Get Past The Black Knight.

If you think your audience is your market segment, your customers, your potential customers, and those who may be persuaded to be your customers then you're wrong.

When it comes to media engagement and press relations your audience is a journalist.

Forget about getting your PR to your target, it won't happen unless you can get past the journalist. Journalists are the gate keepers; they stand on the bridge, sword in hand, saying "None shall pass." You can fight with them if you want, but you'll never win, they'll just keep standing there.

So what do you do?

1) Think Like A Journalist - What is their audience and what is the best way to engage with them?

2) Play The Long Game - Offer content that can move a recurring the story on, add to the debate, or give a starting point to a new strand of content.

3) Be Realistic - If it's just a commercial 'puff' expect to be knocked back or asked to pay for coverage.

4) Use Their Voice - Approach your media outlet with something that sounds like them. You wouldn't send a 'Sun' style pitch to the 'Independent' News room (and vice versa); even if they can see the story they'll be nervous about using something that won't sit well with their audience.

5) Be A Consumer - Journalists love to be read, watched, and listened to. Make a point of consuming the media you want to target so you can link it in to what that journalist may have already published.

Now you can get past the Black Knight, or at least give him a scratch...

Well, Raise My Awareness...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a charity, in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of awareness raising.

I'd like to apologise to Jane Austin for that, there really was no good reason for me to savage that quote...

Well, there was...

Because anything to sugar coat the next bit of information is good.

If you work for, in or around a charity in any territory you want to raise awareness, and any journalist working in any territory couldn't care less.

Seriously, there are small patches of mildew on a face cloth, in a bathroom on the outskirts of Baku, that hold more interest for the average journalist involved in daily news media. Each and every one of them could programme a radio station or fill a newspaper with the stories from charities that want to raise awareness... and no one would care.

The big problem is this is what a charity is for; to raise awareness of their chosen cause. It's built into the organisational blue print of 'Charity'.

So how do you get round this?

You supply content, you supply comment of current issues, you supply heart breaking stories, you supply NEWS.

The fact that you're trying to 'raise awareness' is the last thing you should say.

THE NEW JDOUBLER MEDIA ENGAGEMENT SEMINAR IS BOOKING NOW 3RD DECEMBER '13 IN LEICESTER JUST OFF THE M1

Prepare For Christmas.

2 things would fill me with dread when working for the BBC. One of them was Children In Need (I've never been a fan of forced jollity and news readers dancing).

The other was Christmas.

OK I now realise that I sound like an anti-fun stereotype. I do like Christmas, I've even warmed to tinsel and I want you to know that my home will become a grotto of delight for my 2 children. However, Christmas as a journalist is hell.

NOTHING.... EVER.... HAPPENS...

So why am I telling you this?

In the daily news media there are journalists, managers and producers up and down the land who are starting to prepare for the fallow period between Christmas and the New Year; they may only have it in their mind as a job that needs doing at this stage... and it's a job they all hate.

As a canny PR organisation, or as a PR working within an organisation, this is the time to think of how you can help those poor journalists with content.

Good content.

If you're thinking of things to do try along these lines (they are always the ones that get a look in at Christmas); Volunteering, working across the festive period, food waste, alternative presents, children, the armed forces / emergency services, animals and the awful things that happen to them and money. All of these will be trotted out every year without fail.

If you can dip your toe into any of these, provide case studies, no too many commercial mentions and access for a reporter to get it all pre recorded before Christmas week, start dangling it in front of them now. There will be journalists all over the UK who'll be so proud they have something to mention at the Christmas planning meeting in a months time.

Imagine their bright little face on that (nowhere near) Christmas morning when they open that big press release to find it's what every journalist asks Santa for... an easy life.

It's the gift that keeps giving.

THE NEW JDOUBLER MEDIA ENGAGEMENT SEMINAR IS BOOKING NOW 3RD DECEMBER '13 IN LEICESTER JUST OFF THE M1

We Can't Afford Pensions.

This morning (1/11/13) The Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 was discussing a planned strike by Fire-fighters in England and Wales. It's a dispute over pensions.

As soon as pensions were mentioned I snorted and thought "well, no one can afford pensions these days...". Then I took a moment and realised that I'd been sucked into one of the great financial narratives of recent times.

No one can afford pensions....

Organisations across the country are changing their pension plans due to "short falls" or in other words "we trusted our investments would work, but they didn't" and employee after employee has seen the value of their plan fall.

When I was in the BBC I saw my final salary scheme come to an end, and I accepted it...

The problem is... This isn't a story about pension deficit this is a story about pension entitlement and redundancy, but it fits so neatly into the default narrative of pension black holes.

I immediately wrote it off as another organisation stung by the financial down turn moaning about bad investments that the financial world said would be fine and then were ruined by another group of financial experts. You know, the old story.

Default Narrative is hugely powerful, it informs out gut reactions to complex stories, it makes us see stories from the wrong angle, with the wrong colour, and the wrong shape. When we remove our default, (like getting the person seated in front of us at the theatre to remove their comedy oversized 'My Fair Lady' hat) we can see the whole story and not just the bits that press our buttons.

