think like a reporter

i recently read a report from publicityinsider.com entitled “the ultimate pr and publicity secret.”  it was a bit drawn out, but it was fantastic in its simplicity. the overall message in bill stoller’s report is that business owners need to “think like a reporter.” simple, right? yet how often do we, pr practitioners actually do this? the sad truth is that we don’t do this often enough. to think like a reporter we need to understand how to:

• separate real news about your client from promotional puffery
• deliver a sharp story angle that will be of real interest to the news reading or viewing public
• deliver this angle in a professional, courteous way.

here are some truths that you ignore only at your own risk:

• reporters don’t care about helping you
• reporters are hassled all day by pr people and they’re pretty much sick of it
• reporters don’t care about your client’s web site, book, products or life story, unless…

…you are providing something that helps make their job easier – that is, a really good story. in that case:

• reporters love you
• reporters are happy to take your call
• reporters are fascinated by your client’s web site, book, products and maybe even life story

so what’s the bottom line? when you design your public relations campaign, develop your angles, develop your media materials and begin contacting the press, always think: “what can I do at this step that will make this more useful to a journalist?” That means:

• developing story angles from a reporter’s perspective, not a business owner’s
• conducting yourself in a manner free of hype, clichés and puffery
• using proper etiquette when contacting a reporter or editor

keeping in mind this report was written for business owners, there is still a lot of good, basic information included here…information we learned long ago and have either forgotten entirely or are it’s so basic that it’s often overlooked. either way, it’s a good idea to return to the basics of good public relations.

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