Three Trends Impacting the Communications World
There’s a lot of change happening in the communications industry these days. Seasoned journalists are flooding into the profession, traditional barriers between advertising and editorial are blurring, and the predominance of digital tools and channels is increasingly challenging traditional media…
Tips for Successful Communication in the Digital Age
Consumers, not producers, dictate their media diet these days, which means that consumption of your product or message must be the consumer’s choice. The key to ensuring that they choose your product or listen to your message is to build…
What the Rob Ford Saga Means for Communicators
As the Rob Ford saga spirals from unreal to depressing, it has made me consider my profession (communications and public relations) and just how important its central tenets are for corporate or political survival. Over the years, as I’ve worked…
Pitching a News Story: The Phone is Your Best Friend
In this email saturated world, it’s difficult to penetrate the din and connect with a journalist about your story idea. Granted, you probably have a great idea that includes many news elements or is a perfect fit for the media you’re pitching, but if you aren’t able to communicate it effectively to your targeted audience, your idea will sit by itself on your blog and/or be discussed amongst your colleagues around the water cooler.
Pluck and Persistence Will Drive Your Story into the News
Every company and organization has an interesting story to tell. Finding news and honing it into a finely crafted pitch is the first challenge. You want to make sure you’re “selling” the best “product” that you can. Here are a few factors to consider when it comes to what makes news, well, ‘news’. Once you’ve got your story down, the next step is to convince a reporter or editor that it has a place on a newspaper page as opposed to remaining lonely and forgotten on your organization’s blog.There are many ways to do this.
The Elements of an Effective News Story
Ever wonder why a spate of deadly car crashes makes the front page (or leads-off the news hour) while announcements about a new social enterprise that employs people with mental illness tend to get buried? It’s all connected to how “newsworthy” a story is considered by the editorial/production staff. Each day, thousands of producers and editors around the country are forced to rank what’s worth paying attention to and what they can safely ignore.