Default Narrative - The basics.

Default Narrative - The basics in one handy video. follow me @johnrockley

Surveying the figures.

This isn't the first time that I've blogged about 'polls'... they make me a little bit cross; polls rarely produce robust figures that can be made into robust news stories.

The latest poll has been carried out by the BBC.

I'm not concerned by the reported findings, I'm not concerned by the political comment, I am concerned by the use of the poll to create news.

Why am I so troubled?

FIRSTLY - 1032 people were polled; this equates to 0.0016% of the UK population, or 0.002% of the adult population. If I showed you 0.002% of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel you'd think that Michaelangelo had an unhealthy nipple obsession (dependant on which 0.002% you looked at)

SECONDLY - ICM conducted the poll over the telephone. People who respond to telephone polls are the sort of people who respond to telephone polls. The background drivers for their reasons to talk on the phone with a polling organisation are many and varied; they want to be heard, no one has ever phoned them, they have nothing better to do, they are bored of writing angry letters to the Daily Mail... many reasons.

THIRDLY - The results are used to fuel a wider narrative; in this case they flip the default (which all journalists love doing) and give a better view of cuts to public services than previously reported.

FINALLY - I have too much time on my hands.

When polls are reported in a news context it makes me sad, because I know the pressures journalists and producers are under, I know what it's like to have to report the same basic story day after day after day... for years on end, I know what it's like sitting in a production meeting trying to work out how the hell you're going to make the story interesting again.

Polls are not the answer... and 100% of people surveyed agree with me*.

*survey sample of 1.

Interview Of The Week

listen to ‘Winifred Vs. Tesco Pt1’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Winifred Robinson Vs. Tesco Pt2’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Winifred Robinson Vs. Tesco Pt3’ on Audioboo

I am rapidly becoming Winifred Robinsons biggest fan.

Which is odd, as I really don't like the programme that she works on. "You and Yours" used to be half an hour every week, then it became an hour a day of 'consumer' radio, or in other words people moaning about stuff...

Not my thing at all, and then I started driving more during the programme and found that I'd listen if Winifred was there.

Why?

Because she is a very, very good interviewer.

Which is a problem if you happen to be George Gordon from Tesco.

We begin from a position of dissonance; Tesco wants to flag up social good while Winifred wants to make the point that during all of the coverage of consumer complaints and bad practice in the supermarket industry, Tesco are never available for comment.

It doesn't get much better for Tesco. Through the interview George tries to show what the company are doing to cut food waste and Winifred accuses them of causing the food waste in the first place with B.O.G.O.F. deals on food.

So what should you take from this as a business.

1) Be Familiar - if you expect good coverage when you want it, engage with bad coverage when you don't. By refusing to respond when the journalists come to you they stop trusting you.

2) Ask What Is The Story? - To Tesco the story is that they are being cuddly and responsible, to The You And Yours listeners the story is that a giant company many of them HAVE to deal with are chiding them for something that isn't their fault. Before appearing ask what the story is from the point of view of the audience.

3) Be Prepared - George Gordon from Tesco seems to think that Winifred Robinson is a wet behind the ears ingénue. She isn't, she's one of the best broadcast interviewers out there and any press office setting this interview up should have been listening to that programme for weeks before approaching them with this initiative.

4) Make It Good - The people behind this story don't seem to have figured out the major flaw. Tesco encourages customers to cut food waste, whilst pushing customers to buy more food as it's often cheaper to buy bulk in Tescos' Shops, blaming customers for wasting half of what they are forced to buy... Yeh, that reads well doesn't it.

Sugar, Coke, Health & Business.

 
Photo Credit: RєRє via Compfight cc

On the 9th of May James Quincey the President of Coca-Cola Europe appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme 'PM'. He was interviewed by regular presenter Eddie Mair. The interview is available here...

listen to ‘PM Programme Coke Interview pt1’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘PM Programme Coke Interview pt2’ on Audioboo

I think that this is a great example of a large organisation doing something to break their 'default narrative' which simply reinforces their 'default narrative'...

The Coke default narrative in this case is...
"Coke is full of sugar and sugar makes us fat"

The result of Coke getting involved in anti obesity campaigns (and involved in this interview) changes the narrative to...
"We know Coke is full of sugar, but we're not going to admit that it contributes to obesity; by the way here are our anti obesity measures, which we're taking EVEN THOUGH Coke doesn't contribute to that obesity" 

We're left with a modified default that portrays the organisation in an even worse light...
"Coke is full of sugar, sugar makes us fat, and The Coca-Cola Corporation doesn't care."

As the interview progresses Mr Quincey states that people 'struggle to balance what goes in and what goes out... [low calorie and sugar free options] allow people to get the balance right.' Or in other words 'sorry fatty, you're too stupid to drink our drinks so we're going to offer you something else, because you've been struggling".

From the moment Mr Quincey enters the studio he has been stitched up like a kipper.

