How can you turn adversity to advantage? Because controversy makes for good news stories, journalists often are eager to print or broadcast responses to attacks (2). Attacks on your work provide opportunities to refute the opposition, to show the value of your activities, and to demonstrate the widespread support that your organization enjoys. Controversy helps you clarify issues, become known as a source of expert opinion, and reach more people with the facts about family planning. By helping journalists report your side of the story, you not only counterbalance the views of the opposing side but also provide the public with information at a time when many people are likely to be interested.

Many people have learned about family planning through news coverage of controversies (29). For example, without controversy the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo in September 1994, might have been of little interest as news. Instead, the news media covered the conference intensively, primarily because the Vatican launched a public attack on positions advocated in the draft document prepared for debate at the conference. The fact that the Vatican strongly advocated an opposing point of view was newsworthy.

Journalists around the world began covering the debate almost daily, months before the ICPD itself convened. While many stories focused on the negative views of the opposition, they also included the case for family planning. The controversy attracted thousands of journalists to the conference itself, who otherwise probably would not have covered the event. In Cairo, with the official debate taking place behind closed doors, reporters searched for other stories to tell. Thus topics that usually seem to have little interest as news—for example, women's empowerment, reproductive health, and the need for more family planning information and services—made headlines.

Coverage by the news media of the Vatican's attack and the responses to it brought family planning issues to the attention of millions of people. After the conference, for example, a poll by Louis Harris and Associates found that over one-third of adults in the US had heard news about the ICPD (78).

Attacks on family planning organizations have had the effect of strengthening support for them and even increased clinic attendance (26). For example, in Colombia the Asociacin Pro-Bienstar de la Familia (Profamilia) turned religious opposition to its advantage by engaging in public debate on the benefits of family planning. In "going public," Profamilia demonstrated overwhelming popular support for family planning and ended up stronger than before the controversy (55). Also, in Ghana, when the government withdrew public service announcements promoting condoms, the major daily newspapers reported the controversy, and many people wrote in support of providing family planning (24).

Competition among news media outlets often keeps a controversial story going and can generate more coverage of family planning. For example, in Kenya, when health officials estimated that some 10,000 girls are forced to drop out of school each year because they become pregnant, some journalists wrote about moral decay, while others called for better policies toward youth, and still others criticized the schools (47). Each outlet hopes to attract a bigger audience by reporting unique aspects of a controversy, and reporters look for new angles that allow them to continue covering it.

Whatever the situation, the best approach is to remain objective. Resist the urge simply to react emotionally to what your opponents are saying. Instead, take the opportunity to state your own case. Often, for example, framing a family planning issue in terms of its health impact helps to counter attacks made on grounds of emotion or tradition. Focus on providing the facts about how family planning and reproductive health services improve people's well-being.

No matter how you decide to present your side of the story, be sure that your statements reflect your organization's basic values, such as everyone's right to make informed choices about using family planning. Help your organization to put its best foot forward—by being positive, responsible, and concerned with promoting better reproductive health and healthier families (2).