Category Archives: Media Relations

Finding the Media’s Need and Filling It: Tips on Shining a PR Light Amid the Storms

  A J.C. Restoration Large Loss Catastrophe Bus “Give the media what they need, and you will get what you want.” I’ve uttered that so many times to my clients that it’s become a mantra. What the media need: legitimate news. What clients want: to get their name “out there” in the various media outlets. […]

How ‘why?’ can inject life into your next news release

We’ve all heard the expression of “raining cats and dogs.” In the arena of news releases, however, there is an all-too-common experience: yawning cats and dogs. That’s an expression for the lifeless, bland collections of words that do a disservice to the word “news.” This came to mind a few weeks ago, when a college […]

Put Time on Your Side, Give Media Notice

If you are opening the doors to your new business on a Thursday, it’s a good idea to spread word of it to the media by Wednesday. Of course, by Wednesday, I mean the one that falls on the calendar at least four weeks before your Grand Opening. Such advance notice gives the media enough […]

E-Mail Just One Part of Engaging the Media

Relying on e-mail alone to communicate news releases to the media is Public Relations Malpractice. Pick up the darn phone and make a phone call, among other things, and you’ll separate yourself very rapidly from the PR pack. Sending e-mail is among the easiest acts anyone can perform. So is deleting that very same e-mail. […]

Pigs Get Fat, Hogs Get Slaughtered, PR-Style

“Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.” In other words, don’t get too greedy. From the standpoint of creating something that is a legitimate, well-rounded piece of news, rather than a wholly self-serving PR piece that may turn off the media, the pigs/hogs axiom certainly applies. There simply are times when it’s best to share the […]

This Much Is True: Place a PR Premium on Truth

Last week, I received a marketing letter from a financial adviser who listed “played for the Chicago Cubs” among his bulleted background points. Hmm. I didn’t recognize his name, so looked him up on the authoritative Retrosheet and Baseball Reference websites. He wasn’t on either site, though I did find some minor-league stats for him […]

Biographies Help Differentiate and Connect

What’s your story? If you run a business, do you have a well-written biography on your website and in any other communication materials? I am continually astonished by the prevalence of successful professionals who don’t have a bio. Then there are those who have poorly crafted bios that appear to have been scrawled hurriedly as […]

PR As Hoops: Following Your Own Shot

Playing basketball over the years, I’ve been pretty adept at offensive rebounding, even if I was no Dennis Rodman (pictured). Often, it’s because I’ve known better than anyone else on the court exactly how that shot I just took was going to careen wildly off the rim. I try to adopt the same mindset in […]

The Art of Contacting Reporters By Phone

For the first time over a six-month span, encompassing story pitches for four different clients, I reached one particular reporter yesterday at the Chicago Sun-Times. She had never responded to any of my prior messages, neither my well-crafted and eminently timely e-mails nor my professional and succint voicemails directing her attention to those e-mails. Of […]