Seven Media Relations Do’s and Don’ts

By: Kelci Lowery, Account Supervisor at PRLab 

Building a good relationship with reporters is one of the most important things you can do as a public relations professional. The media, whether it’s traditional or TV, is the most important of the very few ways your brand can gain credibility. It’s how a brand manages reputation and it will dictate the public’s feelings about the organization.

Below are seven media relations do’s and don’ts, so you can learn how to be a better media relations specialist.

Do: Research, research, research.

You should know everything about a reporter before you even begin to build a relationship with them. Knowing their beat is essential to knowing whether or not they’re the reporter you should pursue something with. If you’re working in tech, you’ll want to pursue journalists who frequently cover the tech industry, rather than asking a journalist who covers education to cover the latest rollout of software from your company.

On top of knowing their beat, you need to be aware of what kinds of articles they write. Try to keep track of what angles they prefer. Sometimes a journalist gravitates towards stories with emotional pulls, and other times they might be more interested in the specifications of a product. Either way, knowing their beat and the angles they prefer is essential before you even begin to think about pitching them. Understanding these things is the foundation to building a good relationship with any media professional.

Don’t: Think like a PR person.

Stop thinking about things from your perspective in public relations. You have an entirely different goal than they do; their aim is to provide factual, unbiased information to the public. That means you will almost never get a say in the article and you will almost never have a choice in how it’s written. Step aside and ask yourself, “Am I thinking about this pitch from their position?” Reread it like you’re a busy reporter who gets hundreds of email pitches a day, each promising to be better than the last.

If it doesn’t seem like it would be worth your time in their position, scrap it. Write something that catches their attention.

Do: Understand news values.

Whether it’s timeliness or prominence, know what a reporter is seeking in their stories. Craft your pitch around them, understand that these values need to be present in any story idea you send out to them.

A few examples would be:

Timeliness – How recently the event happened

Prominence – How well-known names that would appear in the article are

Impact – How many people this story impacts

Proximity – How local the story is

And there are many more. Knowing them is the easiest way to make your pitch more successful.

Don’t: Write a crazy long pitch.

They’ll skip it. Follow the accepted pitch format. It looks a little something like:

Hello [Reporter],

 This is a personalized sentence referencing their work or past interests.

 This is a short one, or maybe two, sentence pitch about the story.

 Would you be interested in setting up a time to talk about [the story]?

 Thanks,

 Your Name

[Contact info]

 Do: Follow up, but not too many times.

It’s okay to send a second email, but wait a few days, and never send the same email as before. Reply to your original pitch, maybe add another engaging intro about a recent story they’ve mentioned and then add a very short secondary pitch about your previous topic. Add more value to the story you’re trying to give them. Don’t just forward the email back to them. They’ll only consider you a pest.

Don’t: Spam your pitch.

It just won’t work, no matter what you do. It’s impossible to write a catch-all email that you can send to every person on some randomly compiled list. A pitch needs to be personalized and crafted according to an individual, not a generalized message about how great your product or organization is.

This means, like stated in the above sections, you need to understand a reporter’s personal interests before you send them out a pitch. You’ve got to know what they like, and avoid becoming spam at all costs.

A 2018 Pulitzer prize-winning journalist once told me, “I go through my emails every morning and delete, delete, delete. Sometimes I even block the senders.”

Do: Be available.

Don’t send a pitch and then disappear. That’s no way to build a relationship of trust. Answer their calls, emails, and questions about your story. That means they’re interested and you might get what you were looking for originally. However, if you do that and then are suddenly nowhere to be found, they’ll scamper off and forget about the story too.