Coke is part of our collective food based cognitive dissonance. It's bad but we like to have it and we're not sure about the morality of the manufacturers. By approaching this dissonance the organisation attempts to mitigate its responsibility and (some would say) liability; they are doing good things so the problems are the consumers fault. It's not guns that kill people it's people that kill people... It's not coke that makes you fat it's YOU that makes YOU fat; you shouldn't blame the manufacturers of the tools.

Engaging the media on your core difficulty will often end badly.

When engaging someone as skilled as Eddie Mair it will end very badly.

He's prepared with multiple studies, he's prepared with the killer questions, he's prepared with 9 sugar cubes.

The challenge to eat 9 sugar cubes is a classic ploy, in this case it's the "would you feed this to your children?" question. It's side stepped and then returned to, it's the question that won't go away.

So, where does this leave an organisation that has an elephant in their room? (in this case it was a tasty sugary elephant... mmmm sugar elephant)

Weigh up the reputational risk between doing something and doing nothing. Doing nothing allows the default narrative to continue, you can acknowledge it, you can even monitor it, but it's unlikely to change rapidly without other circumstances coming into play. If you find there is a sector story you're dragged in to you need to reassess your default in that light.

Doing something attempts to change the default for the better, but the influential (in the UK) PM Programme is not the place to do it. What was the Coke Comms team thinking? Mr Quincey walked into the lions den and got delicately mauled. The key A + B demographic who hang on Eddie Mair's every word will have been delighted by the result and suddenly opinion formers are looking at the Coke initiatives and branding them 'fat wash'.

Do something you can make it worse, do nothing and it can get worse all by itself...

Which will you choose?


FYI Diabetes UK have covered sugary drinks and type 2 diabetes in this article regardless of what Mr Quincey may have said.

3 Things PRs Needs To Know.

I was a Senior Journalist, a programme producer, a presenter, and a manager during my 16 year career in the Broadcasting industry. Through that time I identified the 3 things that PR Professionals either don't know or were told years ago and have forgotten.

They are simple, and here they are...

1) JOURNALISTS HATE YOU.

There, I've said it. Every single press release that appears in the inbox tarnishes the soul of the person receiving it and there's nothing that you can do to change it.

It's all to do with the volume going into any reasonably sized news room. The quality threshold for you sending it will be high, their quality threshold for actually doing anything will be far higher; it's a question of scale.

So how do you attempt to get round this, either raise your standards (well that's quantifiable and easily achievable) or you don't send press releases... erm, what?

How about, and this is a break from the norm, that you call your contacts and ask them when the best time to call is, engage them in a conversation that benefits both of you. You may have been sending things to the wrong person for years; I wouldn't deal with companies that called whilst I was on air, if they couldn't work out that I was unavailable between 9 and 12 due to being on the radio then they couldn't have anything that would interest me.

The other reason why Journalists don't like PR Professionals is the memory of the day when they encountered a bad one...

A demanding one...

A 'we're doing you a favour, sunshine' one...

Here's a couple of my favourites...

1) During an interview with Raymond Blanc (he was in a studio elsewhere) he broke off half way through an answer he was giving and said, "oh, I'm sorry I've just been told to let you talk more". I had made no effort to interrupt him, I was delighted how the interview was going and transfixed by his passion, but the PR with him in the studio had decided that he needed to talk less. I replied that the listeners could hear me any day and that I was facinated by what he was saying. The PR in the studio had made me cross and added to my work; I'd have to edit the middle of the interview out.

2) We had been trying to secure an interview with Richard Hammond for months. His PR department were saying 'yes', then 'no' then 'we'll get back to you' I was on-air when the call came through that Richard could do a 5 minute phone interview in the next 10 minutes if we still wanted it and that was the final offer. We said yes, and I started plugging it like mad, telling everyone that we'd have him in 10 minutes. They had insisted that they would call us. Half an hour later we got the call. 'You only have 5 minutes, Richard will bring the interview to an end, don't ask about the crash, he doesn't talk about that any more'. 20 Minutes later we were still going, he'd spoken about everything he wanted to, everything that we wanted to and lots of stuff in-between. The PR had, again, got us all a bit cross.

OK, so these aren't huge problems and I'm being a moaning Presenter, but they make you wary of dealing with the PR industry. Instead of helping the journalist and alowing the media to have an adult conversation about what we want compared to what is offered journalists are treated like irrational hyperactive children who can't be trusted. The vast majority of journalists aren't there to cause problems or try to uncover scandal they just want to do their job and go home.

2) JOURNALISTS JUST WANT TO DO THEIR JOB AND GO HOME

Journalism is a job, it's not a calling or passion, it's a job. In the early days it may start out as something that really drives a young reporter but by the time you've interviewed the 'Local Woman 100 Years Young Today' and found out from the couple 'Married For 60 Years' that the to a happy marriage secret is not stabbing each other in the throat, it all becomes a bit samey.

