Pitch Your Thing To Journalists – PR 101

https://www.dotdotdot.me/Luke-Meyer/Pitch-Your-Thing-To-Journalists---PR-101

by sayhitofrank • 13 years ago

72 9 13 years ago

lukemeyer• 13 years ago

The contact list link... priceless.

lbarrow• 13 years ago

Surprised not to see "Manufacturing Consent" by Chomksy and Herman. There's a huge amount of insight into the psychology of journalism packed into that book.

Samuel_Michon2• 13 years ago

True, and the documentary is great too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci_1Ghk0CIc

Kind of depressing, but it's Chomsky; he has that effect.

Samuel_Michon2• 13 years ago

"Texts you should read before you ever contact an journalist."

Grammar errors really stand out at font-size: 20px :)

EDIT: It's fixed now.

ChrisWare• 13 years ago

Anyone saw this dotdotdot app before? Anyone tested?

jacques_chester• 13 years ago

The main rule to remember is that a journalist, even if they behave in a friendly manner, is not your friend.

Everything you say to a journalist is, by default, publishable. Stuff that is in a normal context clearly meant to be kept private is not private. The journalist will publish it if there's a good story.

So don't make lame jokes, they will be published. Don't waffle, it will be published. Before you talk to a journalist, know what you intend to say and say it. There's no obligation on you to do any more than that.

rospaya• 13 years ago

Don't forget the little things. The other day I got a PR release with a) an obvious grammatical error in the subject line and b) 500+ other addresses in the CC field.

cwilson• 13 years ago

My girlfriend works for one of the bigger tech blogs. I can't count the number of times I've heard her rant about startups sending her 500+ word pitches where she still has no idea what they do or what they are trying to announce by the end of the email.

First rule of thumb: Say what you do and why you are pitching between the subject line and first (short) paragraph, in the most simple way possible. If you are worried you won't get a reply after that first paragraph you should likely rethink pitching at all.

Nail the first paragraph by keeping it simple (journalists REALLY appreciate this, meaning your entire email is more likely to be read), then provide any supplemental content in the following paragraphs.

Also, don't worry about getting every detail in the initial pitch. If the journalist is interested there will be plenty of time in the follow-up.

alenart• 13 years ago

As a PR practitioner, I feel like I can dispense some advice here. Here are some thoughts after reading these:

-Your thing likely does not require a press release so skip the articles that try to teach you the 'perfect' press release. Reporters, in my experience, don't give much of a rat's bum about them.

It's business execs who think a press release is the end-all, be-all for media relations and that miraculously, reporters will see your press release somewhere and your phones will be ringing off the hook. In my relatively short (5+ years) PR career, the number of times that has happened is exactly 0.

Instead, focus on crafting a perfect 2-3 paragraph pitch and fine-tuning a list of reporters who cover your thing. The most important thing when crafting this perfect pitch is editing, in case you couldn't tell that that was a recurring theme in the better articles.

-Some of these posts are really good and some are totally bogus. Don't take any advice from the ones that are from people whose method has a name. Your product is unique and so should your approach to announcing it to the press; don't apply some cookie-cutter formula.

Also, eschew the ones that recommend you subscribe to an expensive media contacts database like Burrells or Cision. Those things cost upward of $1,000/year and contain information that, with some reasonable Googling skills, you can find online gratis. Yes, they'll make your life easier but if you're a startup you're likely better off dropping the cash elsewhere.

-One thing none of these seem to address is: you got Johnny Cakes from ZOMGTechBlog to agree to speak to you or your spokesperson about your widget. Now what? How do you make sure you don't stick your foot in your mouth?

-IMHO these are the better ones: Cheat Sheet, DailyNewArticle.com, Top Story PR, PRtini (for as much as I hate the name), Jason Baptiste's, VentureBeat and PRDaily.

Hope that helps!

Pitch Your Thing To Journalists – PR 101

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