People to Pitch: Burt Constable, Daily Herald

Burt Contstable offers some great tips on how to pitch the Daily Herald and how to relate to journalists to cover your story. Watch the video to get his contact info!

Steve Rhodes, editor and publisher of the Beachwood Reporter, talked with CMW about what benefits nonprofit communicators and agencies could gain from pitching to smaller news outlets.

Pitch Steve by emailing him at srhodes@beachwoodreporter.com or calling him at 773-235-8986.

Find more people to pitch your story by subscribing to our Getting On Air, Online & Into Print Media Guide!

Have you ever considered the arsenal of sources you have in your rolodex when you pitch? Monifa Thomas, health reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times says offering a good menu of sources that can illustrate your story is what she seeks.

“You don’t want to interview a different name but the same story told over and over again,” says Thomas. “You want a range of experiences and voices for a story.”

The best way to reach Thomas is via e-mail. She says emails should be succinct with the main points in your subject line and initial parts of your email. Emails should also give her a sense of what you are offering- a personal antidote, a contact and/or data. “It helps to know so I can streamline for the story. At least give me a sense of whom I need to call and where I need to go,” she says. 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 »

by David M. Freedman & Janice E. Purtell

All firms with more than one employee should have a clearly written media policy that spells out who in the organization may respond to media inquiries, what kinds of information can or should be released to reporters, and what information must be kept confidential.

It’s important to assure your employees that talking to the media, and establishing good relationships with reporters, can and should be constructive. It can help to establish an accurate public perception of who you are and what you do. There’s no need to feel intimidated: Reporters need you as a source of news and background information as much as you need them to give you publicity and clarify your point of view. Read the rest of this entry »

by Debbie Neville

As the corporate Web site becomes a powerful communications center, public relations practitioners should make sure the site effectively supports the media relations function. Here are several strategies to ensure that reporters can easily find your site when they need information about your company, locate useful information within your site, and feel encouraged to contact you.

Make sure the press can find your site. Try to register all possible names for your company. If possible, a Web site name should be the company or organization’s name (or appropriate abbreviation or acronym) followed by .com, .org, or .firm. Most reporters will try that before utilizing search engines. Make sure your meta tags (hidden HTML code that provides information for search engines) include critical key words related to your organization, and ensure that your home page title includes both your company name and major business category. For example, the page title for XYZ Company, which an HR software vendor would access, might read: “XYZ Company delivers HR software solutions to businesses worldwide.” Include your Web site address on everything — business cards, product literature, press releases, e-mail signatures, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

HOW CAN NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS GET MEDIA ATTENTION DURING AN ELECTION YEAR?

Given that news about various political campaigns will consume much of the media’s ink and air time during an election year, Kevin Lampe of Kurth Lampe, a public relations and political consulting firm based in Chicago, offers his advice on how nonprofit organizations can gain media attention for the important community issues they are addressing. He suggests:

Nonprofits can use an election season to deliver their message through political campaigns. Read the rest of this entry »

by David M. Freedman

It’s a respectable way to express your point of view and gain exposure in the marketplace.
Writing a letter to the editor is a great way to (1) correct a mistake, misquote, or distortion in a recent news story; (2) illuminate one or both sides of a controversy involving your profession; or (3) comment on how proposed regulations or policies may affect your clients. Read the rest of this entry »