Things That Will Kill Your PR Pitch to TV

"Why didn't they cover my story?"  

It happens.  You make what you thought was a great pitch but the TV crews didn't show up.  Sometimes, we even know why.  But for some practitioners, the art of the successful media pitch is too often a mystery.  Why did this one fail to get their attention?

Enthusiasm for a story may not be the only reason things get covered, but Tim Hall, News Manager for WHNT TV NewsChannel 19, pointed out to the PRCA membership plenty of surefire ways to be a PR killjoy.  

One is to pitch the company, not the story.  Says Tim: "Don't give me a page and a half about how many employees you have, where you're headquartered, and bury your actual story details almost as an afterthought."  Right.  It's not about the company.  It's about what the company has to say that's noteworthy.

Or depending on your "friends" inside the station to pitch your story for you.  No one knows your story better than you -- or, at least that's the way it should be.  And that guy you saw in the hallway who works at a TV station might forget to tell the News department about you.

Which brings up his point about knowing your pitch.  Says Tim: "Don't call and say, 'I don't know if this is a story or not."  Another good point.  You should believe you're offering something of value and not just the news headline your boss would most like to see.  If it's a real story, the question is then whether it stands up against the news of the day in priority.

He also cautioned against selling more than you can deliver.  "If I pull a crew off of a story I want and instead send them your way, and then if find out it ain't what you told me?"  Let's just say you're not likely to get a story, ad he'll certainly remember next time.

Is that bias?  Nope.  More like humanity.  If we expect our media brothers and sisters to hold themselves to a higher professional and ethical standard -- well, we should expect that.  But that shouldn't excuse us from holding ourselves to a standard of trustworthy conduct and cultivating our professional relationships as if they matter. Because they do.

To illustrate his point about not being a pest to the newsroom, Tim used a great real-world example about cell phones and morning meetings and the difference between persistence and nuisance.  

But I'm keeping that one as a perk of having been at the meeting.

posted by Lori Miller, April 2008