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5 Bad Behaviors That’ll Leave You on a Journalist’s Blacklist

5 Bad behaviors that will land you on a journalist's blacklist

The inbox and the telephone are tools of the trade for a journalist. They can be useful platforms that deliver the next exceptional story or be the bane of their existence. Due to the latter, the journalist’s blacklist was created.

While it’s their job to be open to unsolicited pitches, journalists draw the line at certain behaviors that they will not tolerate. Do one of them even once, and you could get banned forever.

While this isn’t brain surgery, it’s worth revisiting these basic rules for successful pitching. Bad behavior, just like bad pitches, can come from individuals, PR professionals, corporate staff, influencers, or bloggers alike. Don’t be that person.

Here are the top five things that will get you banned by journalists.

1. Lying

Never lie to a journalist. They are smart, trained professionals who will find out the truth eventually. While this may seem obvious, any of these behaviors will brand you as less than truthful by journalists:

• Outright lies

• The omission of key details

• Withholding information

• Not presenting a ‘downside’ to the story, the product, or the main subject [that you are aware of]

Journalists never appreciate being blindsided or embarrassed when information ‘they should have known about’ comes to light after they have pitched a story to their editor, or even worse when it becomes known about a story that has already been published.

While your initial pitch should be brief, once a journalist has expressed interest it’s time to reveal everything you know about the story or risk being banned later.

2. Offering bribes

Do not offer any kind of compensation for coverage; this includes money, gifts or barter offers. Offering to share their article with your army of followers on social media as an incentive to write about you, your product, or client, is also taboo if intended as a bribe. Gifts of any kind, including an offer of any form of compensation, are against journalism’s code of ethics and will get you shown the exit faster than you can blink.

Instead, pitch a better story, one that they will want to write about. Make sure it’s on a topic that they cover.

3. Pitching the same story

Most journalists prefer or insist on an exclusive on a story. If you are pitching more than one outlet on a story with the same angle, you need to let the journalist know about this up front.

Don’t pitch the same story that has been covered before in a similar outlet or market, and most definitely don’t keep that fact hidden.

Journalists don’t want to appear as though they have an inside track and like to be the first to break an original story. No one likes to be a copycat.

Instead, find a new angle or an update to your story that hasn’t been covered before. Offer the journalist an exclusive for a limited period, and you will have much greater chance of success.

4. Making demands

There is no situation where it is appropriate to make firm demands or requests of journalists. This includes asking for specific placement, insisting a photo or hyperlink gets included or any other requests.

Whether or not a journalist or publication decides to run a story is at their discretion.

The specifics of what they choose to include in their coverage is totally up to them. Asking nicely, pleading, or hounding the can all get you banned from ever working with them again.

5. Late or missed deadlines

Journalists work on deadlines, and as a reliable source, you want to meet requested delivery dates for information, a quote, or a photo that has been promised.

The worst thing you can do is leave a journalist hanging on a story or miss a deadline by which you agreed to get back to them.

Not returning calls in a prompt fashion, can also cause them to miss a deadline altogether, which can be catastrophic on their end, giving them a good reason to decide to sever your relationship.

Things happen in life. Perhaps you can’t gather the information they are seeking from you or can’t get approval to use a photo they requested. Let the journalist know as soon as possible so that they can find an alternate source or kill the story with enough time not to leave a blank hole in their publication.

I like to think about how I can make it easier for a journalist to do their job. If you can do that, as well as bring them excellent stories, and follow these simple rules, you don’t need to worry about being banned. In fact, you can develop great working relationships with journalists. You will often see them start to treat you like a trusted resource, seeking you out when they need a source for a story.

This post first appeared on Muckrack.com

How Thinking Big Can Be Bad for Building Authority

How Thinking Big Can Be Bad For Building Authority

Think big. Create a big hairy audacious goal BHAG. You have all been encouraged to do that. The truth is that thinking big can hurt you in the short term when it comes to everything from building authority, seeking publicity to book reviews and more.
It’s great to create that big hairy audacious goal and to think big, however if it’s not put in perspective it can actually hurt you when it comes to achieving some of your goals, especially when those goals involve third parties such as building authority, getting media coverage, being a radio show guest or getting book reviews.

Prospects sometimes come to me stating their desire to be featured in Entrepreneur magazine, The New York Times or in the ultimate outlet – Oprah magazine. Those are great goals, however, sometimes you have to start out in the minor league, before the majors take notice of you.

Let’s take a page from Oprah’s path to success

Oprah didn’t start out as a nationally recognized, incredibly popular talk show host. She started out part time at a local black radio station in Tennessee. From there she went to another local station as both the youngest news anchor and the first black female news anchor at Nashville’s WLAC-TV. It wasn’t until 2 jobs later that she was discovered by a Chicago station that invited her to come work on a talk show, which soon lead to what we all know as The Oprah Winfrey show.

