Dealing with grumpy editors
(a media survival guide)
By Dan Kaufman
Published by Dan Kaufman at Smashwords
Copyright © 2011 by Dan Kaufman
All rights reserved.
This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author, who needs the money to pay for cat food (and trust us, the cat is large and gets angry when hungry).
Email: dkaufman AT iinet.net.au
Cover photo copyright © 2011 by Mark Holloway.
Introduction
As a journalist and an editor it amazes me how poorly some PR agencies represent their clients. Forget about getting their messages heard and developing a good image – I find clients often miss out on exposure or even gain bad publicity because of, rather than despite, their PR. And trust me, there is such a thing as bad publicity. I’m not letting marketing managers and companies that do their own PR off the hook either – they often make the same mistakes as PR agencies.
Every day editors and journalists receive a barrage of pitches and press releases, the overwhelming majority of which are promptly dismissed or deleted. Sometimes it’s because they’re poorly constructed – it’s common, for example, for the most interesting angle to be buried or not even acknowledged. Often it’s due to not understanding how editors work and what kind of stories we’re looking for. And sometimes, quite frankly, it’s due to sheer incompetency – even when editors and journos take notice of a release it’s amazing how often we then drop it because none of the people mentioned in the release, including the PR reps, can even be reached before deadline.
The relationship between the media and PR is often sugar coated and portrayed to be more amicable than it is. Yes, journalists rely more on PR-generated material than ever before because of shrinking staff numbers and yes, whether editors like it or not, dealing with PR has become a necessity to some degree. Yet that doesn’t mean we see eye to eye. After all, aside from anything else journalists are taught early in their careers that news is what others DON’T want published. This isn’t a joke told over beer, by the way, nor is it an extremist view held by a minority – it’s one of the key definitions of what news is. Our loyalty is to the reader (contrary to popular belief) and so we’re trained to write stories that are free of any agenda and to not promote companies in any way (contrary to popular belief).
I realise that many (perhaps most) people won’t believe this and are cynical about how biased the media is – and unfortunately they’re sometimes right. But in my experience most journalists and editors, myself included, believe the media can and ought to pursue the truth and not agendas.
So why on earth have I written a book to help PR and companies that want to promote themselves?
Well, it’s because I am the grumpy and irate editor that companies have to deal with – and I have seen, day in and day out, week after week, year after year, what does and does not work when it comes to PR pitches. From editing magazines to newspaper sections at The Sydney Morning Herald, across subject areas ranging from travel to health, I’ve seen the good and the bad when it comes to PR. I’ve dealt with smart, savvy, experienced PR professionals who knew how to obtain great coverage for their clients and gave me interesting leads and ideas, and I’ve dealt with PR hacks who should have paid their clients for the damage they inflicted on their reputation. And on a personal level, it’s this frustration that led to my writing this.
So who is this book targeted at?
It’s for anyone, whether you’re a company, association, government body or individual, who has to deal with the media (regardless of whether you already hire a PR firm or not) in addition to being for PR practitioners. You don’t need a degree in media strategy to read this and you won’t need to decipher marketing lingo. After all, this is a common sense guide that attempts to be as succinct, down to earth and honest as possible – because it’s the discrepancy between people’s expectations of how the media works, and the reality, that often causes press releases and pitches to fail.
Oh yes: because I’m going to be as honest and blunt as possible, this book will probably offend a lot of PR people … and companies … and bloggers … and journos.
That’s not my purpose.
I realise there are some great press releases out there. I know there are great PR people out there. I’ve met many horrible journos. Quite frankly, life’s too short for petty grievances one way or the other. So if you detect some negativity or attitude in this book – well, it’s not because I’m petty or have a chip on my shoulder (and I realise PRs often cop flack from journos like this) – I’m simply writing this book from an editor’s perspective so you can hear it from the horse’s mouth without any of the bullshit.
That’s the way journos are trained to write.
Chapter 1 - Understand your editor
Whenever you see editors portrayed in movies, from Spiderman right back to the old black and white films (many of which were written by ex-journos who fled to Hollywood), you’ll notice they’re usually portrayed as being short-tempered, impatient and especially grumpy and yet in reality they’re … actually, they are usually short-tempered, impatient and grumpy. At least, I certainly am, as are the majority of editors I’ve worked alongside (although admittedly some were much better at hiding it than me).
