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Working the Phones? Phone Answerers uploaded by SunFloweryIf you've established yourself as a source, the media will contact you to request interviews with your company/ client/ executive/ expert about an issue/ trend/ product/ service that ties into their story.
Be sure to get this basic information to properly evaluate their requests:
- Media Outlet: DUH! I said basic, didn’t I?
- Reporter: Get the spelling right so you can Google them as needed.
- Story Angle: Be smart here and ask questions. Is it a roundup with all of your competitors, or a feature on your company? Breaking news? Who else are they interviewing for the story?
They might not answer all of your questions, but you won’t know unless you ask. The less forthcoming they are, the more likely the story has a negative slant against your company. If you suspect this, ask the reporter. - Deadline: This drives the interview timing, but it also tells you how much of the story you might appear in. If it is a roundup story, or the reporter is on deadline, your source better be quotable as your window of opportunity just got smaller
- Run Date: It's usually not always the day after the deadline. Your interviewee will want to know this.
- Preliminary Questions: Starter questions help prepare the interviewee. Most reporters will provide them and if they do not you might be headed for a hostile interview.
One of my media relations theories is that the real work begins when a reporter responds to your pitch. Everyone is so focused on what to send and how to send it; no one seems to talk about the rest of the media relations pitch lifecycle.
The Bad Pitch Blog, eventually, hopes to cover the whole enchilada so you can close the deal.
tags | public relations | PR | media relations | media | good pitch | bad pitch | bad pitch blog
7 comments:
Kevin
Great post, thanks for all the useful information. As a newbie on the opposite side of your state, I need all the info I can get. Keep 'em coming.
I second Lukes' motion. I'm a former TV guy now working in PR, so I'm like a sponge, soaking up all there is to know about this less-stressful world of public/media relations. Good stuff...keep up the good work.
Glad everyone finds it useful.
Luke - If you find yourself in Cincinnati, look me up.
Dave - While I'm sure you're right about PR being less stressful than TV, it reads oddly. PR is rarely characterized as being "less stressful."
I needed this post a few weeks ago. It may have prevented me from blowing a media op with NPR. Asking for "preliminary questions", especially. Since I didn't ask, I prepared for an entirely different interview. Good info, Kevin.
I hope younger practitioners are taking note. The pitch is the beginning, not the end.
Good post. Reads much like the "five Ws" one learns in Newswriting 101, but for p.r. practitioners. Good stuff and I shared it with younger staffers here at my firm. On your theory that "the real work begins when a reporter responds to your pitch" ... hmmmm. You're right, neither pitch nor release is everything, but I think the real work starts before that ... the real work is in getting to know and understand the mindset, professional parameters and ever-changing working reality of journalists and other media practitioners. Get inside their heads, know what they think, what they're looking for and what they are up against day-to-day and then the pitch and follow-through become much easier.
I have to share this sort of bad-pitch (more like just plain ol' bad PR) post from MedGadget, not usually a blog that ties in with this one...
Medgadget
Internet Journal of Emerging Medical Technologies
Updated: Fri, Jun 30 2006 1:07 PM
Pseudoscience Fights Back
By Josh on etc.
Dear Medgadget Readers,
You may remember that a few days ago we featured a post on the emWave Personal Stress Reliever. Shortly thereafter, we recieved an irate response from one Miss Gabriella, Director of Public Relations for said product. We would sincerly like to offer our apologies for what she called "inaccurate and misleading statements".
Although she never outlined the facts in error, it was nontheless inappropriate for us to accurately and truthfully portray a product so clearly meant to relieve literally dozens of people of their hard earned $199 ($221.00 Canadian). The tactful thing to do is to take our lumps quietly, and not to mention the glaring inaccuracies rampant throughout their own website. But of all the things we've been called in our brief existance, tactful is not one of them. Let the witty retort commence:
In retrospect, we think it was the "pseudoscience" label that really ruffled emWave's feathers. When a company stamps the term "scientifically validated" on their product, shouldn't we just blindly accept that? Who would betray the sacred realm of scientific principles just to hock wares? Don't ask questions. Don't inquire. Blind faith got us this far, so just close your mind and enjoy the now stress-free ride. Honestly, to expect a company to back that up with even one legitimate publication is preposterous.
To clarify, they did have the integrity to cite several articles from their own company publications and two (yes, two) 'manuscripts in progress'. Miss Gabriella was so bold as to state "a substantial body of our research has been published in respected peer-reviewed journals such as American Journal of Cardiology, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Stress Medicine and Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science." Agreed. Researchers from the company including R. McCraty, R. T. Bradley, D. Tomasino, and M. Atkinson have a number of publications completely unrelated to emWave or its founding principle of "psychophysiological coherence". And I'm sure our readers wouldn't be interested to know that there are no peer-review published articles on "psychophysiological coherence".
Based on the rare, but plausible, chance that I may have overlooked valid data supporting the emWave, I emailed Miss Gabriella requesting just such any available literature. What I got instead was a phone call to my home from Miss Gabriella, never mind that I never gave her my home phone, nor is it listed on Medgadget.com, but I digress. No, no she didn't try to persuade me with well-formed arguments or an armory of 'data' ... she chose the more sly "but why don't you like our product" approach along with the cunning "it doesn't need evidence" angle. It wasn't long into the conversation before Miss Gabriella complained about my argumentative tone and I quickly corrected her, stating that my tone was sarcastic, and away we were again. Finally though we were able to reach common ground: she agreed that there was no valid research supporting the emWave and I agreed that sarcasm isn't helpful.
Sadly readers, I must confess that Gabriella had a least one valid point: there was a major inaccuracy in my pithy little review. I incorrectly refered to D. Childre as a doctor, completely with the credibility which accompanies such a title. Oh how I erred. I simply made the mistake any commoner would make when reading the emWave's homepage by assuming 'Doc Childre' (the only name appearing throughout the site) was a refereance to Doctor Childre. No, quite the opposite in fact. Doc Childre is simply a regular honest-joe business man who conviently happens to have the first name of--you guessed it--Doc. When I commented to Gabriella that this was odd, she said "well Josh is an odd name too!" (I am not making this up). Alas, her years as a master debator have paid off, I could not respond.
As this apology to you and the emWave comes to a close, I think we should recap what we've learned: 1) Call the phone company and have the block my number, 2) Pseudoscience wants to be respected as the leaders in false, undocumented claims, and 3) you can call Gabriella at 831.338.8710 -- we don't expect she'll be bothered, as she is a big fan of a scientifically-validated stress-reliever.
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