Chapter 7: Source Filing 101

Overview

Tis chapter is about the process of meeting with journalists in a particular field, face-to-face, not to discuss your news of the moment, as often there isn’t any, but to make a personal connection and demonstrate the constellation of subjects that you’re qualified to speak about outside the topical confines of your business or service. And what do you get? Lots (sometimes tons) of coverage.

One of the best ways for a novice to start in media relations is by source filing himself. Source filing is more work for someone who is doing PR, but it makes life much easier in the long run. Source filing, in a nutshell, is establishing yourself as an expert and finding your way into a reporter’s Rolodex, whether or not the reporter is currently working on a story that can include you. In other words, the goal is to position yourself as an authority on a variety of topics.

We have seen time and time again the value of source filing. Journalists need to know experts who are willing and available to comment on important events and developments. Once you become an established source in reporters’ Rolodexes, you’ll start receiving frequent calls, and then, frequent clips! The beauty of source filing is simple: You offer yourself to a journalist as a source, an expert qualified to speak to the media on one or more subjects, usually (but not always) in your industry. The journalist may not need to use your quotes right away, perhaps not even for several months, but based on the knowledge and expertise you demonstrate in an initial conversation, he files your name away for future reference.

Suppose that sometime down the road, the reporter is working on a story about your industry or other field of expertise. Looking through his list of viable contacts, he realizes that you’re the perfect person to fill the hole in his story—the expert who can give the real inside scoop about the competitive environment in an industry or why some new legislation could spell disaster for smaller businesses in your region. Or suppose you have a story about your company that you want to pitch to the media. This same journalist is now somebody that you’ve cultivated by offering yourself as a source for him, and because you already have an established connection with him (and that’s what PR is all about), the chances of your getting an opportunity to give your pitch are much better.

Source filing feeds off pitching your news, and pitching the news gets a boost from source filing. You do it before, after, and during your regular, everyday media push for success—that is, while you’re out there flogging the press for news coverage. Source file everywhere and with everyone possible—on the national and local levels, with the print and the broadcast media. You never know when it’s going to bear fruit for you, and when it does, the results can be tremendous.

In 1995, a Web visionary named Nicholas Butterworth wanted to publicize his company, SonicNet, a new type of music-related website. The site, run by nerdy but brilliant music aficionados, offered the first opportunity for a serious music lover to find genuinely new, little known but high-quality material on the Web—and download fantastic sounding clips, too. Nicholas had a small buzz around him already through his previous stint with Rock the Vote, something that got MTV kids voting in the pre-Clinton era.

At the time, SonicNet had no major news to report yet, but we decided to source file Nicholas. We took him around town to meet various journalists, introducing him as the person who was going to bring “coolness” to the Net. Until then, journalists had met no one involved with the Internet music scene but rock-and-roll techno dweebs. And what else? Nicholas and his cronies introduced a true business model to Internet music by relying on multiple revenue streams: online services, sales of items online, and, one day in the near future (this was 1995), revenues from paid ads on its website.

Journalists scoffed but were amused by the idea, anyway. Eventually, source filing paid off in a big way: Five months after we sourced Nicholas B., SonicNet met all three of its goals through deals with the then-famous online service Prodigy, the selling of shirts for The Cure, and ad deals with Levi’s and J germeister. The same journalists who had been there from the beginning now knew that Nicholas was in demand, and SonicNet began getting far more media exposure and was soon able to make money for its owners.

Coauthor Richard Laermer has established expertise with the media in several interesting ways. None of them are directly related to being a PR muckety-muck, but exposure is exposure, and that’s what source filing is all about. For example, he’s notorious for his addiction to e-mail, and to respond to e-mail messages within minutes (an interactive e-mail pager is his codependent device). When we discovered that U.S. News & World Report was doing a story about “e-mail addiction,” it was a perfect opportunity to promote him—and the business.

He described to U.S. News how he deals with hundreds of e-mails a day, and even drives fifteen miles to pick up his mail when his e-pager is out of range. This story did not directly relate to RLM on the surface, but, as the CEO of a PR firm, it made him look extremely conscientious and plugged in, and he made sure that RLM was prominently mentioned. (Fact-checking—or calling the reporter to go over his material—assured that his ID wasn’t merely “Laermer, e-mail junkie.”)

People have been source filing in one way or another for years, but too often they’re not very good at it—they make it much too complicated. If you know which reporter or segment producer is right for the angle you are proposing or plan to propose (whether about you, your product, or your business), then that person needs to meet you before they start thinking which person might make an ideal interview for the story. You can pitch hard later, but earlier is the time for them just to get to know you. It’s your job to help them understand why you are the ultimate source. Source filing, repeat after us, is the best way to get the media in on your goodness early on.