Sure, this is clichéd and unflattering to editors - but it’s also pretty accurate, as we’re sure you’ve noticed when calling them (myself included). Why?
Well, let’s put it this way.
When I edited the travel section of The Sydney Morning Herald for nine months (which was long enough for me to realise it’s not as glamorous a job as many would think) I’d receive – without exaggeration – at least an email a minute and a call every five minutes (meaning – like many editors – I’d have to rely on voicemail to get work done). I can’t count the number of press releases and pitches I’d see and receive a day, and when I went out for a coffee I’d come back to face my voicemail’s blinking light and a screen full of messages.
Now, let’s think about what an editor has to do during a working day to see how these messages fit in with their work.
Everyone knows editors decide what goes into a publication and commissions work from writers – but that’s just a small part of what we do. A key part, certainly, but still just a small part. On most publications editors are the hub of the operation and have to make sure everything’s sailing smoothly. As my first editor once told me, they’re like the captain of a ship. To be more specific, editors:
- Manage and work with designers, illustrators and photographers
- Work with advertising sales teams
- Work with publishers
- Manage writers, which includes commissioning stories and feature briefs, helping them out when needed and making sure the stories are going to plan
- Organise budgets and payments
- Work with sub-editors (whose job includes copy editing and managing production)
- Edit copy and decide what should go into the publication, both visually and editorially
- Manage admin staff, liaise with readers, deal with promotions and …
- Anything else that needs doing. Times are tough in the publishing world.
It’s often up to editors to help out with managing production, photo research, copyediting, writing and any other task that needs doing.
In other words, we work in an environment where there is never enough time – and so any interruption to what we do is often met with a grimace.
In fact, when you consider the barrage of emails, phone calls, mail and (when it comes to staff) personal visits from all the people mentioned above, it literally becomes impossible for us to do our job within daylight hours if we always pick up the phone and read every email – which is why you’ll often only get an editor’s voicemail message and why you have to be smart about what you put in your email header. But I’ll get onto that later in this book.
Furthermore, out of the time we do spend choosing stories, we tend to prefer ideas we think of ourselves, or that our journos (ie on staff or freelance) think of.
In other words, you might think that, because we select stories for our jobs, that your call or email might help us. We, however, are so busy trying to put a publication together – and selecting stories is only a small part of what we do - that a call or an email (unless highly suitable to us) is often seen as an interruption.
So how do you pitch to us? How do you grab our attention?
Well, remember that journalists and editors come from a VERY different place – that it not only isn’t in our interests to promote your company but that we’re trained NOT to promote your company. You have to give us something compelling to overcome our reservations.
So don’t make the mistake of assuming your company’s event/new project is newsworthy. Every company thinks that and they’re usually wrong. Instead, pitch a new trend, a fact, a piece of research that has wider implications than just a piece of company news. Get your company in the news by associating it with something newsworthy, by finding something newsworthy, by generating something newsworthy. I repeat: a trend, an unknown fact or some research that hasn’t been previously published is usually of most interest to editors. The possible exception to this is if you’re pitching a profile of someone, as some publications carry profiles despite their often dubious newsworthiness.
Have a look at the newspaper section/magazine – can you really see your story fitting in there?
Chapter 2 - Calling an editor
What causes an editor to squeeze their stress ball? Lines like:
“Did you get my email?”
“Have you got a story on XXX coming up?”
“What’s your deadline?”
Because interruptions are usually unwelcome, we do not recommend calling us first for a pitch unless something is groundbreaking – ie aliens are landing and you are their PR representative. Email instead. I can’t count the number of times when I was juggling ten tasks at once only to then get a call from someone with a long, drawn out and bored voice saying by rote “Hi … is this Dan … how are you? … Good? … Great … have you got some spare time? …”
A simple email will piss us off a lot less – and if you do call, at least pretend you’re interested.
However, if you are pitching an exclusive story that’s genuinely interesting to just the one editor or journo, then it is considered appropriate to call a few days after the email, depending on how time critical the story is. For whatever reason, however, if you do call then:
- Make sure you’re calling the right person. There’s no excuse for not buying the latest issue and finding out who the editor is.
- Do not leave a ten-minute dialogue on voicemail. Impatient editors will just press delete.
