By Leo Valiquette
OCRI’s last Technology Executive Breakfast of the season this morning featured three media figures well-known in the local business community, commenting on how to successfully engage the media.
With the catchy title of “Evaluating your media technique: Are you a hooker or a pusher?”, CFRA‘s Rob Snow, CTV-Ottawa’s Paul Brent and the Ottawa Citizen’s James Bagnall discussed what it takes to grab and hold the attention of the media, from the perspectives of radio, television and print.
Despite the fact that these local outlets are far more horizontal than the majority of the trade and industry press we predominantly deal with on behalf of our clients, there are plenty of worthy points that apply across boundaries. Many of these points, I’ve commented on before (Engaging the media: Part I and Part II), drawing on my own years as a business journalist. The messages from the fellows this morning boiled down to the following points:
1. Know the outlet you are pitching. Is your story the kind of material a particular media outlet is looking for? Easiest way to find out is read it or tune in to see what kind of news has been covered.
2. Make your message clear, crisp and comprehensible by the majority of people. These aren’t engineers you’re pitching to. In one example offered by the speakers, a long-winded pile of techno-jargon was distilled down to “It makes your cellphone battery last longer.”
3. Appreciate the value of an informed public relations intermediary who can speak with the media to provide more background, context and explore additional story angles if a journalist interested in the story needs more information.
4. Consider the medium. Print, radio and television all have different needs. Print can devote inches to detail and background. Radio needs clear communicators who can hold an audience. TV demands graphics, images and descriptive video. As Paul Brent says, a viewer should be able to understand what a broadcast story is about without having to hear the audio.
5. Be available. This one struck the greatest chord with me. As a journalist, I can’t remember the number of times we decided to act on a press release, only to find that the contact listed was on vacation. Or PR people who offer a source for comment on a given issue or topic, then act as if it’s a hassle for them to set up the interview when you take them up on the offer. Even more important is the willingness to respond to bad news as well as good news. It’s the only way to have any part in a story that will likely get written regardless of your participation. For some reason, bad news just won’t go away if you ignore it.
Having been on both sides of the fence, I remain convinced that the vast majority of journalists are looking to provide accurate, factual and compelling content for the readers to the best of their ability. But they’re also working under tight deadlines, often with little time to devote to research. It’s in the best interests of any PR person, therefore, to do their own research and ensure they taking the right story to the right outlet and have readily available the information and sources the journalist needs to produce a quality piece by deadline. You can’t control what a journalist ultimately writes, but you can work with them to ensure you have provided everything you could to prevent any unwelcome surprises when you pick up the paper or turn on the TV.
