Tips from the Pros

While researching ways that PR professionals develop and maintain strong relationships with the media, I came across a very informative interview on Public Relations Magazine’s Web site.

The article, by Alexandra Weaver and Megan Fraizer, is an interview given from a PR perspective on how to develop/maintain relationships with journalists. Weaver and Fraizer interviewed Dr. Bill Keller, a journalist professor at the University of Alabama, and Deborah Lane, the executive director of public relations at the University of Alabama in order to get insight from both sides of the relationship.

Lane gives the following tips:

· Explain why this specific journalist should be interested in the article
· Be aware of the journalist’s deadlines!
· Always follow up a new release with a phone call or e-mail.
· Broadcast journalists think visually.
· Include key points in soundbites.
· Avoid jargon!
· Be honest and accessible.
· Know the journalist’s audience and their message.
· Never speculate.
· Always meet deadlines.
· Do not always give one media outlet the story first; use a variety of sources.
· Give reporters information in forms they can use – soundbites, good quotes and visuals.
· Never say, “Off the record.”
· Articulate your messages!

Dr. Keller gives vary similar tips with only a few additions, including:

· PR professionals who have worked as a journalist or TV person at one time understand it
best
· Never exaggerate or say things that are not true.
· Try to meet outside the newsroom to get to know each other.

I think it is refreshing to know that PR professionals and journalists/reporters
expect the same components in terms of a creating and maintaining a professional relationship with one another. Now if we can put these practices into effect we may see an increasingly positive relationship between these two industries that have a history of tension.

Here's a video of a former journalist, now working as a PR professional.