- Do not ask “when is your deadline?” so you know when to send releases. I realise a lot of PR people are taught to ask this, believing that some days are better than others, but I don’t know any editors who appreciate this question. Firstly, if something is news, then send it when it’s news – not when it’s old. If something is being sent to several media outlets, well, we’d like to get it ASAP before our competitors run with it.
Furthermore, if we actually are on deadline then we don’t want to be fielding calls – we’d rather just get the release. Most importantly (at least for magazines and many newspaper sections) there is no magical deadline day for all copy: different stories have different lead times. A hard news story has a different time frame than soft stories, which has a different deadline than a cover feature, which has a different time frame to the events column – and it’s ultimately up to the editor to decide where stories appear.
- On the other hand, some people only let the media know of events days before they happen, thinking that either a) the media can still report on it in time or b) that they can write about the event after the fact.
Wrong – most of the time.
Firstly, with the exception of websites and the hard news pages of a daily paper, weeks are needed in advance of an event (and yes, this applies to newspaper feature sections). Journos need to be assigned, photographers lined up, the story needs to be written, laid out, plus most newspaper sections are sent to the printer days before they hit the newsstands (and magazines weeks before. I once worked on a magazine that was sent to the printers in Singapore a month before publication). Furthermore, the production cycle starts a week before being sent to the printers (for a weekly publication) and a month before for monthly publications – and even then most of the copy is already accounted for. Editors forward plan and need as much notice as possible.
Secondly, the idea behind news is that an event has to be new – so while the media will let readers know of an event coming up, they’re not as likely to report on how it went unless it’s really of significance. For example, an entertainment section is more likely to let readers know that a circus will be in town the following weekend rather than actually reviewing the circus after it’s left town.
This is such a common reason for PR leads to be ignored that I’ll repeat the point: Do not leave PR announcements to the last minute. If your client is in the habit of doing so – and I know that it’s often the client’s fault and not the PR’s – then do your best to educate them.
It’s also best not to call a journo on their mobile unless they asked you to or if it’s absolutely critical. I can’t count the number of times I had lunch with journos who, when their mobile called and they realised it was PR, would complain to me afterwards. Our mobile number is purely for the times when aliens land in your backyard.
Having bitched about the interruptions of PR, it’s worth noting that there are times when we want your release. Life being what it is, I’ve found those are often not the times we receive it.
What I’ve learnt – or, to be fair, what I’ve assumed - over 17 years of writing and editing is that a lot of PR don’t read. At least, they don’t read the publications they pitch to. I make this assumption based not only on the vast amount of irrelevant releases we receive but also on the lack of relevant ones that are not sent to us.
For example, if there’s a newspaper section focusing on youth, music and film, but it also has an events column that publicises a wide range of events, from food festivals to street fairs, you can bet that half the events listed were not pitched at the section. I know this because I’ve put together these columns. Instead, the editor or journo responsible for the column has to hunt down the events’ PR and marketing people, who presumably sent press releases to other publications, and ask them for the release. Think about that for a second: it’s the journos who have to seek out the PRs to get the PR’s clients in the paper. And this happens all the time. There have been countless times in my career when I’ve found that releases and pitches that would have been suitable for us, and which were pitched elsewhere, were not pitched at us. And the common response from PRs when asked to forward the release: “Oh, so you have an events column? Good to know!”
I don’t know about you, but if I paid good money to a PR firm I’d like to think they were competent enough to be familiar – very familiar – with a broad cross section of publications so that they wouldn’t just pitch to the obvious suspects.
I’m not just writing this from my own experience, by the way. For example, I used to sit near an editor at the SMH who remains one of the nicest, politest men I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet. He’s still a good friend. Despite being far nicer than yours truly, I would regularly see him begin to boil when he picked up a call from a PR who would ask to speak to the person who edited his section two years ago – not realising that my friend was now editing it. Then they would often pitch him something that was not even relevant to his section. Finally, even though it isn’t in his nature, he would often start telling the PR off in no uncertain terms. That’s what happens in a deadline-based environment filled with continual interruptions that are often not well targeted.
These days the editor rarely picks up his phone.
