Again, Do Your Homework

Okay, now you understand why source filing is a vital part of your media strategy. How do you begin? You might be surprised to learn that you shouldn’t cover the waterfront. Be choosy. Rather than send out releases en masse, target individuals drawn from your research. These are contacts that you can tell will be especially interested in the story. Use your gut. Think about the story you’re reading—is that reporter interested in you or your product? Or even in some offbeat fact or tangent that you can then tie in to your product?

The strategy of doing your homework is worthwhile because effective matchmaking works. As a source, you must have valid, newsworthy information, or you shouldn’t waste a reporter’s time. However, you must always remember that newsworthiness is indubitably subjective. A story that’s interesting to a reporter at Fortune may not be fascinating to the editorial staff at The Economist, and vice versa. Something that’s perfect for your home paper might be bad news, so to speak, for the local bureau of a national magazine. That whole idea of showering releases (even source filing information) on journalists everywhere, without taking the time to think about what that person writes about and how your story will help him, will get you in trouble—every time. So always be judicious about whom you contact. Think.

Targeting the right journalists with whom to source file yourself isn’t as enormous a task as it might appear. Most media relations professionals spend a lot of time creating contact lists, because it’s common wisdom that this is the best way to target the media. While lists can be a good idea for other approaches, with source filing, it’s usually best to do your homework with the newspaper at your side. The Internet is your secondary companion here, because once you’ve found a likely prospect in the newspaper, you can always use the Internet to check the stories a reporter has done in the past, as well as read the entire text of his articles. And then you will know for sure if that reporter is yours for the taking.

Let’s look at a few examples of how the right context can really make things happen for you, media-wise. We know a modern dancer who had become a choreographer. She was starting her own dance company, which takes chutzpah even in an economic upturn. Martha wanted a critic at the New York Times to get to know her and the newfangled dance turns she was creating. But Martha was sure this was unacceptable behavior—until we cajoled her into phoning. It turned out the critic she was enamored with had a real interest in the type of work she was doing.

She got press—not for the show she was working on at the time, but the next one. The idea here was Martha got “in” with her favorite critic, with one cup of coffee that paid off in spades later.

In the winter of 2002, one of the best media consultants and speech trainers we know, named Ginny Pulos, was suffering through the horrors of a no-business period. We tried to get her to talk about her experiences working with high-level CEOs for, among others, Chief Executive magazine—that is, to source file her own fabulous work. We wanted her to talk with CE about her work with CEOs. She was someone who could teach a chief executive to have real confidence about public speaking. And few did it with as much verve and aplomb as she, or so her fans thought.

But Ginny said she found it difficult, if not downright impossible, to ask the CEOs to reveal that she was indeed helping them with such leadership goals. To which we responded, “Find someone who’ll talk on the record. This is what you need to do! When you want PR, contact your own clients and call in a favor. Plus, you’re giving them their own shot at publicity in a national magazine.” She took our advice and was eventually featured in a magazine that wanted to see how she did that voodoo that she did so well (here’s to you, Cole Porter).

With Buzz Abuzz, Somebody’s Bound to Get Stung

Solution(s), robust, turnkey, interactive, best of breed, scalable, next-generation, Web-enabled, seamless, end-to-end.

What do all these words have in common? They have no meaning outside of the culture (culcha) of hype. They’re all part of a list of “buzzwords and phrases we could do without,” according to the people at www.buzzkiller.net. The Buzz Saw, as it’s known, is a website on a mission to educate all English-speaking people about these nonwords in an attempt to create a grassroots revolution against them.

Caroline Waxler, a journalist and cofounder of the site, explains where these words were born. “Our whole language has become much more casual. We’ve started to sum down* everything to one word— e-this, i-that.” The idea behind using jargon, she continued, “is that you use big words to connote a certain authority and expertise. People want to appear cutting edge. If they use these ‘cutting edge’ words, a reporter who doesn’t know the term may get intrigued.”

And that’s where a beginner in PR will trip up, every time. Good PR people are precise. Much of the friction between PR pros and journalists comes from the indiscriminate, mass pitching that less experienced or less enlightened professionals disseminate. Throw buzzwords in, and the problem doubles or triples. When you’re contacting journalists and trying to cultivate relationships with them, you have to talk like real people, and you have to talk fast because they are busy (aren’t we all?).

Final word on the horrible habit of using cruddy, meaningless phrases, words, and coinages: It’s a war without frontiers out there, and the boundaries begin with you. Therefore, before you source file yourself or pitch a story to a reporter, producer, or anyone else in the media, rout out the jargon first. You’ll get the best results by using honest, plain English. It’s your language; don’t bastardize it.

*Let’s remember that journalists aren’t immune to this plague, either.

Here she was, keeping the connections with media going during lean times. See, at the time, she had nothing to say, as it were, that was newsworthy or even topical … but she found a way to get into a reporter’s file expediently. As anyone who’s been around can tell you, during highly profitable times you don’t ask your clients to help you with stories: Why would you risk it or waste the time? It’s during the tough times that you ask the favors. People at the top have been doing it for years. This is part of the reason why they’re there.

Source filing is like a time-delayed pitch. You are the expert, and the media needs to know you. You can always call a reporter later with a news angle for a time-sensitive story, but they aren’t going to call you unless they know you. And knowing you and what you can do for their story is what it’s all about.