Your Public Best - Lillian Brown [79]
Of course, most businesses and nonprofit organizations send out more traditional, professional-looking press kits containing materials printed on high quality paper, using graphics and designs that are more conservative in appearance. Yet they, too, can be very eye-catching and successful.
Whatever style of press kit you or your organization sends out, it is a good idea to call your press contacts ahead, explaining what they will be receiving and verifying the correct name and address of the recipient. If the press kit is promoting a particular event, make a follow-up call about five days before to find out if it is listed in the media “day book” for coverage.
It goes without saying that your list of people to receive your press releases or complete press kit should be complete, up-to-date, and accurate. It never hurts to double-check that people’s names are spelled correctly.
YOUR RELATIONS WITH MEMBERS OF THE PRESS
Carefully develop a reputation with the press for being an authority in your field. Always have some accurate and dependable facts or figures at hand to give to the press on demand. Faithfully return press phone calls. Always have something ready to say in the fewest possible words.
Also, cultivate your relations with members of the press. For example, if you have a specialized area of expertise, seek out reporters with the same specialty or beat and get to know them. Once they know you and have your name in their “books”—and learn to trust what you have to say—they will come to regard you as a worthy news source and will turn to you when they need information.
The Nature of Reporters
Reporters are required to make news. The nature of their business is that the bare facts alone may be dull. When the assignment editor sends a reporter out to cover you as a news source, that reporter must come back to the newsroom with something unique and interesting that will compete for space with other hard news items.
Reporters have to work extremely hard to get their byline printed or telecast. As a result, they ask tough and carefully crafted questions. Reporters are extremely persistent in their efforts; many will never take “no” for an answer. Some reporters work hard to establish a tough reputation and then strive to uphold that image.
I mentioned Sam Donaldson earlier as someone who has long been accused of being too abrasive, willing to do nearly anything to get his questions answered. Yet, if you met Mr. Donaldson at a party or other informal gathering, you would probably find him to be a warm and friendly guest, telling jokes with a keen sense of humor. You might very well ask yourself if this charming, relaxed, funny guy is the same man who seems to be pushy or disrespectful to the president of our country. Of course it is the same man. But when he’s a reporter, he is the hard-nosed reporter he was trained to be. Behind the scenes, he’s quite different. Actually, Mr. Donaldson probably thoroughly enjoys his “bad boy” reputation and would tell you all about it with great relish.
Reporters normally have access to background material about you or the issue at hand. As a result, you have to be prepared as well, visualizing what you want that reporter to write about you or what the short sound bite will look and sound like on the TV news. You have to anticipate the meanest and most embarrassing questions the reporter could ask you. You cannot afford to get ruffled or angry.
Everyone has seen incidences where political candidates, actors, and other public figures have lost their composure when being asked pointed questions about members of their families, their sex lives, cheating in college, financial scandals, or other events from their pasts. Whether or not you think that such questions are an obvious invasion of privacy, reporters will continue to ask