Ex-Reporter Needs a Bit (Nay, a Ton) of Clarity

Good Day, all.

I received a friendly tip that some “reporter” (quotes mine) who turned to PR was granting PR advice via a list-serve. Here it is – along with official BPB responses:

* I spent about a decade as a reporterbefore going into business doing writing, editing and media relations. It sounds like you never did journalism as a career (and that experience really informs my media relations work), so here are a few bullet points I think may help you:

And here is where this soft and yucky tirade becomes a bit of disingenuousness.* Most reporters would find it refreshing to hear directly from thepresident of a company instead of a PR rep
Well isn’t that special? I also would rather get a winning lottery ticket each time but the facts are: The president of the company’s job is not to talk to the media without “representation,” for a variety of reasons and one of them is that we have to be sure it’s valuable time spent. So while this guy in his list-serve advice says “Why not just let the bigdogs run free,” what he’s forgotten is that media will waste a lot of time with our “presidents” but we need to set it up so that he isn’t a nonstop talker of the talk (kids, that’s our job).

* PR reps do often have relationships they have cultivated with reporters over the years and can leverage these contacts instantly totell your story

Not really. It isn’t about “leveraging” as much as it is about having a real story to tell. People who say oh my you know everyone, forget that doesn’t matter because no one is doing anyone a favor. This is one of the big misconceptions that must be stamped out here on this day: Instant Karma died with Lennon.

* However, if you and a PR rep are each cold-calling a reporter, they definitely won't have more credibility than a senior officer of thecompany

This guy’s on crack. He’s telling his friends that you ought to just have a senior member of the company cold call – it’s just as nifty a handling of the situation. Credibility is earned, bucko.

* The other thing a good PR person can do is coach you before you have that interview so that you don't say anything disastrous. Withexperience, you learn to anticipate the negative questions and have an answer ready for them. It may be very hard for you to guess thenegative questions about your own company since you like it so well. It can be very hard to learn to discipline yourself not to say sarcastic or potentially damaging things off the cuff in an interview, which will make you look awful when printed out of context or without your humorous vocal inflection.

All of this leads me to believe that it’s all about spin, according to Mr. Serve. Since you like your place so well, you can’t possibly be ready to talk about what might be a bit, well, negative. I hope this guy gets slapped by his own boss one day about the fact that facts are facts and “discipline” is about staying on message, period. Nothing makes you look awful that you don’t’ control, and this is something PR people only learn the hard way: when they don’t figure out that the “who” who is in control – us.

* The No. 1 rule of pitching a reporter is to put yourself in her position.

Well, no. The No. 1 rule of pitching a reporter is to have a story that is newsworthy. I sure don’t want to BE that reporter. I can understand where she is coming from – in other words, comprehend that she’s in a tough job, etc. But being her is dull advice, very 1950’s “put yourself in her shoes” type advice.

* Frame the story [children] so that it becomes an actual interesting andnewsworthy story from that individual reporter's perspective. This maybe hard. You know what you want out of the interaction, and it'stempting to package the story that way. You can also say, "There's areal trend around people starting companies in this industry. You coulddo a story about that and also talk to my two big competitors, X andY." Saying something like that gives you lots of credibility with areporter. And much better to be named as a major player amongcompetitors than not named at all. If you havenot worked as a journalist, it may be difficult or impossible for youto think of the best angles to pitch. The story will also includenegative stuff, or stuff you don't like. So it goes with "free media."

Free media does not exist except as an anomaly; it’s earned. Some of this is good but the tone is very “I’m a schoolmarm and I’d like to introduce myself.” In the real world of competitive corporate America no one believes puff pieces exist out of the gate. Truth is – the presidents or leading (in this case) alums aren’t idiot and don’t need to be spoken to like chumps. “Much better to be named as a…” than to be named at all. I’d like to get this guy a remedial class on message development, which truly says that negative stuff is not the issue; because in the end you want people to know your differentiators. And that’s up to you to discern what makes Company special.

* Create fact sheets, not news releases. You will give the news orally in your interview. You then follow up with an evergreen FAQ or factsheet giving interesting bullet points about your company.

Now, class…this, finally, is good—but for the word “interesting,” which isn’t an interesting phrase. He should do better with the vocabulary choices. I like bullet points and FAQs and backgrounders and fact sheets do work. I just worry these are going to be so long – based on how wordy he is on that list-serve.

* Mike

That’s his name.

Now my sum of above…

As a reporter who turned to media relations 20 years ago, yet still considers himself a reporter of news, it’s amazing how much even in the current “journalism is sputtering out” phase, that PR people like him seem to think all we do is call and email and that they can do it themselves. And that someone has to say “find something interesting” as if that’s the best we can do!

Get with the program….Mike. Learn about control, power, and think more highly of your school’s alums, your own classmates and colleagues!

Love,

BPB’s Richard