“Rocket science is important, but what makes it interesting?” says Garrard McClendon, host of his own ChicagoLand TV show Monday through Saturday for a half-hour at 6 and 9:30 p.m.
McClendon uses every new-fangled new-media tool in the playbook, but says old-fashioned pitching tips still apply: be persistent, make sure your topic is newsworthy, and have a good answer for what makes your issue interesting. “Tell us what you do that’s great,” he says. “What is your content?”
Once-a-year pitchers (you know who you are) may not make their way onto McClendon’s show: he suggests you pitch early and often. Would-be sources should consider sending releases several times a week to gain his producers’ attention. “Tyra Banks sends out 2,500 press releases to the media on a daily basis,” he says. To grab his or his producers’ attention, nonprofits should send out their message on a constant basis with attention-grabbing subject lines and first paragraphs.
Specifically, he says news releases should be sent to wgntvinfo@tribune.com, adding “ATTN WGN” and “ATTN CLTV” to the subject line (CLTV is a property of Tribune Corp). When sending your press release make sure your issue is in the title and/or headline, said McClendon. Read the rest of this entry »
Partnerships, project-based reporting and community service are among the competitive advantages public-radio news operations offer at the local level, news and program directors noted in our recent webinar on Changing Public Radio.
The combination of local news staff and D.C.-based National Public Radio foreign correspondents (who now outnumber those of CNN) makes for among the best news staff in the country. But that combination has challenges of its own, such as figuring out how the national and local organizations can work together.
“NPR gives us such a journalistic firepower that it is hard to match,” said Jerome Vaughn, news director of Detroit Public Radio. “Before, our competitors were basically the other stations here in Detroit. But with the Web, now we’ve got to think of NPR in some ways as a partial competitor for funding. There’s been a lot of discussion about that and hopefully that’ll come to some completely beneficial conclusion.”
Tamar Charney of Michigan Public Radio pointed out that national and local news staffs are finding new ways to work together: “NPR has been changing its attitude a little bit. It used to be they did their own thing in Washington and we did our own thing but with new management in the past year they have a new attitude.… Just yesterday with the asian carp summit we were going to send somebody in but with the weather we couldn’t possibly get there. NPR actually sent somebody to the White House to make sure we got the tape.”
Pitching public radio makes good sense because of the emphasis on local news and connections to the community at public radio, said Vaughn, Charney, and the other two participants, Steve Edwards of Chicago Public Radio and Bill Wheelhouse of WUIS in Springfield, Ill. (Thom Clark of the Workshop moderated). Read the rest of this entry »
A couple weeks or so ago the Museum of Contemporary Art bought “Kiss,” performance art by Tino Seghal, with no paper, video or other documentation changing hands. Kathryn Born’s ChicagoArtMagazine covered the acquisition.
She also has a great article on artwork being done in Chicago’s Korean-American community and is looking for more like it. If you have a story to tell related to art in Chicago, Born does not just want you to pitch her, she may ask you to produce it yourself! She might even pay you, as she writes at her site:
We need feature writers, journalists, researchers and gallery reviewers. The thing we need to know is, ‘What are you already an expert in?’ Do you have experience interviewing people? Did you study art in school? Or journalism? We need writing samples and some idea about experience. The pay is awful – $25 for features [CMW note: in this case awful=industry standard, no?] , however, we publicize all features and try to achieve a large audience for each of our writers.
Born runs three related sites. In addition to ChicagoArtMagazine.com, which covers articles, reviews, and satire, she maintains ChicagoArtMap, a Google map with 171 galleries and other places that show art in the region alongside a Google calendar, and ChicagoArtCollector.com with similar and in some cases overlapping content. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week Mark Pickering of the Bloomington Pantagraph spoke at length as part of a panel discussion that covered much more than pitching–we also talked about how his newspaper has incorporated social networks by implementing its own network, My Pantagraph.com with help from its parent, Lee Enterprises.
While Pete Moore, Jamahl, and Vikki Baptiste of MidCentral Community Action looked on, Mark talked about an issue that comes up basically all the time–when to call him and when to email him. His candid thoughts in this video remind us that, while it’s important to make sure you are not being a pest, it’s just as important to be persistent, and to know when it’s not just OK but probably a good idea, to pick up the phone.
There’s many ways to contact news outlets about news they can use. One way is through news outlets’ websites. Submit press releases and media alerts to Chicago and other Midwest news outlets using the links below. A word of advice: Be selective when choosing news outlets to send your news too. Consider the geographic area the outlets cover and the readership/viewers they serve. Consider publications’ frequency. Will your news be timely by the time it might be published?
Chicago-area Outlets
• ABC Television
WLS-TV (ABC7-Chicago) does not accept press releases via email. All documents should be faxed to (312) 899-8019. For a directory of links for ABC New’s various national programs click here.
