The Scottish media landscape is like a village – it’s small, everyone knows each other and gossip is rife.
Through media training at Pink Elephant, we’ll give you the tools to become an expert in navigating the land.
You will become a tour guide, just like we are.
You’ll be pointing out differences between treacherous paths and long winding peaceful routes.
Here are five top tips for building long-lasting relationships with journalists:
1. Only contact reputable journalists
Contacting reputable journalists protects your message and maximises impact through established journalistic standards.
It ensures for high credibility, accurate public reach, and ethical handling of sensitive information.
Use of rigorous fact-checking and editorial guidelines means your story will gain instant legitimacy.
2. When sending out a press release, get to the point
You need to get to the point at the TOP of your press release.
Every newsroom is filled with busy journalists who’ve got an ongoing list of deadlines.
From breaking news to ever-changing stories, the headlines are what we look for.
Think about the five most important questions:
Who?
What?
Where?
Why?
When?
It’s the answers to these questions any journalist will look for first. Answering a minimum of three of these five questions will have you formulating a “topline” which will stop a journalist in their tracks.
3. Be responsive and respect deadlines
This ties in with the second point – journalists are busy and deeply appreciate those who are responsive to communications.
Your press release can be about a miraculous life-saving medicine, but if you aren’t responsive when the journalist reaches out to you, the great thing you’ve done will be left out of the broadcast.
Similarly, deadlines in a newsroom are set to maintain industry competitiveness and satisfy audience demands for timely information. You must respect those deadlines when building relationships with the media.
4. Pitch relevant stories (paint a picture with the voices you provide)
The relevance of a story is absolutely crucial to a journalist – relevance increases by the simplicity of the language and the voices available to help paint the picture through example.
This is of particular importance if you send a press release to a journalist.
Case studies without the ability to paint the picture through examples fall to the wayside.
5. Avoid the Pink Elephant
The Pink Elephant is an avoidance of negative language.
Every time you tell somebody what isn’t happening, you misrepresent yourself. Eradicating the Pink Elephant is telling people what you have done, are doing, and will do.
It’s the difference between clear, engaging communication and clunky, jargon-heavy communication.
Media training Scotland: 5 tips to build relationships with journalists
Wondering how we can help your company with media training in Scotland?
Get in touch today to find out more.
Photos in Media training Scotland: 5 tips to build relationships with journalists by Pink Elephant Communications.
Media training Scotland: 5 tips to build relationships with journalists was edited by Maxine Montgomery and written by Pink Elephant Communications.
