Ten things journalists hate in the modern media
As a journalist who works on a daily basis with other journalists and fellow PR people – it amazes me how the latter get things wrong, even if they’ve worked in their field for many years.
What is the point of a PR regularly trying to pitch a story to the media if they have no idea at all what the media do – or don’t want? It’s worth therefore reminding you of some key tips for success. This will help you get coverage over time.
These are big ‘don’ts’ when it comes to dealing with the media today:
1 Sending a journalist a press release as a pdf. It may look amazing with embedded logos and pictures, but journalists will often delete it without even reading the content. Because it’s far too difficult to unpick and sort out. Also, often they’re not interested in a logo, and when pictures are embedded in a pdf, they are often in a low resolution. To unpick it all is time consuming and they don’t have the time for this. If the story is amazing then they might go to the trouble, but that’s assuming that they’ve bothered to read it at all.
2 Bad images. They are often sent terrible images. They should be landscape and at least 1mg in size. The person in the picture takes priority over branding i.e. pull up banners with the logo. Selfies in front of your logo just won’t cut it unless it’s a story about selfies or a photograph gotten in the ‘moment’ which makes sense for a story eg. David Beckham visited your stand at a trade expo. If you haven’t got media-friendly images from a professional, then forget it – most journalists won’t even bother looking at your story.
3 Requests of: ‘you’re journalist, so will you write about me for free?’ Why would people think that? Would they expect to give me their service for free?
Journalists are often freelance and they often write regularly for particular outlets, and they are given a brief by them, or sometimes suggest an idea to the outlet, which they accept. But the parameters are very strict. They can’t write about anything they fancy, or for anyone who asks them to…build a relationship first. This kind of approach is no different than the cold-calling sales tactics we so often see.
4 When journalists receive an email that has been sent to many other journalists too – this is especially true of the national press. Like other people we work with, journalists like to make relationships they don’t want to be treated as a ‘catch all’. And anything approach which begins with ‘hello xxxxx’ or ‘hi xxxx’ which is really common.
5 A non-story – ‘look at our new website’ is not news, and neither is you winning an award not to the national press at least. Local media might cover it with a decent picture (not one of those awful low light, slightly purple images).
6 They also don’t want to hear about your products or services unless they have put out a direct appeal for those products or services. If you want to talk about those things then buy advertising space.
7 Pitching irrelevant content/stories which has no relation to what that journalist writes about is insulting. It shows that you haven’t researched, or bothered to see what that particular journalist writes about.
8 Chasing them up many times to ask if the story will be used, after your initial pitch. Journalists write to a very tight schedule, and often have to provide several stories to a deadline in one day. If they have agreed to write your story, then they will, and if they haven’t got back to you, it is probably because it wasn’t right for them at that time. However, there is nothing wrong with contacting them by email just once to check if they’ve received the information. Continuous follow ups and phone calls will damage your relationship and yet it’s very common for PR companies to do this.
9 Pitching stories that have already appeared in other publications – for the national press. This is a definite ‘no, no’!
10 Not delivering information on time, or asking the journalist to contact you at a time that suits you rather than the time they’ve given you. As I’ve already mentioned – they are extremely busy, and if you can’t make their time, then there are plenty of other people out there who probably can! Meeting deadlines is key to success in building an ongoing relationship with a journalist.
If you’re now interested in how you can create a relationship with a journalist, and understand exactly how they work – then join me on my next PR Planning and Brainstorming Day on Wednesday June 26th where I will be working with national journalist Liz Perkins – and you can too.