A news/broadcasting organisation is like a factory. They produce a product made by people with impossible deadlines and angry bosses. They have to hit their targets otherwise the paper is thin or the TV has to go to the test card. They don't want to catch you out, they don't want to make a big song and dance about it, they just want to get the content and go home before it all starts again in the morning.

However... (and there is always an 'However') That doesn't mean that if you try to fob them off they wont bite. Journalists don't like to be given half a story, they can smell a 'real' story like a big lad can smell a Greggs, and there is no stopping them if they catch a whiff. They all like to get the stories that seem hidden, so be honest with them and they will leave satisfied, all full of tasty tasty news.... Sorry I'm still thinking about Greggs.

3) JOURNALISTS LIKE AN EASY LIFE

For about 8 years I put together a market leading Mid Morning Programme. We were 60/40 speech/music so there had to be around 3 stories an hour along side the things that I had to do like News, Travel, Weather etc. For 6 of those years it was me and an assistant that did the whole thing. 2 people making 15 hours of radio a week and within that finding 45 stories a week. Some of those we could get from other members of the news room, but the vast majority were self produced, recorded and edited. So when we were presented with a story that was an 'easy hit' we'd jump on it. It simply meant that we could then use our remaining time to concentrate on the more difficult content.

When I say 'easy hit' I'm not talking about Christine Hamilton talking about British Sausage Week, because no one in their right mind would ever use that (lots of people did I'm sad to say).

The 'easy hit' needs to be pitched correctly. You can't just hand it on a plate as most journalists will just see it as a 'puff piece'. If I were pitching I'd get into a conversation about how I could help it to happen. The Journalist would give the parameters and I'd offer the plan and meet somewhere in the middle. It's content that's interesting enough and it's content that requires little leg work for the journalist.

I did a course a little while ago and one of the delegates said that they do all that, just run around making journalists lives as easy as possible but they weren't taking the stories. Nothing will help if the story is wrong... not wrong for you, but wrong for them.

How do you make it right?

That's for another blog...

Silly Season Vlog.

To celebrate the start of The Silly Season, here's another vlog from the face of JDoubleR, and in case you were wondering the Season officially starts on the 17th of July this year.

Another vlog from the face of JDoubleR

What does it look like?

The Leveson enquiry juggernaut moves on and on and on, yesterday it left the crumpled injured body of Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt in its tracks. Thankfully he's being given political first aid, including support from the PM.

I thought that there was another injured party; David Cameron himself. He was, however, only clipped by a wing mirror.

James Murdoch talked briefly about a Christmas party at Rebekah Brooks house. He and the PM were there. At the time Brooks was the chief executive of news international and James Murdoch was Chair of News Group Newspapers. Both of them were hugely important figures in the media industry. The party happened 2 days after the Secretary Of State For Business (and other stuff) had his responsibilities for the News Corp BSkyB takeover stripped... The company that both Brooks and Murdoch worked for.

I honestly don't care what went on at that party.

I really don't.

It was probably just a party.

I am hugely concerned that the PM's team isn't asking a really important PR question.

"WHAT DOES THIS LOOK LIKE?"

When working for the BBC I made a number of decisions that had "What does this look like?" at their heart. When invited to events I was the BBC not me; I didn't go to certain events and I didn't get too close to certain issues (usually political) if I thought that there would be questions asked of my journalistic impartiality.

David, seriously, What does this look like?

"Make Sure She Cries!"

I clearly remember the day that I was leaving to talk to a family who had lost their father and husband to a terrifyingly fast form of Motor Neurone Disease. She was trying to raise money for the charity 'Winstons Wish' who had helped her and her children through the most awful time that a family can imagine.

I picked up my recording device, put my branded "I'm official" jacket on and was about to walk out of the news room when I heard my co-producer shout "Make sure she cries!".

Harsh, but fair.

Emotion sells, emotion fixes memory, emotion keeps you listening in the car with your shopping in the boot and the ice cream melting.

Emotion makes a human connection.

You need to ask yourself 5 questions to get the emotion into your press engagement.

1) What is the story?
Repeat it to yourself as you peel back the layers from your press release. What is the story? What is the story? The story is never what you first think it is because we are always asked to deal with the functional not the emotional.

2) Why should I care?
Not why should you... put yourself into the position of your audience and ask yourself "Why should I care?" "because" isn't an answer. This isn't a question of functionality this is a question of an emotional response. "Care" is not the same as "interested".

3) Where are the people?
It's not about things it's about people. You need to find the people. Are they the consumers, the producers the stake holders? What has their input been, how do they feel about it?

4) Should I tell the story?
Why are you writing about this? You may have never been involved or even care about what you're trying to get out there; so get the people that DO care to write it. Interview them, get their words, not a corporate quote but their story behind the story that you're pitching. If you're a charity or not for profit, get the case study out. The power of the normal person who has been affected (good or bad) telling their story in their own words should not be underestimated. It takes away the filter of PR and gets the audience closer to the action.

