The Exclusive Story

Anyway, back to our scenario. Someone at the Today show thinks that a story on the Coupe might be fun. They are indeed considering doing a piece on your skateboard, but only under certain conditions. Enter the term “exclusive.” Exclusives are part of the game, and if you go about them properly you’ll get the coverage you’re looking for. Just as it implies, an exclusive is an agreement between you and the media that means one outlet gets the story first. This is analogous to an exclusive in the print media world (see Chapter 3 for a more detailed explanation).

There are also different types of exclusives—for print, broadcast, local radio, newsletters, corporate house organs, and so on. In your case, you couldn’t offer the Today show a complete exclusive because your story already ran in print. You can submit to the broadcast exclusive, as the show’s requesting, because luckily you and the Coupe haven’t landed on TV. Not yet. What about the local TV program? It’s not that it doesn’t “count,” per se, but to be honest, the people at Today aren’t going to care, and if they did care, they might be impressed with your performance (don’t volunteer it).

But what are the benefits? The Today show producers said they’d like to run it three days from now, even though the voice-mail message from the Boston network said they wanted it for tomorrow. Also, even if Today or any other TV program secures a time slot for you, the unpredictable news of the day can throw the reporting schedule to the wind, leaving you high and dry. But you know that the prospect of national coverage makes the risk of waiting worthwhile, so you call back the Boston producer to tell him you can’t do the piece tomorrow because of the exclusive. However, you console him, you can do it later in the week.

The Boston producer will appreciate your honesty, and because he knows that you’re a straight shooter, he says he might be interested in having you on the show later, simply because you have assured him this will be an easy segment to produce. Also, mention to the producer that he can create a quick news item about your skateboard—something that will fit into any news hour on any given news day, since it isn’t attached to a particular date. That’s called an evergreen story.

Why Letters to the Editor Are PR

Dear Reader:

You have to remember all that democracy truly guarantees us: death, taxes, and, according to Mark Twain, a letter to the editor. The last is one of the most effective ways to get coverage in your favorite magazine. (We don’t suggest death or taxes.) If you’re like most people, whether you flip through Vogue or Computer User, you set up camp for a few minutes on the “Letters to the Editor” section to read what people are griping about, snicker at the journalists’ boo-boos (this is where a magazine usually runs its corrections), and peek into what else readers are thinking.

There’s another side to the letters section. Besides being a great place to rant, it’s also a good spot to shift opinions-at-large and plug your business to boot. It’s PR through and through.

Pick up any publication, let’s say BusinessWeek, and take a long, hard look at the letters. In one particular and randomly selected issue, neatly tucked onto page 19, Richard J. Martin, executive vice president of AT&T, takes up a full page (small print, of course!) to grind an extremely angry ax and truly straighten out, he says, the “blatant distortions” served up in an article the week before. Now, there are two sides to every story, and Mr. Martin decided that his side should be long, packed with juicy sound bites, and free of editorial banter.

Martin gets away with sentences such as, “AT&T Broadband’s combined telephony, high-speed data and digital-video growth leads the industry,” and the hearty “After AT&T Broadband spins off and merges with Comcast, AT&T will have one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry.” Amen.

We’re pretty sure that after BusinessWeek printed those sentences, Martin and his pals were high-fiving each other and sparking up Churchills in the conference room.

Albeit a pretty obvious example, there are hundreds of more subtle plugs in the letters section. You don’t have to be a big muckety-muck setting the record straight or calling a journalist on a blunder. You can write in support of an article you’ve read and work your message, subdued or otherwise, into your point.

The specific purpose of the letters section is to give readers the opportunity to chime in on what’s going on in the publication and society at large, so use it to your advantage and make yourself and what you’re up to relevant at every opportunity. Also, reporters, dare we say, read the letters section and often snatch up great story ideas and sources this way. As Samuel Clemens once said, you have to use this gift in order to learn its value.

Yours truly,

Richard Laermer

Michael Prichinello