Bite Size Comms

Let’s go back to media relations work for this week’s thought piece. There is, unfortunately, a common practice in PR to send a press release to every known media contact regardless of their publication and interests (that’s the spray bit), and then hope that some of these will pick up the story and publish it (that’s the pray bit). It doesn’t work as a practice. It increases the tensions between hacks (journalists) and flacks (PR people). It makes it much more difficult for serious organisations (which select the media outlets that might be interested in their emailed press release) to get coverage.

I wish I had bookmarked the story. About six months ago, a tech journalist in USA wrote a ‘day in the life’ article. His day of opening and responding to press releases. Something he had never done before. It was a long article that started with a press release that said there were more witches in New York than in any other American city. He phoned the sender. Where did the research come from? Answer: a very small online survey. What did witches have to do with a landscape gardening company (the sender’s organisation)? Answer: nothing. It was very difficult to get the attention of journalists, so small research was their way of getting a mention in the media. I started laughing. By the third similar story, I was crying and stopped reading. Why, as PR practitioners, are we so desperate for any coverage?

I teach my PR/communications apprentices to divide their media contact lists into appropriate categories, such as media for local communities, connected stakeholders, and specific sectors. I also recommend that when populating the contact list they consider the contact preferences of journalists, and mark that against each person. That may be built over time and experience, but in my practice, I have found that some journalists like email – some don’t, some like phone calls – some don’t, and some like contact on social media like X/Twitter. But not all.

Good media relations work isn’t just about crafting a newsworthy story. It is also about thinking carefully about who might be interested in the story. 

[Image: Unsplash]