5) Should I make them cry?
Don't try. The journalists and the audience will see through you if you try, but if that is your genuine response then it will without a crude manipulation.


For more on "Journalist Whispering" Join the seminar.

£55 per person including VAT (£44 excluding)
09.30 - 12.30, Thursday the 15th of March.
Gloucestershire Enterprise Training Centre, Twigworth Court Business Centre, Twigworth. GL2 9PG

Email for more detail via info@jdoubler.co.uk

Expert Help for Small Business

There are some things that small businesses need to do... and they do them, and there are some things that small businesses need to do but they don't. Often it's because they fall outside the field of experience, some times it's just the feeling that, well, it's all a bit difficult and scary.

PR is one of these things. There are hundreds of businesses that are watching competitors grow because they have been in the paper, they were on the radio or there was that bit about [insert business your type here] and they interviewed [insert name of your competitor here] on the 6 o'clock news. How did they get there?

There are ways that any business, big or small can get into the conventional media.

1) Know how journalists think.
Journalism is a miss-understood profession. The things that drive journalists are far simpler than the search for exclusives and exposes.

2) Know how Journalists work.
Disappointingly they don't all rush into news rooms with their trilby's on their heads shouting 'Hold the front page'.

3) Know how to take advantage of Journalists.
No, not like that...

4) Know where the sweet spot is.

This is something that I've realised over my 16 years of being in news rooms. There is a sweet spot for journalists and it all revolves around the idea of Effort going into a story, the Quality of the final story and the overall Feedback once that story has been published. Journalists may say that they are in it to tell the truth, but one of thier drivers is the praise that they get... like anyone else really.

So the best story for everyone is the one that takes all their effort becomes a great quality story that gets lots of praise; that is DIFFICULT, so let's put that to one side.

For the Journalist the PERFECT story is one that is great quality that gets praise and awards but takes little or no effort. I've witnessed a few of those in my time and it's brilliant for an organisation to achieve that. It is, however almost impossible to engineer that without the journalist pulling the plug with a sense of 'too good to be true... so it isn't'.

The everyday REALITY of journalistic life is that you really make an effort on a story, that turns out not to be as good as you thought, but you put it out anyway and no one really cares. Most of the TV, Radio, and News Paper content is stuff that was really good in the news meeting and then it became average when it came to publishing/broadcasting.

The sweet spot for most businesses sits at the end of this chart. It's the story that is HOPED FOR. It's the story that takes just enough effort for the journalist to feel happy that they have done a days work, it's good enough to be above average so the effort feels even better and it receives more positive feed back than expected (from audience, management & peers). It's a story that every business, with a little preparation can produce.

5) Get your timing right.
If what you want to say is said when they don't want to listen what's the point?

6) It's the way you tell 'em.
Frank Carson was right...

To help with all of this I'm holding a 3 hour seminar on the 15th of March at The Gloucestershire Enterprise Training Centre in Twigworth. There are a limited number of places available and we'll go through how you get great PR without writing a single press release. To book a place click here and email me, John Rockley. I'll send you more information and a booking form.

Take Advantage Of The Media (or PR without Press Releases for Small Business.)

Thursday 15th of March 2012. 9.30 to 12.30

£55 per person including VAT

Gloucestershire Enterprise Training Centre
Twigworth Court Business Centre,
Tewkesbury Road,
Twigworth,
Gloucestershire.
GL2 9PG

Brownian Motion

You finally create PR gold. You know that everyone in the world will listen to your message and your client will want to give you a great big bonus payment and possibly bear your children. You know that this is a career changer.

And then this happens...

Neil Marshall was set to see his film "The Descent" open in cinemas on the 8th of July, it was his second feature as Director and it was going to be a far bigger opening than his first cult classic "Dog Soldiers". The film is the story of cavers who get trapped underground and then... well... things happen.

I interviewed Neil Marshall after the DVD release of 'The Descent' and he spoke eloquently about the difficulties of the publicity campaign, but it no doubt shook him, and certainly took its toll on the box-office.

Why am I telling you this?

It seems that PR professionals are often guilty of having 'project blinkers' on. They get to the end of a project with a release date and a final outcome and they don't look up to see what else is happening.

In the case of the publicity for 'The Descent' there was no way of knowing that a horror film would be a bad idea on July the 8th 2005 (let alone one that was about being trapped underground) and the publicity was rapidly changed. If there was more time between event and release then I suspect the release date would have been shifted.

This example is famous and extreme, there are hundreds of messages sent out every hour that will just not work, the story is old, the agenda has moved on, something more important has rendered the message meaningless, it has suddenly become distasteful due to a change in popular opinion. If you get caught on the cusp of these changes then your perfectly pitched story idea is just going to be ignored or in certain cases serve as a warning to others.

I can't tell you how many press releases have been sent to me over the years and I've just thought 'How did this happen?' it'll be from a smaller agency that's building it's client base, they'll be pushing to get the PR out, possibly a junior member of the team has pressed the send button after a cursory glance over from a team leader and it will be out there. The hope is that they stop at me, the journalist, but they often build thier own head of steam in public. Take Quantas for example...

