Developing effective relationships with the media is a good way to help your cause, organization or yourself. Being a favored source for newspaper reporters helped Robert Moses become the foremost figure in planning in 20th century New York. "Rebuilding Communities," a landmark study by Avis Vidal, showed that funders were more likely to give support to community development corporations with greater visibility.
Here are some tips on building effective relationships with reporters. (By the way, I was a newspaper reporter for five years and still write for online publications and magazines.)
First, ensure that you have the appropriate permissions to speak 'on-record' to the media. Many governmental agencies and organizations, having been stung by bad publicity, limit who can talk to the media and in what capacity.
Reporters are like police officers; once they identify themselves professionally, everything you say or do can be used for their purposes.
Cultivate relationships with reporters who ask good or difficult questions. This often demonstrates that they are attentive and have prepared for the interview. Reporters who ask you for basic information that they can find on your website might be lazy or unconcerned with the story.
Reporters look for stories that have any of the following qualities: new information, unexpected information, clear impacts on their readers, and conflicts in which the issue and the opponents are easy to identify. For example, most reporters wouldn't be interested in writing about a capital improvements plan. But they would be interested in writing about new roads or street improvements that would reduce flooding.
Look for or create photo opportunities. Stories that have 'art' (the journalistic term for photos and other images) are more likely to get published and to get better positions within the publication.
Unless you are a whistleblower, there is almost never any need to go "off-the-record." If you decide to go off the record, understand what the reporter means by that term. For some, off-the-record means they can use the information without naming you as a source. (This is what other reporters call "on background.") For other reporters, off-the-record means they can't use the information at all in a story. In either case, you should expect that reporters will share what they know with editors, who are responsible for the content in their publications.
Good reporters are busy, especially in today's 24-hour news cycle. If you call a reporter, ask him or her if she is on "deadline." If so, ask about a better time to call back.
If a reporter calls you, call back within 45 minutes. Give the reporter all of your contact numbers, and be prepared to take calls at night or on weekends. Be patient and pleasant. A reporter might file a story at 5 pm, but has to respond to an editor's question at 9 pm.
"General assignment" reporters and those new to a beat are usually not experts in the subjects they cover. The more useful information you can provide, the more valuable you become to those reporters.
Remember that the story belongs to the reporter and his or her editors. They choose what goes in and stays out of the stories. If you want to control what goes into a publication, take out an ad.
When writing press releases, try to adopt the writing style of the publications you are trying to influence. In some cases, especially for shorter stories, reporters may simply lift or slightly revise what you wrote.
If you want to be quoted, speak in short sentences and a little more slowly. Most quotations in newspaper and magazine stories are only a sentence or two long.
Where to learn more about strategic communications:
The Leading Institute's Leading from the Middle program
If you have a professional development tip you would like to share, please send it to Leo at vazquezl@rutgers.edu
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