The Public Relations Blog

Stories that affect more people are more likely to earn media coverage.

Impact: What comes to mind when you think of this word? An asteroid impact, maybe? Something powerful — physically and emotionally? Think about the asteroid metaphor: A huge event like that would affect many people — virtually everyone on Earth. You’d want to see that in the news before it happened, right? That’s because the event is not just literally an impact. The event has impact, meaning it affects a great number of people.

Pitch stories that happen near your target audience to catch journalists’ attention.

When pitching stories to journalists to earn media coverage, your story must stand out if you want them to accept it. As a marketing and communications professional working with news media, you need to understand what journalists look for when scanning pitches if you want them to pick up your story.

Highlight the currency of your media pitches to interest journalists.

When you consume news, you may notice a pattern: Most news is timely. Likely, you prefer to hear about events that happened recently — the more current, the more interesting. This is called timeliness, and it’s one of the most important pillars of newsworthiness.

For some companies, especially those without a strong communication department or team, drafting of news releases is sometimes one of the more difficult things to write. While pitching may be a work of art, writing a news release is like a science project. There are many elements and best practices to writing a news release, so here are our top eight best practices for writing a news release:

To earn media coverage, your news must be interesting to more than just your internal audience.

There is a stark difference between news that is important to your company and its internal audience and news that is important to your company’s external audience. Your internal audience may include employees and shareholders, while your target external audience might be new and existing customers or clients, the general public, those in your industry, and niche enthusiasts. If you want to make your news “newsworthy” to external audiences, it’s critical to understand the difference between these two audiences. 

Journalists are gearing up for a stronger year in the post-COVID-19 era

With the world returning to normalcy, journalists are coming to terms with the realities of a post-pandemic industry. After the pandemic compelled them to take a step back and restrategize at the initial stage of the outbreak, it’s yet again necessary for journalists to modify their work habits and preferences to suit the times.

Handle reporter calls and media interviews with tact and skill

Sometimes, a company might receive an unexpected call from individuals identifying themselves as news reporters. Organization spokespersons attend media interviews to represent their brand in the media. However, if the company representatives aren’t adequately trained for such situations, such engagement might end negatively.

Here’s how to successfully deal with reporter calls and handle media interviews.

Ace an in-person news interview by following these PR pro tips

Whether you are doing a live, in-studio interview or an interview on Zoom or Skype, you must prepare for it. For in-person news interviews, these are the best ways to prepare before arrival and on the day of the interview.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, a majority of TV interviews shifted to Zoom. The pandemic allowed TV stations and news producers to look at interviews in a new light. For a local station, the ability to conduct interviews on Zoom allows them to connect with experts in different areas without having to connect with an affiliate station to procure content for you. While you aren’t sitting face-to-face or knee-to-knee with an anchor, there are still tips and tricks you should utilize to make your Zoom interview a breeze.

Are they worth their weight?

Earned media coverage is one of the best ways to share your company’s story. Marketers and business leaders talk about wanting earned media coverage in "top-tier" news media outlets. But how do they define top-tier media versus not-top-tier media? Is there a public relations or journalism industry standard for top-tier?