Take the Journalist’s Point of View For a Successful Pitch

by Kathy Keenan

The relationship between journalism and public relations is historically thorny, bordering on adversarial. The fundamental reason is that many PR practitioners—even those with a degree in the field—have little understanding of how journalists work and think, and make serious mistakes with the press.

Failure to understand how criteria for accepting story ideas differ from one journalist to another, and from one publication or media outlet to another, leads to a great deal of wasted time and effort on the publicist’s side, and to frustration and avoidance on the part of the journalists.

Focus on the Media

“The Media” makes it sound like there’s one, monolithic entity out there that can be addressed with a uniform approach.

Nothing could be further from the truth in today’s fragmented media environment. Taking television as an example: in 1960, there were three TV broadcasters: NBC, CBS and ABC. Today, we have these three, plus PBS, Fox, CNN, and hundreds of cable and satellite broadcasters and channels. The Internet has further broadened the definition of “The Media” in an almost limitless manner.

Most companies have the resources to address only some of the multiple channels out there. So, you want to be sure the ones you go after will be receptive to your message.

Focusing your effort means determining which media outlets have the most targeted “reach” to your audience. You must be able to answer the following questions:

The Journalist

There are no journalists sitting wistfully at their desks, hoping that a story will somehow be magically handed to them on a silver platter by a company representative. Their most pressing problem is how to avoid the interruptions from the phone, fax, email and mail long enough to get some work done.

The journalist views his/her job as being the discovery or collecting of newsworthy information and delivering it in a factual manner to the reader/audience. “Newsworthy information” is determined by the characteristics of the intended audience. The publication decides what is newsworthy to its audience by creating certain criteria, which are used to filter out extraneous information.

The filters consist of:

Any story idea, no matter how brilliant, that doesn’t get past these filters will be instantly rejected.

Getting Past the Filters

One of the most common mistakes companies make in Silicon Valley media relations is sending technical product press releases to the business press. Whoever is doing this has failed to determine the filters used by the business press to screen out all but the desired news and information.

People call journalists all day long with story pitches that are poorly-targeted — because they are focusing on what’s important to their company or organization and not on what’s important to the journalist.

The trick is to analyze the information that you want to communicate to the press, to figure out different angles that will appeal to different types of media. Please note that you cannot place all information or all news stories: some information, no matter how important to you, just isn’t newsworthy. Find another way to get your message through to your target audience if you can’t find a media angle.

To find an appropriate angle, you have to know what the filters are for the publication (show, netzine or station) in which you want coverage. Get to know the key publications intimately. Know who the journalists are that cover your beat. Here’s a partial list of things you should know about your press:

You should know at least this much about a media outlet before you ever talk to a journalist.

Formulating a Successful Pitch

Formulating a successful pitch is a matter of matching up what you want to say with what the journalist wants to hear. This is where the creativity comes in, because often the material you have to work with falls short.

You might imagine that a good journalist would be able to find the story angle on their own. That’s true. The problem is that no journalist has the time to sit and think about story angles. If the news hook isn’t obvious, the journalist will pass.

The first thing to look for is something new or unique in some significant way. Think in terms of superlatives like: First, Fastest, Smallest, Largest, Only, Least expensive, Most expensive, etc. Keep in mind that your superlatives must be substantiated. Otherwise, you will lose all credibility (worst case), and not get any coverage (at the very least).

You have to be able to step outside of your personal enthusiasm and your organizational agenda. Understand the journalist’s filters and be able to put yourself in his/her place to critically evaluate your story. If, after honestly and objectively evaluating the story from the journalist’s perspective, you wouldn’t bite on the story—go back and look for a more appropriate angle.

To Sum it Up

Success in working with journalists is primarily cultivating the ability to think like a journalist. The hardest part is trying to reconcile the organization’s agenda with the agenda of the press. Your CEO may not understand why The Wall Street Journal did not cover the release of your latest widget. Telling a Silicon Valley entrepreneur that s/he can’t have what s/he wants is one of the world’s most awful chores.

But take heart: it’s not nearly as nasty as trying to convince a reporter that The Wall Street Journal should write about your widget.