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What is the most annoying thing a PR can say?

30 Apr

Following on from Friday’s post I thought I would ask myself what is the most annoying thing a PR can say to a journalist? I’m sure most people would say the number one would be: have you received my press release?

I also think that a contender would be one that not many PR people would be aware of. I have spoken to a number of journalists over the past few month since one told me this little gem and they have all backed it up. One of the most annoying things a PR pro can say to a journalists is…..”I used to be a journalist myself so I understand the pressures you are under”. The reaction may be an interested nod and oh did you but what they are actually thinking is “yes but you aren’t one now are you? Instead of being a journalist you decided to chase the dollar and join the dark side and now you want to rub it in my face you $%*&@~$£ $@*%!!!

Am I wrong or have I just been speaking to the grumpier element of our industry?

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When is a journalist not a journalist?

25 Apr


Answer – When they join the dark side.

Last month I was in Madrid with Iron Mountain and was chatting to a journalist over a beer about Berkeley PR’s recruitment policy of looking for NCTJ trained journalists who have been on a local rag or trade title for under two years.

He was interested as to why I said two years and I explained that it was my opinion after that length of time you have been entrenched in the world of journalism for so long the transfer of skills or approaches is very difficult. This has been based upon my experience of employing journalists at varying levels over the past couple of years. Some brilliant – some a disaster.

The beauty of employing journalists is that they can produce wonderful copy quickly. This is an art form that those passionate about creative writing have a flair for. They can bring a story to life but more importantly they can make it snappier and more engaging to read.  Also, by employing former journalists you can help educate the rest of the team on what it feels like to be part of a news room and the pressures journalists are constantly under. All major plus points on top of the fact that clients love to hear you have employed a journalist.

That said, I believe if someone has been a journalist for longer than a couple of years it becomes hard to produce the type of copy some of our clients crave. Media selling can be a bit of a shock and the plate spinning of client and journalist relations can prove to be a little disorientating. I have heard of many journalists that thought it would be an easy jump but ran back to journalism quickly after realising their mistake.

After finishing our beers the journalist in question said that he thought he agreed with me. He said that he knew he would personally struggle not to tell a client to buggar off when their story wasn’t interesting or to be able to kill the urge to speak to other sources when writing an article.

We have been blessed with some skilled NCTJ trained journalists who have smoothly made the transition to PR pro and this is something that I intend to continue with when recruiting but I do think that I will continue to stick to my two year rule unless you can convince me otherwise.

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How to improve journalist relations

24 Apr


If you read a PR blog or follow a PR on Twitter at some stage or another you will have heard them banging on about understanding the needs of journalists. This is obviously an elementary part of the job but one that is routinely ballsed up on a monumental scale. If it wasn’t why would you see the name and shame game that occurs every couple of months.

I am a strong believer that you will always struggle if you don’t understand the pressures that journalists are under. As a result the team at Berkeley PR are encouraged to arrange visits with the media to better understand what really makes them tick. Sounds simple, and it is. It is also really effective.

In the past month we have opened our doors to Steve Ranger, met with The Gadget Show to discuss the changes to the format and will be showing our face at Computer Weekly. Each meeting has been conducted without any specific clients in mind but rather a fact finding mission and an excellent piece of on the job training for junior execs.

With more and more pressures on shrinking news rooms it is essential that PR people invest in the relationship if things are going to improve.

Below are my top five tips (of about a million) for improving journalist relations:

1. Try and meet up to discuss their needs and put a face to a name

2.  Read their title. Sounds basic but far too many don’t do this

3. Follow them on Twitter and try and pick up pet hates/what they love

4. Get your timing right. Know when they go to press or understand what time to call before so news is still of interest

5. Make sure you can honour what you offer. Be it customer, photo, article or interview – only offer if you are confident you can deliver

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How to be on TV

13 Nov


Increasingly our clients are having the opportunity to be interviewed on TV or to appear on TV shows which is fabulous exposure for both them as spokespeople and for the company, but it isn’t always easy. Media interviews can be uncomfortable at the best of times but TV is so unforgiving. You only had to watch the televised election debates earlier this year to see how every twitch, back slap, smile or grimice can be misconstued on TV.