We might never have heard of Oprah if she only had her sights set on getting hired directly on a major network show, and wouldn’t consider anything less. Instead she began part time, at a local station and kept stepping up into bigger and more visible roles.

It’s important to not to overlook local or smaller opportunities because they often lead to other opportunities. You may be missing out if you’re overlooking opportunities, and holding out exclusively to land the big one first.

Starting smaller offers multiple benefits

By starting smaller or with lesser known media outlets, you get to do a few positive things:

Have an easier time getting opportunities – local media likes local stories, and there is often less competition seeking them
You can practice and polish your skills – better to flub in your small town paper than in The New York Times….
Larger media outlets, producers and book reviewers often scan local media or smaller blogs for story ideas.
The media mentions or reviews you receive are great content to fill your media room or press kit with

For the big win that you’re looking for, it just may not be the first publicity or place you get quoted.

Oprah got her break as an anchor on the news, because she was willing to work at a small local station.

So when it comes to getting publicity, being a guest on a podcast, getting your book reviewed and many other desirable situations, having some experience, even if it’s not from the top network or leading company counts.

Describing what journalists look for in a source, Dawn Reiss, freelance journalist /writer for various national outlets said,

“A lot of the major outlets will do a Google search on people to see where else they’ve been published.”

So being published, somewhere, counts. If you steadily and consistently build your authority and showcase it properly online, those big opportunities will come.

What opportunities are you overlooking because you think they are too small or insignificant?

This first appeared in Business2Community

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How Not to Be One of the 45% of HARO Media Pitches That Suck

Not getting responses to your Help a Reporter Out HARO media pitches? The reason may be that your pitches don’t include the 7 must-haves for a successful HARO media pitch. Either you aren’t giving journalists what they need, or your pitches simply stink. The pitch that does satisfy on all counts, gets the publicity.

I am not a journalist, however I occasionally use HARO to find sources for a story, a blog post, or book that I am working on. My team and I use HARO to get publicity for myself and my clients, and we’ve had a lot of success with it.

After posting a query on HARO recently, I was surprised by the number of pitches that missed the mark. Some simply sucked. And it doesn’t have to be that way.

In an effort to help you not be one of the 45 % of pitches that suck, I analyzed the responses I received. The collated results are presented here. It was a small sampling; not sufficient to call this a scientific study, but valuable information if you put it to use. I also interviewed a few journalists on best practices for HARO media pitching, and what they like to see in a pitch.

I started by asking for insight on succeeding with HARO from its founder Peter Shankman, who said:

“In the past ten years, journalists have been tasked with doing ten times more with five times less. Truly want to get your story placed? Do as much of the journalist’s work as you can. Give smart background. When you offer a source, make sure they can talk and know what they’re saying. Beat the herd by being just a little bit better.

Oh, and be fast. Super, super fast. Get your reply out within five minutes of receiving the HARO.”

The key to pitching HARO successfully comes to, as Mr. Shankman says, “doing as much of the journalist’s work as you can.” In an age of 24/7 news, with reduced newsroom staff, journalists’ jobs are more challenged than ever, so your key to getting the publicity you want is to literally help a reporter out.

How journalists use HARO:

To find sources, as well as to help develop a story idea they are working on
When they are on a tight deadline, as well as for stories with more lead time

“I use it both for same-day deadlines and for long-term features and I’ve really gotten wonderful stuff for my stories from it – both from average people, whose opinions and experiences are hugely important in my work, and from experts from every field,” – an editor for a major U.S. news organization who uses HARO several times a month [they requested anonymity].

To get started let’s look at a sample HARO query – broken up into sections.

What Journalists want in a response to a query:

Journalists told us they want you to provide all the requested information in a concise response so that if they are on a tight deadline, they have all the information that they need to use you as a source without needing to speak to you. That said, it’s very important to include a phone number and other contact information, should they have the time and want to follow up and verify information, do an interview or get additional information.

What Journalists don’t want …

Busy journalists don’t want to have to guess who you are, what information or expertise you have to share, to have to try and locate your contact info, or try and locate you. This may sound obvious; however, many pitches were missing some or all contact info.

I encourage my clients to think of their pitch like a gift, with their entire pitch and supporting assets nicely and attractively packaged, so it’s all in one place. Incomplete, off topic or unclear pitches just clog a busy journalist’s inbox and often just get deleted.

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar

7 Must-Haves For A Successful HARO Media Pitch:

Get your pitch in asap.
The number of responses to a query can be anywhere from 10-100 depending on the topic or media outlet. Queries from top national publications tend to get more responses than smaller or lesser known media. Busy journalists often go with the first great pitch they receive.