Lastly, don’t be overly familiar - at least, not with editors and journos you’ve barely met before. Avoid calling them “babe”, “honey”, “lovely”, etc – it’s not only unprofessional but reeks of insincerity. Talking of insincerity, don’t start by saying something like ”Hope so much you’re well ...” when you’ve never even spoken to them on the phone. Cut the small talk and get to the point quickly.
Chapter 3 - How to make your press release effective
Would a press release by any other name be more compelling? You may call it a media release, news release, media statement, event release or the latest term to be bandied around, social media release, but quite frankly I’ve never heard an editor call it anything other than a press release. Actually, that’s a lie – I’ve heard several editors refer to releases in derogatory terms, but let’s keep this book clean. Well, relatively clean.
Regardless of what it’s called, a press release is rarely executed well – which partly explains why only a minute fraction of the hordes of releases that bombard editors’ and journalists’ inboxes every day ever lead to a story being printed. Most not only don’t make the cut but are usually ignored and deleted after a moment’s glance, which is why so many editors fumble on the phone when PRs call us up a few days later to ask us whether we received and thought about the release. Received it? When you’ve already scanned and deleted hundreds of press releases in the meantime, recalling a lacklustre release sent three days ago is a magic trick worthy of Houdini.
So how can you make your press release stand out amongst the others? Here are some tips:
Write in a conversational tone
Corporate and academic speak is a huge turn off for editors. Even though it’s an affectation people use to impress, it has the opposite effect on journalists who were taught as cadets to always use simple, clear and direct language in their own copy.
Aside from sounding insincere, a press release heavy in jargon and pompous words will also bore editors and discourage them from reading. You’re much better off just getting to the point quickly using everyday language. A lot of people don’t realise that good writing means using a conversational tone – albeit with better grammar than you would use when talking to a friend in a bar.
As George Orwell wrote in The Politics of the English Language: “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.”
I love that image of a cuttlefish squirting out ink. As someone who’s read far too many press releases and corporate papers, it really resonates with me.
Don’t use hype
It immediately rings alarm bells with journalists who are taught to watch out for it. For example, companies often use absolute descriptions such as “the best”, “the fastest”, “the most” and “the ultimate”. However, since editors can only publish what they know for a fact to be right, a statement like “the most” is only going to be ignored unless it can somehow be validated or attributed – ie “The Typhoon 2000 is the most powerful vacuum cleaner, according to the 2008 survey by Vacuum Monthly.”
Facts are always more interesting than hyperbole. For example, just calling someone “Australia’s best chef” is meaningless (an editor’s first instinct is to ask “Says who?) – but saying that someone is the only chef in Australia to be acknowledged as a master chef by the World Federation of Chefs (provided, that is, there is such an organisation and that it’s credible) is something real.
Tailor (or at least modify) press releases for each publication you send them to
OK, I realise this is hardly ever done and the idea of carpetbombing dozens of publications in one fell swoop is tempting, but it’s not that effective. Besides, it really doesn’t take THAT long to modify a release for a particular magazine or newspaper. After all, a client pays you to target publications, not send out spam. If you really find this concept objectionable, however, then at least tailor your press releases for the publications that matter – ie those with the largest readerships or that effectively target your intended audience.
Just say, for example, that a cosmetics company has been taken over by another firm. A press release that begins by talking about how this will affect the company’s shares might be appropriate for a financial paper – but not for a women’s magazine targeted at consumers. However, a press release that talks about the company’s plans for future products and how they’ll affect the average consumer might be suitable.
Of course, always try to include a local angle if you’re pitching to a local community paper.
This might sound obvious but I find most press releases have a “one size fits all” mentality behind them. When I edited a consumer tech section, for example, I would often get corporate IT releases that had nothing to do with my section – and when I edited a corporate IT section I would get releases about children’s gadgets.
Furthermore, a vast number of releases are bereft of any angle that would appeal to anyone other than some minor, extremely specialist newsletter with a readership of five. You might think you have nothing to lose by sending these releases off to every publication in town (and some PR execs I’ve spoken to have admitted to sending out releases that they realise no-one would be interested in) but all it does is desensitise us to anything associated with your company or your client. The gamble will not only probably fail, but it will put the odds even further against you for future releases.
I understand that many of your clients will want you to tell absolutely every media outlet about every development they’re up to no matter how minor it is (regardless of whether it’s how their latest product is now two per cent faster or how their vice president has just participated in some obscure community event) – but refrain from doing so unless you genuinely believe the publication you’re sending it to may be interested.
