Event Recap: Meet the Philadelphia TV & Radio News Directors

By Caitlan McCafferty

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a panel with some TV & radio news directors in the Philadelphia market. The event was hosted by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Mid-Atlantic Chapter and Drexel University. The panel was moderated by Susan Buehler of PJM Interconnection and the speakers included:

• Steve Butler, Director of News and Programming for KYW Newsradio 
• Sandra Clark, Vice President of News and Civic Dialogue for WHYY
• Margaret Cronan, Vice President and News Director for CBS3 and the CW Philly
• Tom Davis, Vice President and News Director for 6ABC 
• Jim Driscoll, Vice President and News Director for FOX29 
• Anzio Williams, Vice President for NBC10/Telemundo62

The panel members' discussion ranged from their goals as news directors to their career trajectories and their advice for young broadcast journalists. Each of them provided rich insight into their motivations as journalists and how their production and reporting teams are dealing with the ever-evolving media landscape.

An event bringing together six competitors in the country’s 4th largest media market was an interesting dynamic to begin with. But it soon became clear that they actually had many things in common. As news directors, they are responsible for the strategy and journalistic integrity of their stations. Each cited the same motivation – providing a public service and telling people’s stories.

But, certain differences, such as the allocation of resources, sets Clark, VP at a public media affiliate, apart from the others on the panel who have the resources of major network affiliates at their disposal. Despite a challenging media landscape, the panelists are more willing than ever to provide local audiences with the honest and informing stories they need and want.

When asked about digital media trends, the panel members were generally positive. Tom Davis talked about how 6ABC uses social media for brand enhancement and Cronan echoed that sentiment by talking about brand consistency in social media. In the radio space, Clark talked about how important podcasts have become to WHYY’s success. Butler also discussed how he was hopeful about digital media and that he was doing the most hiring for social media positions at KYW.

Some of the news directors also talked about some of the digital tools they use for stories. Driscoll uses Fresco, an app for citizen journalists, to curate footage of events. Williams uses Banjo, a news aggregator, to stay on top of up-to-the-minute happenings in the Philadelphia area.

So with all this in mind, the news directors had some helpful tips for PR professionals to consider when pitching:

• Only pitch local stories. Each panelist has a local focus, and KYW has a hyperlocal focus. 
• The panelists talked about struggling to allocate resources to the suburbs. If pitching a story about an event in the suburbs, be sure to contact the newsroom the week before to give them time to prepare. 
• Use digital tools to stay on top of the news. Pitch your client as a source if they could be a resource to journalists on a certain issue. 
• Contact the right person in the newsroom. The news directors spoke highly of the talented producers that work at each station in the Philadelphia market. The producers are responsible for assigning stories and putting the final broadcast together.  
• Follow the news station and key people at the station on Twitter to keep current on their interests and projects. 

Philly Tech Media: Pitching Basics Still Relevant Today

By Caitlan McCafferty

Successful public relations professionals know how to work with the media – but have those pitching basics changed in recent years? We caught up with some Philly tech journalists at a recent event to find out.

Hosted by Business Wire, Smart Talk After Hours: Meet the Philly Tech Media offered the opportunity to hear directly from the Philadelphia area’s top technology reporters about the projects they are working on and how to connect with them most effectively. Each of them writes about the burgeoning tech and start-up scene, focusing on innovative businesses in Philadelphia. 

Panelists included:
• Michelle Caffrey, Technology and Education reporter at the Philadelphia Business Journal
• Roberto Torres, Lead Reporter at Technical.ly Philly
• Melony Roy, Social Media Editor at CBS KYW News Radio
• Johnathan Takiff, Technology Columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer

Each spoke about his or her individual writing process and experience with public relations professionals, but they all agreed on a few tips. 

They want an exclusive.  The journalists agreed that they are more likely to run a story if it is an exclusive for them. Every media outlet’s goal is to break the news first, so journalists want to be the first to talk to a particular person or about a certain topic. 

The phone still works. Both Caffrey and Torres spoke about how email pitches aren’t always the most effective method of pitching. Caffrey doesn’t mind a phone call and welcomes any pitch via phone especially if she has a relationship with the PR contact. Torres made things even more personal, and talked about how he prefers in-person pitches. He attends many networking events and doesn’t mind being pulled aside to discuss a potential story. 

Make the pitch to their beat and what they are interested in. Each journalist spoke about the importance of pitching to their interest. For example, don’t pitch a story about a tech company in New York City to Torres. He writes about tech companies in Philadelphia, not New York City. Don’t pitch Takiff a business story; he is interested in consumer experience. Most of the journalists on the panel talked about filing up to four stories a day. They want to hear your pitch, but be sure that it is something for them. 

Follow ups work, but be respectful. The panel spoke about PR Pitch horror stories. Most of them were about PR pros that just wouldn’t leave them alone or didn’t understand why the story wasn’t right for their publication. Follow up reasonably, and if the journalist doesn’t respond after the second or third follow up, they are not interested in your story.

Each journalist’s experience reinforced media relations best practices. If you craft a good pitch, pitch it to the right person, and follow-up appropriately, you have a better chance of being successful. 

The Press Release Mistake You Need to Stop Making

By Sarah Larson

Years ago, a press release was written and then carefully formatted on a sheet of letter paper, usually official stationary of the company or group sending the release. It had headers and footers and logos and salutations. It often was printed and either faxed or - gasp - mailed.