Quantas the Australian Airline have managed to screw their own PR with their own Bad News doing the job of many journalists in one fell swoop. The story in a nut-shell is that they break off union talks about staff conditions and contracts and then proceed to ask about Luxury on the twitter feed for a competition #Quantasluxury.

Did anyone think that may be a bad idea?? Anyone?? Seriously?? No-one?? To appear to care little for their staff and then to ask about Luxury?? The project couldn't have been stopped?? This is a great example of project blinkers coming together with The Brownian Motion of News.

Watch how news works, and watch how stories bounce off each other, how the interplay of public opinion and attitudes towards life circle round each other. Consume the media that your target consumes, become them and anticipate what the reaction will be and when to just pull the plug and rest an idea... then you'll never have to resort to PR damage limitation.

Come on then, have a go...

There are certain things that any PR professional should never resort to and certain things that journalists should never report... but they do.

Whether it's dressed up to be 'encouraging discussion' of 'sparking a lively debate' we all know what you really want to do. You want to start a great big row and place your clients PR right in the middle of it.


DON'T I beg you, don't just stop it. It's shallow, it's easy and for any newsroom (that can call itself a newsroom) yet another survey goes in the bin marked Lands End To John O'Groats.

Most of the 'surveys' that are produced for PR purposes carry the weight of argument with them. They are the like crack to the sort of journalists who just can't be bothered to find some news. Try this one for example, The Sun has got together with Migration Watch an Anti-Immigration organisation and they have produced a survey that says 80% of people questioned think that England is too crowded.

Soooo, the anti-immigration group have found that England is too crowded. Funny that...

The YouGov survey questioned 1,561 adults who are part of a self selected group who are happy to do surveys The YouGov Panel.

So what do we actually have? A right wing newspaper gets together with an Anti-Immigration (though self proclaimed 'non political') organisation. They get a little over 1,500 people (who are self selecting and the sort of people who want to fill in surveys) to see if they think that England is over crowded. Plus, It looks like 144 of those questioned were in Scotland (some others were in Wales).

Right, this will have been done to spark a great big argument.

Not a debate.

Not a conversation.

A great big stinking, running for ever and ever, argument that puts The Sun right in the middle of it... this is how it will play out...

"The survey produced by The Sun and Migration Watch found that.... to discuss the findings here's Lefty McLeaner Leader of the Open Door Party and Shouty Redface-Toff representing the Send 'Em All Back Coalition..."

And BANG all hell breaks loose.

In the mean time the PR people have dropped that campaign because it's now got it's own legs and they're looking for the next way to start a big argument; The Lazy Journalists will love it because the message boards and twitter and facebook will be full of people arguing about it and they'll feel listened to.

I'm not angry, I'm disappointed.

Disappointed in the PR industry, disappointed in Journalists, disappointed in the world for not asking 'Who are the people who get surveyed, because I'm not one of them'.

What's the answer? I don't know. As long as we have lazy PR spinning a survey for their clients needs, Clients who are happy to put their names to it, and credulous and complicit journalists happy to report any old survey because it makes good copy then we'll never get to the point that we can believe any of them.

The Perfect Spokesperson

A heavy handed visual metaphor.

A few years ago I attended a short course in the basics of Executive Coaching. Executive Coaching the wonderful skill of allowing someone to think their own way out of a problem by gently nudging their thought process. A skilled executive coach is a wonder to behold, it's like a benign Derron Brown only without the scary eyes.


One of the classic coaching questions that's broken out from the coaching world is "so, what would that look like?" You say that you need a project to be a success and the response is "so, what would success look like?". In  content production you want to work with perfect PR's... So, what would the perfect PR look like?

AVAILABLE
There are a lot of people who think that they're available simply because they've given their mobile number to a couple of journalists; you need to do more than that. Think about calling your contacts when you hear a news story that your clients or organisation can "piggy-back", or in other words be available before they know that they need you.

RELIABLE
Not a simple case of keeping to appointments... You need to be able to offer the same quality and depth of knowledge from case to case. The journalist needs to think, "I know we'll get **** to comment, they're always good".

It's important that you're honest with yourself that if you're NOT the right person to comment that you tell them. They'll appreciate the honesty and you won't embarrass either of you by trying to do something that's beyond you.

Do you have an 'on-air' persona that works in all situations? If you're multi-faceted rather than "serious problem / jolly human interest" spokes person you'll fit in to most scenarios. Start by offering a range of stories that show you in all lights. Journalists like having a 'Go to' person, it just makes life easier for them, and if you are good content then they'll call and call again.


QUOTABLE
If you have the instant facility to turn a phrase, then you're in the lucky minority. Most of us have to work on those quote moments.

You want to be in the news clip, you want to be the headline, you want to be in the trailer.