I thought of this when watching my little brother in the recent series of Masterchef the professionals. I didn’t realise he was going to be in it until long after he had completed filming due to confidentiality agreements he had signed. My brother is a natural storyteller and performer and loves being in the spot light but when I was discussing the experience with him he told me how intense it had been.

The candidates had been left in a small room with no access to newspapers, mobile phones or any other communication device and told not to speak to each other before they were called in. When they finally got the chance to cook the presenters were making their disapproval faces in plain sight and the normal utensils you would hope to find in a kitchen were not to hand.

I retold this story to a client of mine the other day who was being filmed for a feature piece with the BBC. They set up their cameras and were doing their thing onsite for almost six hours and I know that the end results will be probably actually only be six minutes long at best. With this in mind I told the client to never drop their guard. To be natural but be aware of what is happening at all times, as the one slip up on camera can prove to be gold dust to the TV companies.

My brother knows this, as under all the pressure during Masterchef he refered to Michel Roux Junior as Junior Roux.   He said that he stopped and said his name properly afterwards but a slip up like that was obviously too good and it stayed in the final edit.

That said, I am incredibly proud of my little brother for having the guts to go on a show such as this. Everyone I spoke to afterwards said that he came across in just the same way on TV as he does in life and I personally think fair play for having the guts to have a go.  Nice one bro, we are all proud of you.

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Should online news sites be worried about Breakthepaywall!?

23 Mar

BreakthePaywall!



With more and more news sites looking to monitise their online presense I was interested to read about BreakthePaywall! which has arisen to counter the organisations looking to increase revenues from online news.  On its site, BreakthePaywall! describes itself as a free add-on for Internet Explorer  that simplifies using the various methods for circumventing website paywall restrictions.

BreakthePaywall! is designed to work solely on those websites that initially allow you to view free content but after doing so, for example, 3 times, then ask you to register and/or pay to view any further content within the website. BreakthePaywall! will also work with sites that allow full access when viewed from news aggregation search sites.

Although this isn’t a major threat to news sites it is a reminder that internet users are always developing and looking for new ways to get news for free. I will be watching to see if this site survives or is replaced by another similar tool. I’m sure it won’t be the last such site to raise its head but what will be interesting to see is how the media strike back or survive this potential set back.

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How many PR professionals comment on a journalist’s blog?

22 Feb


I have been working on this and other blogs for a couple of years and have always found that a great way to build relationships with other interesting bloggers is to leave a comment on a post. I know from working on this one, I will always click through to a blog that has linked to me and check on them from time to time to look for an opportunity to return the compliment.

One of my favourite past times on a lazy Sunday (before Mae was born and these became a distant memory) was to flick through my blog roll and catch up on what the good and the bad from our industry were up to.

One of the things I always tried to do was find journalists who blog and try and keep track of what they were up to. I know that a lot of journalists don’t particularly like this medium as they see it as giving their craft away for free but a hell of a lot use it effectively.  For example I have seen some excellent tips on how to work with the media or what they believe is bad PR practice. They are also homes to highlight work they have been commissioned to work on ahead of posting on Response Source.

That said there are a variety of journalist blogs that are totally ignored by PR people. I know how personal my blog is to me and I am sure that it is exactly the same with journalists.

What better way is there to understand exactly what interests them (or doesn’t), what they like to write about or who they write for? A blog will give you all of this information and allow you to build a relationship with a journalist ahead of pitching something for your client.

I know that I am more likely to answer an email or a call from a familiar name quicker than a stranger and by commenting on a journalists blog you can start to build this relationship. The relationship should be a two way thing or you risk being named and shamed by those in the media fed up receiving spam mails from faceless PR professionals.

I understand that there are a lot of pressures on our time but I genuinely think that if you have 10 journalists who are important to you, it doesn’t take much effort to read their blogs once a week and provide some comments. By investing this small amount of effort I believe the rewards can be priceless.

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Why it’s time to take SEO more seriously

5 Feb

The WIRED blog

I was looking at where my traffic had come from this afternoon on the blog and saw that quite a few had been directed from the WIRED blog.