It was no surprise, then, that when email took over prominence as the main form of business communications, many organizations continued to follow the same procedures and then, instead of printing or faxing, simply emailed the document as an attachment.

If your organization still is sending out press releases this way, there are good reasons you should stop. As a matter of course, Furia Rubel sends press releases to media contacts in the body of an email, not as a separate, attached document. Here's why:

• Spam. Adding an attachment to your email increases the likelihood of your message getting held up in a spam filter.
• Not efficient. Forcing someone to open an attachment makes it more difficult for a busy journalist to quickly evaluate the news you're sharing. Many will just ignore it, rather than spend the time to open an attachment.
• Restrictive format. In that same vein, attaching a document in a certain format requires the recipient to have that program in order to open it. Not everyone has Word or PowerPoint, nor wants to have to install a program just to view your document.
• Not mobile friendly. Many of the journalists you are trying to reach will be reading your message on a mobile device. Having to download an attachment takes longer and requires better mobile signal service, especially if you load the release with space-hogging images and logos.

As you can see by the complaint posted on Facebook (above) by a journalist friend, these might seem like little things, but they annoy journalists - mostly because they make their work lives harder - and an annoyed journalist is far more likely to skip over your message completely.

Sending a press release as text copied into the body of an email is an easy best practice that you can implement right now, to increase your organization's chances of catching the interest of the right people.

How to Explain Public Relations to Friends and Family: Part I

By Megan Quinn

For the longest time, I've had difficulty explaining the public relations industry to friends and family members. 

I would regularly field questions and comments such as, ‘So you’re a member of the media?’ or ‘Maybe *insert random celebrity here* should be one of your clients!’ or ‘So you’re in human resources?’ 

That would be a NO to all of those. 

A recent article on PR Daily got me thinking that there must be an easier way to explain my job. 

At its core, “Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” 

That definition comes from the Public Relations Society of America, and is a good, simple explanation of the overall field. But it doesn't do much to explain what we actually do on a day-to-day basis. So here is what I came up with:

The kind of public relations we practice at Furia Rubel is business to business, aka B2B. You know how movie stars and professional athletes have publicists? We are like that, but we’re publicists for businesses. We don’t represent individuals and we certainly don’t go to movie premieres – though we would be happy to accompany Bradley Cooper on the red carpet any time.

We don’t represent just any business, however. We further refine our particular area of practice to professional services. Our clients include law firms, legal service organizations, accountants and tax providers, financial institutions, and more.

In today’s world, public relations can encompass many tactics. One of the tried and true mainstays is media relations. We have offered our clients as experts for print articles, radio features, television interviews and other forms of media.

We work with journalists to provide appropriate sources for their stories. We bridge the gap between the journalists and our clients, working to coordinate interviews, photo opportunities and commentary on issues of the day. To work well and benefit everyone, this requires long-standing relationships with the media and a detailed understanding of how they work. 

We believe in the power of targeted public relations. Blasting out a press release on a distribution platform to hundreds of journalists across the country will do nothing but anger and alienate the journalists for whom that topic is inappropriate.

Instead, we work with our clients to analyze their business and define their target audience, then do research to determine what media that audience commonly consumes. We compile very targeted and specific media contact databases for each client, tailored to reach the audiences that are most important to their bottom line.

We also work with publications to coordinate article submissions from our clients, when the client has expertise that would be valuable to that publication’s audience.

Not only do we keep our clients in the public eye, we also do our best to keep them out of it in times of crisis. When something goes wrong - or has the possibility of going wrong, if not handled correctly - we are the folks working behind the scenes to make sure our clients quickly and accurately respond to the situation to minimize harm and begin rebuilding as soon as possible.

We may not have the simplest job description in the world, and what we do can change by the hour or minute, but any way you look at it, public relations professionals get to share their clients’ interesting stories with the world. That has to be the best part of our job!

This is the first installment of a three-part series of posts explaining the art of public relations. In my next post, I will address media monitoring and reporting services.

Remember, The Pen is Mighty

By Rose Strong

"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823

We recently joined people around the world as we watched the manhunt unfold for two armed gunmen wanted in connection with France’s deadliest terror attack in decades. The two brothers killed 12 people in an attack on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, in Paris. We are still watching events unfold, as the dead are being buried, world leaders are discussing tactics to fight terrorism, and a new edition of Charlie Hebdo is being circulated worldwide.

There’s no reason to think that this type of attack couldn't happen at any newspaper or magazine in any country where citizens are free to speak their minds, free to express as they wish, and free to worship the higher power of their choice.

I sometimes take for granted that I was born in a country where I can say and create whatever I wish and believe or not believe in any deity I prefer. I can speak my mind, make with my hands what I want and put it out there for public display. If it offends or angers people, they usually react with little more than a shaking of their head, click of a mouse or the turn of the page. 

U.S. Constitution - Amendment 1:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It occurs to me that we Americans often need a reminder that we are fortunate to live in the United States, despite the occasional elevated threats issued by The National Terrorism Advisory System via the Department of Homeland Security. We are free, and we sometimes forget the sacrifices of those who fight for our freedoms with only a pen, camera or sketch pad.

Journalists, writers, artists, cartoonists and anyone else who champions the freedom of expression whether here or abroad often risk their lives to do so. I am indebted to them for their bravery. My heart goes out to the families of the victims and I honor all those who speak freely with a pen.