Are You Making Journalists Jump Through Hoops?

One of the most common questions in my workshops is how to build relationships with journalists. Key to that is simply being great at your job. For instance, here's not to do it:

Recently I sent an email to an in-house PR recently asking if more people had joined said organisation as a result of the pandemic or environmental issues. Instead of explaining in a line or two she sent me a link to the company's latest report- which I had to fill in a form to download and tick to accept to receive further correspondence from them and be added to the mailing list (there was no way round this so I emailed her back just asking for the report as an attachment). I then read the report which highlighted that membership had increased but within the stats there was no explanation as to why. I had to then go back to ask if they thought it was down to those two reasons, and she replied asking how much time she could have to respond.

A very weird dialogue. You'd expect the PR manager of such organisation to be able to just share anecdotally rather than sending you to a form and then pointing you in direction of a report which failed to answer questions. I simply wanted to know if the query was correct so I could inform my editor.

I'm still waiting for answer to a simple question.

I mention this as how you work with journalists means everything. Creating an easy and simple dialogue and answering questions quickly, means we would want to work with you again. Extending the process out, being uninformed (I wasn't looking for a quote) tells the journalists that is going to be hard work.

It also highlighted how much I appreciate it when I work with on-the-ball PRs and businesses. So thank you to all you out there that make our lives so much easier.

Thanks

Susie