Media Coverage Tips For Kids
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[Kids Media Proposal] [Link for Media Proposal] [List of Media Contacts] |
We are compiling tips, from a variety of sources, that should help you plan and execute your media coverage. |
You can find a contact person from most websites, from the publication or someone that you know that has a friend or parent who works there. To search for publications in your area go to www.yahoo.com . - News and Media. Find a publication near you.
We will develop a list of publications which have shown interest in receiving stories from kids.
Please note that before you give any information out to people, that allows someone to contact you, you should clear it with your parent or guardian. |
Tips From A Newspaper Editor - Palto Alto Weekly - Jay Thoraldson, Editor |
E-mail has become a great way to contact media. But media folks want -- and need -- solid, "real person" information presented concisely, completely and without a lot ofpuffery and spin-doctoring.It should be individually addressed and localized, and spam is often screened outeither automatically or by an editor hitting the delete key. Spam in this case meansbroadcast press releases over a huge region. Same with junk mail.Most editors and reporters who have been around awhile have pretty good junkdetectors. But too many news people these days are overworked, underpaid and tooyoung -- so stuff gets into print that shouldn't, with great frequency. This probablywas always the case.I favor simple, personal queries with all the facts (with an overkill of contact numbersand e-mail addresses) over slick, professional press releases -- although we get a lotof those, too. Big, fat packets of information is way overkill, most of the time -- and awaste of money, trees and effort.Clever gimmicks (bags of cookies, rolled-up posters, stuff in boxes or fancywrappings) may elicit newsroom comment -- and the cookies will get eaten -- butthey rarely result in any more news space than a simple, straightforwardannouncement. Most editors even today can manage to do two things at once:munch a cookie and throw out the release. A valuable skill, taught in all beginning-journalism classes.Sometimes just a day or two can make a difference in the timeliness (hence "newsvalue") of a story -- about a meeting, event or speech being held today or yesterday.So while an outfit is waiting for a day or two for a highly paid PR person to cranksomething out, the value of the story is falling like the stock market when the dot.combubble burst. On the other hand, if the PR person helps you come up with a niceangle for the lead of a non-timely story that catch's an editor's or reporter's attention,it may all be worth it.Most people can come up with their own best angle by just asking themselvessomething like: "If I wasn't involved, what would interest me about what I'm doing?"Or, "How will what I'm writing about help or inform people about something new tothem?"Local people involved in local issues and doing local things always help.And never exaggerate or claim something that you can't back up fully. Concentrateon building a credibility relationship with local reporters and editors, if possible, overthe long term -- one exaggeration can kill that relationship dead until the reporter oreditor moves on. This is especially true if the overblown claim makes it into print andthe paper gets called on it and has to run a correction!Realize that papers have different departments and sections. Something the home-and-real-estate editor might toss for no reason related to your release ("We just hada big feature on hand-crank apple peelers and hard-boiled egg slicers last month.")the business-page editor might find useful to build a story on "apple peelers and egg-slicers then and now, a century of progress" for next month.Something the hard-boiled city editor might "can" could be just right for the arts-and-entertainment or travel-page editors. But if you send it to more than one person oreditor, be sure to include them on the cc: list, displayed prominently. It really tickspapers off to print the same story twice in different parts of the paper.And something that fails to get picked up during a hectic hard-news week or daymight be perfect for a slow-news day as an alternative to blank pages in the paper.It's OK to check back to see if someone actually received and noticed the release,usually -- especially if done so by e-mail. But if it's not used within a couple of weeks,write it off in good grace and try again with a different angle later.Finally, if you do talk with an editor or reporter and they snap, "Can't talk now; I'm ondeadline!" and slam the phone down, don't take it personally. They are on deadline and can't talk now, almost always.
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