You’ve just written the most fabulous press release of your life. It’s concise, yet efficient, and you’ve somehow made the opening of Joe’s Cynderblock Store seem like the most groundbreaking event of the century. Bravo, you’ve just completed the easy part of the publicity process. Now you must face the jungle of media reporters and editors in the public relations practitioner’s constant struggle to get ink.
Yesterday, Victor Godinez (vgodinez@dallasnews.com), business reporter for the Dallas Morning News, was a guest speaker in my Communication Campaigns. He offered valuable insight on the daily life of a news reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper, and gave our class of public relations majors a rare look into the mystifying inner-workings of a reporter.
Godinez said that he gets more than 400 e-mails a day, most sent by public relations professionals trying to get a story for their clients. He admitted that he deletes almost every e-mail that does not have “Dallas”, “Fort Worth”, or any other metroplex suburb in the title line. Once he opens the e-mail, he checks the content, and if it's poorly written, he simply won't waste his time reading it.
Mr. Godinez also urged our class of all seniors to get to know as many reporters as we can by taking them out to lunch or out for a drink. Establishing and maintaining a personal relationship with a reporter, according to Godinez, can potentially remedy an overlooked typo or another error in an e-mail that might be cause for deletion.
You're not going to get ink every time you send out a press release. With a little patience and the ability to understand the mysterious world of the reporter, most anyone (even the fresh-outta-college-graduate) can be successful.
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1 comment:
I was looking for more insight, more depth of research. How does a communications representative get the media to bite? Keep fishing.
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