Tonight at our
PRSSA meeting, we had David Trinko as a speaker. David is a
journalist for the Lima
News. Journalists and PR people have to work together whether we
like it or not. This is why we wanted a perspective from the journalists side
to understand how we can make their job easier and how to build mutually
beneficial relationships with them.
David talked
to us about how he loves getting to do something different everyday, but there
are some aspects of his job he doesn’t love. As a journalist, David is
bombarded with information all day long. People are constantly contacting him,
asking him to do something for them. Each day, he receives over 300 emails, 100
faxes and 25 phone calls. He joked and said "that’s four dead trees and a
lot of deleted emails".
Put yourself
in the seat of the person you are delivering your message to and simplify it as
much as possible. David shared the best way to get him to read what you send to
him is to get to the core of your message as quickly as possible and KISS (Keep
It Simple Stupid). He wants the who, what, when, where and why and he doesn’t
even mind if this information is in bullet points. Don’t forget to include the
pertinent information, keep your file sizes small and double-check your work. As a
journalist, David suggests you do your legwork ahead of time. Establishing a
good relationship with journalists is vital:
- Do what you said you were going to do. For example, if you tell the journalist you will call back tomorrow with more information, call back tomorrow.
- Be the person they can count on.
- Don’t be the person who makes their job more difficult.
- A good relationship with a reporter can influence future stories, putting them in a positive or negative light depending on the relationship.
- Although journalists are supposed to leave emotions out of their job, they are human and underpaid. They will take their aggression out on you if you give them a reason.
Thanks for joining the speaker via Skype tonight! I also thought it was very interesting that more people are reading the news today compared to previous years. I think it could be partly due to the fact the newspaper is such a credible source. We put a lot more trust in the newspaper than Facebook or even broadcasting. Overall, you had a great overview of the speech.
ReplyDeleteHannah,
ReplyDeleteI was unable to attend PRSSA on Thursday so I really appreciated your recap of his talk. I especially liked the recommendations for pitching the media. For some reason the thought of having to pitch to the media scares me to death. Maybe it bothers me because at my internship a few years ago I had to pitch to the media all myself and I had no idea what was I was doing at time. Coming up in the near future, I am going to have to pitch to the media for a firm project I am working on, and these tips from David will really help ease my nerves!