Aside from the ethics of taking someone’s money when you know what they’re asking you to do is going to lead to failure, in the long term it’s also bad for business – remember it’s the PRs who only send newsy and relevant releases that editors and journos always pay attention to.
To some degree you have to manage your client’s expectations about what the media can and cannot use.
Make the most of subject headers in emails
Treat these the same way an editor treats headlines – as crucial. The story’s main angle needs to be right there because we don’t have the time to read an email unless the header grabs our attention. Don’t waste precious space by having something like: “PRESS RELEASE: a key announcement from company x”. We will delete it on sight.
Other common mistakes are headings such as:
“COMING EVENTS” for an email sent to the editor of an events column, or “TRAVEL ANNOUNCEMENT” for an email sent to a travel editor, or “AN INVITATION” … well, you get the picture. These headings tell us little about your pitch. You have to work harder than that. Tell us why we should read the release. Make it punchy. Think of seven different headers and then pick the best one.
To make your email headers as compelling as possible, follow the guidelines editors use when writing headlines. This means writing in the present tense, the active voice and using positive language.
What does all this mean?
Let’s start with writing in the present tense: which of the following headlines seems punchier to you?
PM halts peace talks
or
PM halted peace talks
Using present tense makes the former headline seem more immediate and it will do the same for your email header.
Next, try to write in the active voice. For example, which sentence is snappier?
The cat chases the mouse
or
The mouse is being chased by the cat
It’s the former because the subject (the cat) is doing something to the object (the mouse) and so it makes sense to have the subject appear in the sentence before the object. It’s more direct and requires less words – and the less words, the snappier the sentence becomes.
Now we come to using positive language, which means avoiding negative words such as no, not and didn’t. You’ll see why when you look at the following example:
Troops have not pulled out of war zone
vs
Troops stay in war zone
The bottom example reads much better since, as with using active voice, making sentences positive often makes them snappier. We also changed the tense from past to present.
Don’t make your email subject lines / headlines all uppercase
Many people believe having a headline in uppercase is a good idea – but I’m willing to bet none of them studied typography or information design. The reason is that when we see a line written completely in uppercase our eyes initially just see a block rather than individual letters. In other words, we’re more likely to notice a word that’s in lowercase at a glance. For example, what’s immediately easier to read:
WonderPC is now half the price
or
WONDERPC IS NOW HALF THE PRICE
Having it all in uppercase certainly makes it louder and you may think it attracts more attention, but editors are not only used to these tactics but our eyes are half glazed as it is – what we may notice, however, are words that we can at least immediately recognise.
Don’t use Alert! Urgent! as your email header
Editors know by now that Alert! and Urgent! usually mean the opposite.
Don’t expect editors to open Word and PDF attachments
An important tip that I, and any journo or editor who’s worked for more than a few years, can give is this:
You should always embed text in the main email body. ALWAYS.
Why?
Well, your attachment is not going to jump out at us. I know several editors who refuse to open attachments without knowing what they’re about due to a lack of time – myself included. This is especially the case for email addresses that are designed purely for receiving releases. For example, Travel sections often have email addresses such as traveldeals@mynewspaper.com and Entertainment sections have addresses such as events@mynewspaper.com. The idea is that they’re trying to funnel releases into these addresses so that their personal and main email accounts don’t get overrun. However, when an editor goes through a release account that’s filled with countless new emails a day, we’re after something that jumps out at us – not something that forces us to open an attachment.
Having said that, many editors also like to have a Word document version of the release sent – but we need the text in the email body as well.
As for PDFs – ah, where do I start? There are SO many reasons why you should think long and hard before sending a PDF to an editor (and my apologies to Adobe).
Firstly, if your release is in the email body then it makes it easier for us to find using our email system’s search function. Believe it or not, we don’t always act on a press release right away and we don’t always realise on receiving a press release that we may need it in a week’s or month’s time. Instead, we’re likely to let the email sit and, some time in the future, we may search for it.
Secondly, these days everyone outsources – including (and especially) newspapers and magazines. And how do these freelancers access company email? Often through a company intranet. And web-based email clients often struggle with PDFs and images. Mine certainly does. Text please! In the email body.