The classic advice of going in to an interview with 3 things to say holds with this, but your ultimate goal isn't just to get the information out it's to get your information used for the rest of the day. In a radio breakfast show you have hundreds of people joining and leaving all the time (and it's a radio truism that most people miss most of what is said most of the time). Aim to get your clip used in the news bulletin, you'll massively extend your listener-ship. How do you do it? Try being controversial, moving the issue on, taking the story to the next step, or simply by saying to the producer as you leave / thanked after a phone interview "anything worth clipping for the news?".

It would be remiss of me to suggest that there's a sure fire way of getting on the news. It depends on so many factors, but as long as you can be bright enough and shiny enough you'll stand a good chance.

So to be the person that they call when they need a spokesperson...


BE AVAILABLE, BE RELIABLE, BE QUOTABLE.

The best way to be ignored by the media.

Every news room has a heart sink story, the one that keeps coming and coming like a great tsunami of rubbish news. These aren't just bad stories but they are uninspiring, dull and so hackneyed that no newsroom worth thier salt would even bother reading to the end of the press release. The difficulty is the stories are generally the ones that raise charities a lot of money.

Someone is going from somewhere to somewhere to raise money.

I could (and possibly should) set up a whole radio station that only covers people walking, hopping, skiing, flouncing, trotting, galloping, driving, riding from somewhere to somewhere to raise money for charity.

Every day it seems that hundreds of thousands of people go from Lands End to John O Groats, with their buckets and their sponsorship forms. I honestly think that there must be a slow moving queue running the length of the country.

No one cares any more.

It's very important to the people taking part but the average media consumer couldn't give a flying monkeys and the average journalist has covered the story so often that there is a possibility of developing stress related Tourettes and screaming obscenities at all concerned.

The newer version is driving an hilariously bad car to the armpit of the world and then giving it to the locals. There's an underdeveloped country somewhere filled with Austin Allegros and a very angry population "this car has a square steering wheel... lets start an insurgency!"

It's no longer new, interesting or funny.

Since news reporting began there has been the "journey for charity". In those days it may have been visiting the next door village to help them with their gene pool, these days it's riding a yak to Barcelona to help with IBS. It has all been done. However it's something that helps raise money, it's easy to organise and there is a slight possibility that a local free paper may pop a photo on page 18, so if you want to do it go for it, just don't expect the media to care.

So how do you pitch it to get featured? Well, this is where a little bit of story telling comes in. You don't explicitly pitch the event, you pitch what people actually care about and that's a story with emotional weight.

Let's try this on you...

A few years back I met Pete.

Pete and I were talking about mental health issues (it was world mental health day) and he told me about the day that he started hearing voices.

He was standing in his back yard; he'd been building a rabbit hutch for his kids pet and as he got up he felt a bit wrong, just unwell, he thought that he'd got up too fast but a voice in his head, a clear, distinct, voice in his head told him to go to the Dr.

He'd heard voices before but never this clearly and never this urgently.

He went to his Dr. and found that he had a kidney infection that was quite serious but could be cleared up, and from then on the voice in Pete's head stayed with him. It encouraged him to go to bed if he was a bit tired, reminded him of important appointments, it became his friend and he called it Ralph.

He never told anyone about it, and everything was fine.

He heard a voice called Ralph and everything was fine.

Then, one day another voice joined Ralph, only this voice wasn't kind. This voice was a little mean. It was the voice that told him that he wasn't any good, it was the voice that told him he'd never amount to much. Luckily though this voice only ever spoke to him when he was tired, or stressed, or off kilter.

Pete's life changed when he was driving home late.

He'd worked a long shift, and he was tired. Ralph had tried to get him through the day but this other unnamed voice kept pushing Ralph away. As Pete drove home the unnamed voice shouted in his head that he should go home, get a knife and kill his family.

He stopped the car.

Got out.

Threw up.

Drove home.

And told his wife of 10 years that he'd been hearing voices and they had told him to kill them all.

The next few weeks were a blur. He was placed into the mental health system and in the way of these things, he became a set of symptoms waiting to be sorted. He saw psychiatrists and councillors and doctors all trying to work out the best way to treat him... and all the time Ralph and the unnamed voice were fighting in his head for control  almost fighting for his soul.

Slowly the correct drug regime was found and the psychiatry started working and Pete began to get well again.

This is when he looked at me full in the face, he had tears in his eyes and his voice was cracking and he said to me "you know the worst thing? The drugs made me better... but they took away my best friend... they took away Ralph."

If I now tell you that I'm doing a sponsored walk. What are you going to do?

You could go here and show your support.

3 Things Everyone Needs To Know About Journalists.

I was a Senior Journalist, a programme producer, a presenter, and a manager during my 16 year career in the Broadcasting industry. Through that time I identified the 3 things that PR Professionals either don't know or were told years ago and have forgotten.

They are simple, and here they are...

JOURNALISTS HATE YOU.

There, I've said it. Every single press release that appears in the inbox tarnishes the soul of the person receiving it and there's nothing that you can do to change it.

It's all to do with the volume going into any reasonably sized news room. The quality threshold for you sending it will be high, their quality threshold for actually doing anything will be far higher; it's a question of scale.

