Tuesday 14th October 2025 @ 12:15pm - 1:45pm
Overview
As the media and communications landscape continues to evolve, strategic media engagement is more important — and more complex — than ever.
Whether you’re advising senior leaders, delivering media strategies, or supporting organisations to stay visible and credible through a mix of channels, join us for a lively panel discussion exploring how you can level-up your expertise in creating impact through strategic media engagement.
We’ll hear stellar perspectives from decades of experience across journalism, communications and insights with Keith Lynch (editor in chief at Stuff Digital), Coen Lammers (communications consultant) and Ngaire Crawford (director insights and research at iSentia).
PRINZ chief executive Susanne Martin will moderate the session and help to unpack themes such as building trusted and collaborative relationships with journalists, aligning stories to communications strategy, managing expectations around success and how data and insights are increasingly shaping our practice.
This event is sponsored by iSentia, whose generous support is providing a light lunch free to all attendees. Environment Canterbury is kindly supporting the southern PRINZ network by hosting this event at their central Christchurch office.
The panel will begin at 12.30pm, with doors open from 12.15pm and lunch available from then.
We will also announce the first PRINZ Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement in PR and Communications at the start of this event. This award is a cornerstone of PRINZ’s partnership with four universities and will recognise the University of Canterbury’s top final-year Media and Communication student.
Thank you to Isentia for generously supporting this event.
Your panellists are:
Coen Lammers
Coen Lammers is a former newspaper editor who created his own communication consultancy in 2016 and has been engaged by a variety of Government agencies like DPMC, LINZ, Natural Hazards Commission (formerly EQC) and the Ministry of Education, national and international sporting bodies like FIFA, OFC, NRL and Special Olympics, as well as large and small corporate organisations and multiple charities. He has written a few books, has produced a footballl documentary and still freelances occasionally as a journalist at large sports events, so he is well-tuned to the needs on both sides of the media fence.
Keith Lynch
Keith Lynch is the Editor in Chief of Stuff Digital based in Christchurch, overseeing national editorial across Stuff.co.nz and ThreeNews. He has led the newsroom since June, 2023 and was the editorial lead in the delivery of Stuff’s ThreeNews bulletin. He was Voyager Editorial Leader of the Year in 2025.
Ngaire Crawford
As the Director of Insights & Research, Ngaire is the regional head for research at Isentia and Pulsar across Australia and New Zealand. The Insights & Research division is responsible for producing bespoke media, communications, reputation and audience research for a wide range of clients from large corporates, government departments to small NGOs. She also leads global product development for PR and Communications across the Access Intelligence global research teams.
She has more than 15 years in the field of communications and media research with a particular focus on the role of representation, and is a passionate advocate for research, and that the right data (and good communications) can change the world!
