food plan, beyond no flour and no sugar. We don’t want to suggest a specific food plan.
3. Help the reporter avoid framing FA as a diet.  You can help the reporter tell a more accurate story by focusing on addiction. Emphasize the three-fold nature of addiction and recovery - addressing your spiritual, mental and physical recovery as well.  One way of reminding the reporter and readers that FA is about addiction recovery, not just weight loss, is to say something like: “As a food addict, I am like an alcoholic with food. FA helps people with food addiction the way AA helps people with alcoholism.”
4. Use tact when sharing the spiritual aspects of the program. Be sure to keep your language religion-neutral. FA is a spiritual rather than a religious program, and we need to keep them separate when we share. Rather than: “I pray every day to God to give me one more day of abstinence.” A more neutral answer might be: “Because FA focuses on recovery from an addiction, I work on my spiritual development through meditation and prayer.” 
5. Do not discuss other programs ( OA, FAA, etc.) or compare them to FA, other than to say we deal with food problems as an addiction. Highlight FA’s great gifts rather than naming specific programs that may not have worked for you.
6. Don’t allow yourself to be drawn into controversial issues. Don’t debate. Simply restate the fact that FA has worked for many addicts who tried every other approach. If others find peace with food through some other means, we can be happy for them.

5. Keeping your language clear and simple

• INSTEAD OF:                                                      USE:
  Bingeing my brains out                                     Bingeing all day long
  In the food                                                        When I was eating addictively
  Eating (as in “when I was eating”)                     Avoiding flour, sugar and quantities
  Abstinence, Insanity                                          My life was completely out of control

6. Remembering to provide the FA website address and literature

1. Write down the website address for the interviewer (www.foodaddicts.org) and ask them to include it in the story.
2. Leave FA pamphlets, as well, if possible.
3. Double-check to be sure that the interviewer has the correct name of our fellowship. It can easily be confused with other food addiction programs (like FAA).

7. Having Photographers at Meetings

Photographers occasionally ask for photos or video to accompany articles about FA. This is a routine aspect of newspaper journalism. However, the presence of a photographer or video camera at an FA meeting raises questions about anonymity. We must ensure that FA groups adhere to the Twelve Traditions of FA.

1. PHOTOGRAPHERS AND JOURNALISTS MAY NOT BE PRESENT DURING FA MEETINGS WITHOUT PRIOR DISCUSSION WITH THE WSI PI COMMITTEE. The primary purpose of meetings is to help the newcomer who still suffers from food addiction. The presence of a photographer will interfere with this purpose, distract the focus from sharing and recovery, and endanger the anonymity of all members present.
2. Please ask the WSI PI Committee how to deal with requests from photographers or journalists. For example, one FA group addressed anonymity questions by holding a separate "meeting" specifically for a photo shoot, where members all agreed to be there and were photographed only from the neck down in a group setting.

8. Remembering to pray, let go and let God

1. Leave your expectations with God. If you are misquoted, misunderstood, and misrepresented in some way in the article, relax. The newcomer who needs your message and is ready for this program will get it and will show up at a meeting, regardless of what the article says. Remember, you’re planting seeds and God is in charge.
2. We may not have editorial control over the content of the article. So once the interview is done, let it go and let God do the work. Treat it as you would any service: pray, show up, do your 1% then get out of the way.