How to frustrate and annoy reporters

by Paul Paquet APR

IT ISN'T HARD TO MAKE a reporter's life miserable. In fact, it's so easy to do that many people inadvertently make enemies in the media.

Here are eight negative attitudes you should avoid if you want to make friends and influence reporters.

1) Reporters are always out to get me. Some reporters do have an appetite for blood. No doubt about it. However, a friendly attitude on your part builds a relationship that could work to your benefit later on.

2) The less I say, the better. "No comment" makes you look like you have something to hide. But if a reporter gets a story from you, you have a chance to "spin" it to your advantage.

3) I'll get back to that reporter when I'm damn well good and ready. It's fair to ask a reporter to give you time to prepare for an interview. But if you insist on calling back "later," then you are practically begging the reporter to write the story without you.

4) I want written questions, so I can provide written answers. Most reporters have a justifiable fear that they'll never get the replies back by deadline, or that the answers will be full of stilted language and corporate jargon.

5) I want to see the story before it's printed. You will never see the story before it is printed. Ever. Even asking will put a reporter's teeth on edge. If you are concerned about being misquoted, tape the interview.

6) That reporter didn't cover the story the way I told her to. Reporters aren't part of your corporate communications team. They cover stories that interest their viewers and readers.

7) I send the media a news release every single week, but they never use them. Some news editors get as much as a foot of mail every day. If you got that much mail, how closely would you read it? Focus your energy on well-written releases that provide information of value to media audiences. When it comes to news releases, less is more.

8) I always follow up news releases with a phone call. Some PR professionals urge you to follow up every news release with a phone call to "promote" your release. That can work, but it is much better to build relationships with editors and reporters than it is to do cold calls. Do the math. If I'm an editor who gets a foot of mail every day, and if each of those people calls me up, I'll spend more time explaining why your "salesman of the month" isn't news than I do actually writing news.

Remember, good media relations isn't simply good for the media, it's good for you, too. A productive relationship with the news media means more free publicity for you and more even-handed reporting of the issues that directly affect you.

How to win friends and influence media

In the last Edge, we showed you how you might accidentally subvert your relations with the media. This time around, we show you how to make the most of your relationship with the media.

Know the media: Know who your target media are. What stories do they cover and how do they cover them? Find out which reporters and editors work on the issues of most concern to you. What are their deadlines?

Build a relationship: Get to know key media personnel. Ask them if they need information on your industry. Feed them tips. Address them personally when you send releases. Some PR people even find that their professional relationships with reporters evolve into real friendship.

Be prepared (1): Boil your message down to a few snappy phrases that you can insert into a story on any topic. Planning is especially important for crisis communications, as this is when organizations are more likely to break down.

Be prepared (2): If a hostile reporter catches you off guard, ask for a half hour to prepare. Then put your thoughts in order, gather information and sort out key messages that can be expressed in small, "quotable" chunks.

Be honest, open and quick off the mark: The first three letters of "news" are N-E-W. By acting quickly, you can "spin" bad news your way, especially if you're the one announcing the bad news. Honesty equals credibility.

Evaluate: Consider paying a clipping service to record media coverage, or to track the success of your media releases. Some PR people evaluate media coverage as if it were paid advertising. This may not be accurate; although news stories are more credible to readers, there is less control of the message. But you can use media monitoring as your warning system. It lets you know when things are going wrong and what issues lurk over the horizon.

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