How to work with reporters

As a pub­lic rela­tions pro­fes­sional, it’s my job to call reporters and share my client’s story with the media. But for a moment, imag­ine the other end of the phone line … the reporter. Hun­dreds, if not thou­sands, of peo­ple just like me are call­ing, email­ing and fax­ing; all of us work­ing to get the reporter’s atten­tion so they’ll write a story. How do you set your­self apart from the pack? Keep reading …

PR isn’t just about pick­ing up the phone and call­ing a reporter. There is a ton of strat­egy involved in what we do. So before you pick up the phone or send out a “PR release,” lis­ten to what I have to say

But STOP! Before we go any fur­ther, IT IS NOT CALLED A PR RELEASE. I repeat. It is not called a “PR Release.”  We send out news releases

Now, on to the good stuff

DO NOT MASS DISTRIBUTE. Don’t blast emails or faxes. Don’t do a generic pitch that blan­kets a ton of reporters.  It’s impor­tant that you do your home­work and get to know each reporter you’re plan­ning to pitch. There is noth­ing more embar­rass­ing than send­ing a pitch to a reporter that doesn’t cover your topic. Exam­ple: my client is launch­ing an exer­cise video. Over my dead body will I pitch the finan­cial edi­tor on this topic. UNLESS there is a finan­cial angle

Fur­ther, mass dis­trib­ut­ing your news releases is just like spam. You know how annoyed you get when you receive those Aus­tralian lot­tery win­ner emails or the African prince that is look­ing for his soul mate. DON’T SPAM

Cus­tomize your out­reach. Refer to pre­vi­ous cov­er­age by that par­tic­u­lar reporter. Open up with a brief remark that gets the con­ver­sa­tion going … and per­son­al­ize it.

It’s fine to fol­low up with a reporter, but please don’t call and ask if they’ve received your news release. Chances are their desk is just as clut­tered as yours.  Instead, lead with “Am I call­ing at a good time” and give them a cou­ple of juicy facts to gauge their inter­est. They may ask you to send them a release; don’t be offended. Just keep your mouth shut and send it again. Be respect­ful of their time and cour­te­ous with your fol­low up.

Most impor­tantly, develop rela­tion­ships with reporters so that you become a resource for them.  A few reporters I work with con­tact me need­ing sources for sto­ries that don’t apply to any of my clients. I don’t mind help­ing them because I know that when I really need them, they’ll be there.