• American Bar Association Journal
All press releases should be emailed to releases@abanet.org.
If you haven’t been keeping track (catch up with the past six weeks of changes in our recent post) ChicagoNewScoop debuted Nov. 20 with news and features that appear online at the site’s home page, in print and online editions of The New York Times on Fridays and Sundays, and on WTTW Channel 11.
With two weeks of publishing under their collective belt, staff are still figuring out all the details: “We’re at the very start,” Greising says, “putting the rudiments of the business and our editorial operations in place.” But a few outlines of what and how to pitch are emerging. Read the rest of this entry »
Are Chicago’s Latino-serving nonprofits “too shy or too buena gente” when it comes to seeking news coverage and editorial board meetings? That was one question Gerardo Cardenas of Contratiempo posed to our panel during a meet and greet that featured Gerardo with Tony Martinez of Telemundo Chicago, Fabiola Pomareda of La Raza, Teresa Puente from Chicanísima blog, and Tania Unzueta of RadioArte.
The topic, along with how to make news in the community and quite a few other questions, was hotly debated by the panelists and about 75 folks this afternoon at the National Museum of Mexican Art. Two nice bits of news at the event:
Vocalo and RadioArte jointly announced at the event that the former is sharing its HD signal with RadioArte and the two will collaborate on producing some content. Both stream online but Vocalo sharing its stronger signal will boost the audience for both stations by adding RadioArte’s public affairs, rock en Español and other content to its lineup. (Check the news release here or in Spanish here).
Tony Martinez of Telemundo Chicago reported that the station won a 2009 Emmy for “Outstanding Achievement for Alternate Media/New Media Interactivity” for Tu Voz which is the station’s online, phone bank and related services for connecting with its audience members, helping them with immigration, health or other issues they may face. Read the rest of this entry »
After several months of relative calm in the Chicago media landscape (with thankfully few layoffs), activity has picked up significantly in the last few weeks, with lots of announcements, many of which strike us as very promising developments for the future of news coverage in Chicago. Several of the announcements involve the creation of actual new outlets altogether, staffed at least in part with former daily newspaper folk. Below we will try to cover all the changes that have occurred:
First off, the Sun-Times has gotten a new owner/savior in Mesirow Financial’s Jim Tyree. He and his investor group seem willing to pour resources into the long-starved daily. Here’s hoping that they succeed. Read the rest of this entry »
Melissa Harris is the Chicago Tribune's newest business columnist
Melissa is reachable—but before you contact her, check the specifics about what she needs for her Tribune biz section column that debuted in September.
“Call me on the phone or send me email—I do read all of my email,” she says. “My cell phone number is on my voicemail…. I’m available.” She’s also invite-able: “I go to events morning, noon, and night—although I’m not very good at breakfasts”—when she’s at the gym (needless to the say, we think the gym is a no-pitch zone, we didn’t ask where she works out).
She welcomes nonprofit and philanthropy pitches but, be aware that her audience is business decision-makers. “The way this is going to survive is big, bold prominent names,” she says. Think board members, honorees, grant awards. Metropolitan Planning Council and other local organizations have already received some coverage in Chicago Confidential, BTW.
The column goes deeper than boldface names, because Melissa is really looking to offer items about Chicago business people and how deals get done. Double bonus if you have a humorous anecdote or item. One more thing to keep in mind: Melissa comes from covering crime (in Baltimore) and before that politics (in Orlando, Fla.) – no fluff here.
Her column runs Sundays and Wednesdays. More details at the Tribune Web site. (Her contact info is in the 2010 guide or find it in the 2010 Getting On Air, Online & Into Printresource forum–registration required).
You are driving up Western and stop at the redlight at Devon and look at the folks in the next car. Wonder what they are listening to on radio? Or, say, you are wandering along West Belmont and there’s a storekeeper staring into space and listening to a radio station. I’ll bet they are listening to voices [...] […]
Studs Terkel’s community-driven stories and natural ability to give a voice to us all, no matter what side of the tracks we lived on, made him one of Chicago’s most iconic journalists. An eclectic disk jockey he was, as any listener to his weekday morning program on WFMT could attest. A man of many hats, [...] […]
Recorded May, 2009 Children in Chicago’s North Lawndale community are at a higher risk of getting asthma. According to the Sinai Urban Health Institute, one in four children in that neighborhood have asthma. That’s almost double city-wide and national averages.So what is it about North Lawndale that puts children at an increased risk? Who – [...] […]
“Rocket science is important, but what makes it interesting?” says Garrard McClendon, host of his own ChicagoLand TV show Monday through Saturday for a half-hour at 6 and 9:30 p.m.
