Media Relations: The Best Clients I Never Got

Media Relations

When interviewing for what would have been one of my first PR jobs, the CEO of a hospital asked me who I knew in local media. She wanted to find out if I brought a network to the job that would help her organization. Because I had worked in radio, TV and newspapers prior to this, while I knew most everyone in town, I also knew that didn’t matter.… Read the rest

Media Relations: Getting Started

starting gate

One of the more common questions new clients have when it comes to media relations is, “How do we get started?”

Here’s a quick summary.

Information-gathering/Discovery – Anyone who’s a fan of legal or crime dramas is familiar with the term “discovery.” This is the phase of the legal case where the attorneys work to ‘discover’ as much information about the case as possible.… Read the rest

Media Relations: What to Do When There is Nothing to Pitch

news droughts

A lot of media relations programs stagnate when the organization has nothing new to talk about. PR teams sit and wait for something to happen so that they can create a news release or a news alert. They wait for the organization’s management or the client to tell them something new is happening or about to happen within the organization.… Read the rest

Media Relations: How Not to Screw Up a Podcast Interview

podcast mic

Over the past four years, I’ve conducted over 225 interviews for my podcast called Shaping Opinion, and prior that, I’ve spent decades handling media relations, conducting media coaching and training and working with clients on the full range of public relations activities. After all of that, I can honestly say, the public relations profession is dropping the ball on podcast interviewing.… Read the rest

Media Relations: Avoid Square-Peg-Round-Hole Syndrome

media relations strategy

If you’ve had anything to do, even remotely, with the public relations function you’ve seen this. You may have even been a part of it, but it’s not your fault. It’s bigger than you…way bigger.

It’s called square-peg-round-hold syndrome after the famous psychological experiment where the subject is given a square wooden peg and asked to insert it into a round hole.… Read the rest

Sound Bite Case Study: Meet the News Media Where It Lives

In the communications business, to say we need to meet the media where they live is essentially to say, make it as easy as possible on reporters, editors, journalists and producers. Give them the content they need when they need it, where they need it and in the most user-friendly format possible.

The problem most newsrooms face these days is lack of resources.… Read the rest

Is Your Review and Approval Process Killing Your Results?

I got an email today from a respected consulting organization that provided details on a recent ransomware attack that occurred over the July 4th weekend.  The rather polished e-news alert was robust in its information, but there was a problem. It’s two weeks too late, and I’ve already gleaned all of the information in the article from other sources when the news first broke.… Read the rest

The Reason Media Relations is Not Transactional, It’s a Process

For people who haven’t managed public relations programs much, one of the more common points of confusion is over how much control we have in the media relations process, and ultimately how some stories get into the news and some do not. It’s the age-old issue of newsworthiness.

In my experience, the root of the confusion often traces back to the notion that PR is a transactional process.… Read the rest