Dan Kaufman, in his ebook, Dealing with grumpy editors (a media survival guide), gives some straight talking, good advice for PR practitioners. As an ex-editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and various other publications with over 17 year’s experience, he is well placed to provide some practical tips to PRs about what an editor is looking for, how to work with media and how to best represent your clients. His experience has also given him plenty of fodder to demonstrate what a PR should not do, and he doesn’t pull any punches in dishing out his views on worst practice PR.
Unsurprisingly well written and engaging, he is a little tedious at times in his negative feedback on the PR profession, but his tips about dealing with the media are hard to ignore (and may seem obvious, but are a good reminder to us all).
Tips for PRs from Dealing with grumpy editors (a media survival guide):
1. Journalists want honesty not BS
2. Give your clients straight talking counsel about what’s news worthy and what’s not
3. Never use “no comment” – Tell us why something’s happened, and if you don’t know why it happened then let us know you’re concerned!
4. Don’t use hype (fastest, best etc), unless you have proof to back it up
5. Freelancers and bloggers are important too
6. Answer your phone
7. Use launches and events sparingly
8. Don’t send PDFs
It must be recognised that while his feedback is harsh at times, the author is reasonably balanced in his views. While he says there are some terrible PR people out there – he says there are also some great ones, and that this is replicated in journalism too. His comments about the industry largely hiring pretty PR girls who hold clipboards at the end of the book are a bit of a shame – he may have a point, but did he really need to go there? (I have worked with many pretty PR girls who are also terribly good at what they do).
The truth is, us PR people know editors and journalists are busy. We don’t try and annoy them by calling – we call because we have a story that we think is a good fit for their section and their readers. And of course we are calling about a client who we are representing – but that is our job, as it is the journalists to go hard with the questions once we start pitching.
We pride ourselves on our knowledge of not only the journos, their beat and how they like to work, but also on being deep in the issues that are key to the media agenda at any given time. We respect journalists and the job they’re doing, and the more junior members of our team are trained to build long-term relationships with the media, and to work with them – not act as a blocker.
And finally – it’s all about respect really isn’t it. Our experience shows that we get the best outcomes for our clients when there’s a healthy respect between the PR and the journalist. This doesn’t mean we expect the journo to write an unbalanced story about our client, or not question us about why our story may or may not be newsworthy – but at the end of the day – we are professionals in our respective trades doing our jobs.
What do you think? Is Dan Kaufman on the money regarding PRs? Do editors and journalists need to be less grumpy?