So how do you attempt to get round this, either raise your standards (well that's quantifiable and easily achievable) or you don't send press releases... erm, what?

How about, and this is a break from the norm, that you call your contacts and ask them when the best time to call is, engage them in a conversation that benefits both of you. You may have been sending things to the wrong person for years; I wouldn't deal with companies that called whilst I was on air, if they couldn't work out that I was unavailable between 9 and 12 due to being on the radio then they couldn't have anything that would interest me.

The other reason why Journalists don't like PR Professionals is the memory of the day when they encountered a bad one...

A demanding one...

A 'we're doing you a favour, sunshine' one...

Here's a couple of my favourites...

1) During an interview with Raymond Blanc (he was in a studio elsewhere) he broke off half way through an answer he was giving and said, "oh, I'm sorry I've just been told to let you talk more". I had made no effort to interrupt him, I was delighted how the interview was going and transfixed by his passion, but the PR with him in the studio had decided that he needed to talk less. I replied that the listeners could hear me any day and that I was facinated by what he was saying. The PR in the studio had made me cross and added to my work; I'd have to edit the middle of the interview out.

2) We had been trying to secure an interview with Richard Hammond for months. His PR department were saying 'yes', then 'no' then 'we'll get back to you' I was on-air when the call came through that Richard could do a 5 minute phone interview in the next 10 minutes if we still wanted it and that was the final offer. We said yes, and I started plugging it like mad, telling everyone that we'd have him in 10 minutes. They had insisted that they would call us. Half an hour later we got the call. 'You only have 5 minutes, Richard will bring the interview to an end, don't ask about the crash, he doesn't talk about that any more'. 20 Minutes later we were still going, he'd spoken about everything he wanted to, everything that we wanted to and lots of stuff in-between. The PR had, again, got us all a bit cross.

OK, so these aren't huge problems and I'm being a moaning Presenter, but they make you wary of dealing with the PR industry. Instead of helping the journalist and alowing the media to have an adult conversation about what we want compared to what is offered journalists are treated like irrational hyperactive children who can't be trusted. The vast majority of journalists aren't there to cause problems or try to uncover scandal they just want to do their job and go home.

JOURNALISTS JUST WANT TO DO THEIR JOB AND GO HOME

Journalism is a job, it's not a calling or passion, it's a job. In the early days it may start out as something that really drives a young reporter but by the time you've interviewed the 'Local Woman 100 Years Young Today' and found out from the couple 'Married For 60 Years' that the to a happy marriage secret is not stabbing each other in the throat, it all becomes a bit samey.

A news/broadcasting organisation is like a factory. They produce a product made by people with impossible deadlines and angry bosses. They have to hit their targets otherwise the paper is thin or the TV has to go to the test card. They don't want to catch you out, they don't want to make a big song and dance about it, they just want to get the content and go home before it all starts again in the morning.

However... (and there is always an 'However') That doesn't mean that if you try to fob them off they wont bite. Journalists don't like to be given half a story, they can smell a 'real' story like a big lad can smell a Greggs, and there is no stopping them if they catch a whiff. They all like to get the stories that seem hidden, so be honest with them and they will leave satisfied, all full of tasty tasty news.... Sorry I'm still thinking about Greggs.

JOURNALISTS LIKE AN EASY LIFE

For about 8 years I put together a market leading Mid Morning Programme. We were 60/40 speech/music so there had to be around 3 stories an hour along side the things that I had to do like News, Travel, Weather etc. For 6 of those years it was me and an assistant that did the whole thing. 2 people making 15 hours of radio a week and within that finding 45 stories a week. Some of those we could get from other members of the news room, but the vast majority were self produced, recorded and edited. So when we were presented with a story that was an 'easy hit' we'd jump on it. It simply meant that we could then use our remaining time to concentrate on the more difficult content.

When I say 'easy hit' I'm not talking about Christine Hamilton talking about British Sausage Week, because no one in their right mind would ever use that (lots of people did I'm sad to say).

Today 28/10/11 an Easy hit could be hung off the Apple Vs. Samsung figures it would be a technology expert, a local user, and a guide to upgrading... Or it would be a charity, a charity service user, and the money raised from recycling technology. It would be something that has a couple of elements, something that can be localised and something that I could trust to sound good. That's from a radio point of view but the same would be true about print feature or TV slot. Something topical but light that makes the audience either question or reaffirm behaviour.

The 'easy hit' needs to be pitched correctly. You can't just hand it on a plate as most journalists will just see it as a 'puff piece'. If I were pitching I'd get into a conversation about how I could help it to happen. The Journalist would give the parameters and I'd offer the plan and meet somewhere in the middle. It's content that's interesting enough and it's content that requires little leg work for the journalist.

I did a course a little while ago and one of the delegates said that they do all that, just run around making journalists lives as easy as possible but they weren't taking the stories. Nothing will help if the story is wrong... not wrong for you, but wrong for them.

How do you make it right?

That's for another blog...