What do journalists hate most about pitches and releases?
Information that’s not relevant to their audience, according to Greentarget.
So what’s relevant to journalists’ audience?
When the St. Louis Post Dispatch asked their audience members who or what was most important to them, editor Dick Weiss says, “Their answer was surprising. Many did not say their families, children or God.
“Instead, their answer was me.”
Journalists care about their audience members. Their audience members care about themselves.
So why aren’t you writing about the audience?
Here are three ways to write audience-focused messages — whether it’s for media relations, marketing materials, internal comms, or other audiences or channels:
- Put the audience first.
Steal a technique from this State Farm Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign, and lead with the audience in the first paragraph:
Parents of teen drivers believe teens are obeying the letter of the law when it comes to graduated driving licensing (GDL) laws. As it turns out, what parents think — or hope — and what teens report actually doing don’t match up according to a new survey conducted by State Farm.
Don’t start with [Organization Name] conducted a study. Lead with the audience, instead.
- Lead with the benefits.
Don’t write about us and our stuff. Instead, focus on what audience members can do with your stuff.
“There’s nothing wrong with a story about a new product,” says Stephany Romanow-Garcia, senior process editor, Hydrocarbon Processing. “But readers want to know, ‘How am I going to use it?’ I’m not interested in ‘new and improved.’”
Instead of:
National Semiconductor’s Workbench Sensor Designer tool enables engineers to quickly move from concept to simulation to prototype in a few keystrokes.
Write:
Engineers who typically take weeks to design sensor systems can now complete their designs in minutes, thanks to a new, online design tool.
Stories about how audience members can solve their problems reasonably get more coverage than stories about your company’s new Widget 6.7.3.
- Write about the impact, not the event.
Covering a:
- Speech? Write about the most important thing the speaker said, not the time, date and place where the speech took place.
- Event? Focus on what people will be able to do there — not on when and where the event will be held. Will they have a chance to win a drone? Rub elbows with the CEO? Eat free cupcakes with their neighbors? That’s the story.
- Meeting? Cover what came out of the meeting — decisions, policies, procedures — not what went into it. “12 executives went into a conference room…” is not a compelling story angle.
- Study? Focus on what you learned in the study, not on the study itself. Move the methodology into one quick sentence with a link in the third paragraph. Nobody wants to see how the sausage was made. Serve them the sausage instead.
Avoid institutional narcissism.
Too many messages coming out of today’s organizations We-We on the audience. We did this. We did that.
Sorry folks, your audience members just aren’t that into you.
They’re into themselves. And journalists care about whatever their audience members care about.
Ann Wylie works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Don’t miss a single tip: Sign up for Ann’s email newsletter here. Check out Ann’s recent PRsay post, 4 Writing Mistakes You’re (Probably!) Making Now.
Copyright © 2024 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.
[Illustration credit: absent 84]
Hi Ann, Love your stuff.
Here is a different perspective:
Executive Action Newsletter
Urgent and Strategic information for Communicators
And those they serve.
FILE: Media Relations Strategy & Analysis
TO: Executive Addressed
FR: James E. Lukaszewski, ABC, APR, Fellow PRSA
RE: The Truth Index: Assessing the Believability and Credibility of News Interviews, Stories, and Reporters
According to Janet Malcolm (The Journalist and the Murderer, New York, Vintage Books, 1990, pp. 3-4), “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gain¬ing their trust and betraying them without remorse… On reading the article or book in question, (the source) has to face the fact that the journalist who seemed so friendly and sympathetic, so keen to understand him fully, so remarkably attuned to his vision of things never had the slightest intention of collaborating with him on his story but always intended to write a story of his own. The disparity between what seems to be the intention of an interview as it is taking place and what it actually turns out to have been in aid of always comes as a shock to the subject.”
Journalism today is relentlessly competitive, amoral, aggressive, and negative. Survey after survey demonstrates the public’s belief that reporters use deception and practice reckless reputation destruction. News subjects need the means to judge the validity and believability of their news interview experience, the resulting stories, and of the behavior of the reporters who question them.
TRUTH INDEX TEST QUESTIONS
The higher the score, the lower the believability and, probable validity of a news story. Question reporters directly to test their believability and credibility and therefore the probability of story truthfulness.
Score
Yes No
1. Did the reporter personally witness what he or she is reporting about? 1 2 3 4 5
Yes No
2. Did the reporter have any specific knowledge about the topic prior to reporting about it? 1 2 3 4 5
Fair Unfair
3. Is the description and dialog of opposing views balanced, equal, and fair? 1 2 3 4 5
Fair Biased Unbalanced
4. Is the story clearly biased, unbalanced, or unfair? 1 2 3 4 5
Few Many
5. How many emotionally charged, inflammatory, and negative words, phrases, or concepts are used during the interview and in the final story? 1 2 3 4 5
Truthful Deceptive
6. How does the story content direction and perception square with what the reporter told interviewees before the interview? 1 2 3 4 5
Some Too Much
7. How much “surprise” material was used during the interview? 1 2 3 4 5
Some None
8. How do the observations of others present at the same news event compare with and support the reporter’s version? 1 2 3 4 5
Few Many
9. How many anonymous sources are used? 1 2 3 4 5
Respectful Disrespectful
10. Was the reporter insulting, overly suspicious, or disrespectful? 1 2 3 4 5
Yes No
11. Does the headline appropriately reflect the content of the story? 1 2 3 4 5
The lesson is:Truth rarely results from deception, disrespect, or insulting, aggressive behavior.