From Journalist to PR - Part 5 - The Relationship
Who was it in the PR industry who decided it would be a good and friendly idea to begin every email to journalists with something like: “I hope you are well?”
I remember a time when that didn’t happen - and I also know a great many journalists and editors who dearly wish it would cease.
The picture I’ve used to illustrate this article show two dancing hares - mythical beasts drawn by my old friend Tad Mandziej. It some how reminds me of the relationship between journalists and PRS. Fleeting, ethereal… The twain shall never really meet…
For people working in busy newsrooms the “hope you are well” syndrome is a habit that comes across as shallow and insincere. When I was in receipt of some 400 emails a days from public relations people, it was obvious that at least 350 of them didn’t know me from Adam - so why begin a missive with a personal touch? Why not concentrate on highlighting the simple merits of the story they wish to convey?
For all they knew I could have been some unpleasant Nazi wife-beater - in which case there was little chance they’d want to wish me well.
The vast majority had no idea of my personal circumstances. For example, when I underwent a major 12-hour operation to put right a bit of my heart that had been damaged by a bat virus (I am serious) on a press trip, I was very unwell indeed.
And yet the 400 emails a day kept rolling in with the words “I hope you are well.”
“No, I am bloody well not!” Is what I would have replied, had I been capable of making the effort.
And here’s another bugbear while I am banging the journalist’s PR whinge-drum... The fancier, the more sleek, the posher, the email pitch, the less likely it is ever to see the light of day. In a busy daily newspaper, at least.
Hectic journos turning around a countless conveyor belt of stories for a daily newspaper or a busy news website do not want fancy emails full of gizmos, weird and wonderful fonts and imbedded images. They want plain text which they can easily cut and paste.
Not entirely cut and paste...
Not once in all my years as a journalist did I ever file a piece relayed to me by a PR as it was sent. I am sure some of the press releases would have been fine in their own way, but the stories we published had to be in our own style.
A newspaper (or any other written media) loses a great deal of its USP if it does not uphold this rule. A Unique Selling Proposition is one of THE ONLY weapons a great many organs of the media have left in their armoury - ignoring it will see that newspaper, magazine or whatever sink beneath the Internet tsunami sooner rather than later.
One of the main reasons people buy my old newspaper because they like its rather unique laid-back un-pushy style. It’s an elderly rural demographic which hates flash-in-the-pan sensationalism etc. To see that paper filled with un-rewritten press releases would lose that all-important USP - and would therefore lose readers.
So no… The cutting and pasting an entire press release would not be a wise thing to do. But taking out the quotes, the facts and figures, the bullet points etc, might well be a rapid and efficient way of getting a story into the paper with a new intro and outro added.
Which is why, during my latter years at the paper, I would advise regular PR contributors to supply me with a number of essential components. I called it “kit-form-journalism”.
Give me...
An overview - the story in a nutshell in a couple of paragraphs.
A couple of genuine reasons why the story is different, unusual, unique, newsworthy.
Two or three good quotes from core players or relevant experts or observers.
A set of reliable facts and figures - percentages can be good - numbers, statistics, facts, that give the story authenticity.
Do NOT give me...
Bullshit. I am good at dressing up a story - that’s why I have the job. Just supply me with the concrete blocks and I’ll build the rest.
Quotes that are superfluous and don’t need saying. I always ALWAYS cut out the line that says: “We are delighted/excited to be working with”, or “We are thrilled to have been given this contract”. We KNOW you are! The CEO of a company is hardly going to say: “We are really fed up that we’ve been given this £million opportunity...”
Photos embedded in the story. They are a pain to separate and are usually of inferior quality. I want jpegs as attachments. But don’t make them too big unless you’re filing them to a glossy magazine. Despite what old fashioned picture editors used to say, newsprint is of rubbish quality so an image say 5 mb to 8 mb will do.
Above all do not send hope-you-are-well messages UNLESS you know me, then personalise the up-top message and perhaps if you really feel the need, refer to the last time we met, my latest signed column, some other recent stories I’ve written or even my damned dog...
Of course, the exception to a great deal of the above is when you pitch a press release that you have written specifically with that one newspaper, magazine, website or whatever in mind. In which case you are probably - and ideally - going to be an ex-employee of that organisation or at least have worked with the editors numerous times before.
Obviously, this can be the strongest pitch of all. If you have a good track record with that publication, if you have spent years working for them and know exactly what makes both the editorial team and the readers tick, then why not bung them an entirely written story...
When there is an editorial team knocking out a busy paper that has just 3 per cent - yes, just 3% - the number of writing staff it used to employ, then you know those poor buggers will be working their butts off just to stand still.
A well-written piece presented in exactly the right style - preferably with images taken by a photographer who knows the publication well and who has worked for it many times before - can be the answer to a prayer for an overworked news or features editor.
You can imagine them saying: “Bang! Page lead done. Didn’t have to change a word. Just the right image for the piece - all I had to do was knock-out out a head-line…"
If you are in a position to supply such a piece, then you will probably know one of the editors well. In which case it’s worth a matey line or two at the top of the email explaining why you think the piece has legs (even if you are pushing a bit of a dead horse up a steep hill).
To me, all of the above sounds like an old fool stating the bleeding obvious. But obviously I am wrong about that because I continue to get a great many PR generated emails a day which are filled from top to bottom with the things that raise the blood-pressure of overworked journalists and editors.
Which is why I will continue to add to this series as when when thoughts or ideas on the relationship between journalists and PRs occur.