Intrigued I followed the link back to see that it was written by David BakerS who had participated in one of my meet the media interviews.
Apparently one of the questions I asked him about whether he had changed his writing style at all to incorporate SEO struck a cord. At the time he asked what is SEO but has subsequently been looking into the power of this practice and how it can help businesses and more importantly journalists. As David says:

It’s easy for Silicon Roundabout types to be snooty about the SEO business. It somehow challenges the purity of what they are trying to do. But then you go home and casually find a plumber by typing not much more than “plumber” in the little box in Firefox, and you see there’s something in it after all.

The world is changing. A lot of PR professionals are having to change the way that they work and deal with the online world but let’s not forget that we are not the only cog in the mechanism that are going through this evolution. So are journalists.

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Would you complain about a journalist?

20 Jan

PR V journalist fight club

I was on holiday last week and recieved an email from one of the journalists who had taken part in my meet the media series. The journalist in question explained that one of their colleagues was conducting an interview with a software company and was subsequently contacted by the PR who arranged the call to complain about them typing during the call.

What a shame. Surely the journalist was just taking notes so I can’t understand what the problem is. Having sat on a call this afternoon and having had to take down two pages of written notes understand how hard it is. My arm felt like it was about to fall off and I was begging for a keyboard.

I personally think that the PR who complained was a total pratt. Why complain? The publication is never going to want to deal with your agency again and if they lose their “massive” client they have just lost an important contact for all their other clients. In addition they have made our industry look foolish and not helped the cause.

You only need to follow a series of journalist and PR people on Twitter to see that the relationship between both parties can be a love hate relationship. Most PR and journalists understand the need for each other but once every two weeks there seems to be a new spat with one or the other trying to bad mouth the other. More often than not I find the whole thing a little embarrassing especially when the shouts of “name and shame” start coming from the masses.

Why do both sides continue to antagonise each other? Having interviewed some of the most influential journalists in our industry I believe that I understand their pet hates and don’t think it is that hard to avoid them. We all make the odd honest mistake but this culture of naming and shaming or complaining to bosses to get people in trouble is just sad to observe.  What is the point?

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How to grow your business for entrepreneurs

17 Sep
Alex Blyth

Alex Blyth

Freelance journalist and all round nice guy Alex Blyth is launching his book this week for entrepreneurs about how to grow their business. It is available from Amazon for less than a tenner and also has free delivery. Below is a synopsis for the book:

Entrepreneurs face a constant struggle to make a profit. They are entirely caught up in the day-to-day race against ever more demanding customers, rising material costs, a mounting tax and regulatory burden, increased international competition, and an ever more challenging labour market.

They rarely have time to get away from this ongoing struggle, to think about what they could do to find new customers, manage existing customers more effectively, cut operating costs, minimise their red tape, and get their staff working more productively. Yet, they know that if they could make even small improvements in those areas they would be able to revolutionise their businesses and their lives.

They are not alone in this. Few executives at larger companies have the time to address these issues. However, executives at larger companies usually do have the budget to hire consultants to advise them in all these areas. Entrepreneurs don’t. They have neither the time nor the money to address these issues.

Furthermore, entrepreneurs tend to be conquerors, rather than empire builders. Very often those who are best equipped to make it through the early years, are least well-equipped to build on that early success. Yet they are desperately keen to see a reward for all the work they put in to get their enterprises off the ground. They have both a need and a desire for advice on how to take their businesses forward.

This book is a practical guide, showing them how they can make those improvements with minimal investment of time or money. The ideas will be simply expressed, the action points will be clearly achievable, and the theory will be illustrated with examples of small businesses that have already grown by following this path.
By reading this book, and by following each of the action points, every entrepreneur will be able, over time, to cut costs, increase sales and boost profits. It will revolutionise those businesses.

Good luck with the launch Alex.

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Mood button

20 Jul
Mr Grumpy not Paul Stallard

Mr Grumpy not Paul Stallard

Last week I spoke with Wendy Grossman, a journalist I hadn’t worked with before on an article she was producing for IT Expert magazine. As always I wanted to provide my client with a couple of examples of the journalist’s work so I ran a quick Google search and found her website.

I’m not sure how often it is updated but there was a feature which I really liked. There is a page where Wendy highlights what sort of mood she is in:

• Red = WATCH OUT!
• Yellow = Proceed at your own risk. Possibly safe.
• Blue = All calm. Here there be no dragons.
• Green = Green??! Not in the original specification. Meaning unknown.

Wouldn’t life be so much simpler if everyone did this?

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