Create a compelling subject line
In a sea of responses [average query gets 35-100 responses], your subject line can help your email get noticed, though a long query title, leaves less room for your unique pitch to show in the journalist’s inbox view.

24% of HARO media pitches rated ‘very good’

Use a greeting
Business communication usually start with a greeting. Granted, some HARO queries are posted anonymously, so you don’t have an actual name of a person to address. This is not something our journalists noted, nor a requirement, however a greeting is a standard business pleasantry. One that addresses the journalist by name is courteous and also demonstrates you have read the query carefully, which goes a long way towards your credibility.

52% started their pitch with a greeting, addressing me by name. The balance had no greeting at all.

Establish your credentials
To be used as a source by a journalist, you need to let them know what your credentials are, concisely, right within your pitch. Demonstrate you are a good, expert source for their story. One mistake we see repeatedly is “my bio is on my website.” A busy journalist with 95 other responses, will either hit delete or just move on to the next pitch which contains all the information they are seeking.

64% of HARO media pitches established their credentials within the email

Fit the requirements
While not all pitches have requirements, the ones that do have them for a specific reason, so it’s important to respond only if you are a fit.

47% of pitches fit our requirements, 35% might be a fit but needed clarification, 16% didn’t fit at all

“And a lot of the people weren’t on target. I was very specific in my HARO query about how I was looking for responses on how to invest. Another example, in a query on the business side of co-working spaces, a lot of people responded back saying, ‘Oh, I work at a co-working space. Would you like to talk to me?’ And that’s not useful.” – Dawn Reiss, freelance journalist /writer for various national outlets.

Complete, Cut and Paste Response
The ‘cut and paste’ response is where the person has answered the questions posed in the query, right within their email pitch. A busy journalist doesn’t want to interview you to find out if you are the right source for their story. Or they might like to interview you, but with limited time, they’ll have to do with taking your response as is, and cutting and pasting it into their story, citing you as the source.

“I much prefer a response that actually provides the comment or information the person wants to share.” – An editor for a major U.S. news organization who uses HARO several times a month [and requested anonymity].

In other words, if a query asks for you best tips for mobile marketing, include your best tips for mobile marketing right in your email pitch.

Include a phone number
While our journalists have stated that they often don’t have time to speak with you for a story, they still expect you to include your phone number. That way, should they want to get additional information, touch base before going to print or interview you, they already have your contact info.

Only 41% of our respondents included a phone number in their pitch

I hope you will use this information to help you succeed in your HARO media pitches. To your publicity success!

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Media Lead Times – Key To Pitching The Media Successfully

Why I can’t get you into Entrepreneur or Inc. magazine next month.

I’ve gotten this request many times from prospects, “Can you get me featured in Entrepreneur magazine next month?”

No, I say without hesitation.

Not because I doubt my pitching skills but because there is something called lead times.

“Why not? I’ll pay whatever you charge,” persists the prospect.

Let me stop you right there. I didn’t hesitate to say no because TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, and some blogs and websites have lead times that govern their operations. These timelines may vary for different types of media outlets. Still, if you want to get media coverage or pitch a story or article, it’s essential to understand their lead times.

A Lead time in publishing describes the amount of time that a journalist has between receiving a writing assignment and submitting the completed piece. Depending on the publication, lead times can be anything from a couple of hours to many months. [source: Wikipedia]

Print publications like Entrepreneur or Inc. plan their issues four to six months in advance. This is one of the reasons that PR firms require a minimum 6-month retainer. Publicity can take time and planning to build a smart and strategic campaign, one that gets you media coverage.

As to my prospects who want to get featured next month, you are just too late. But don’t despair. With some planning, you can pitch the media with enough lead time to be quoted or appear on air, in print, or online.

Plan Backwards

Part of the key to successfully pitching publications on a story, a product launch, or an event is to work backward from your event date.

This way, if you were launching a product on February 1 of next year to get mentioned or featured in a print magazine such as Entrepreneur, you would have to start pitching 4 to 6 months before – in August to be safe.

I find planning backward can be can be beneficial when planning events and other promotional initiatives that have a firm date or event that I am building toward.

Here are some media lead times:

Monthly Consumer Magazine – Lead Time is four to six months

Newspaper sections vary [so it is best to check with the publication]

Daily Newspapers – Lead Time is one to three weeks*

TV Morning Shows [National] – Lead Time is two weeks to two months*

When in doubt, you can look at a publication’s media kit to see when the advertising closes for a particular issue; this will clue you into their lead times. You can always reach out to the publication to ask them precisely what their lead time is

* The one exception to these lead times can be ‘breaking news’. A story that has just happened and is considered very important and/or timely.

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