Stick with me. I have a purpose behind my “back in my day” lecture.
For nearly 20 years, I’d sat down in front of the television with my family at 6 p.m. We’d click the dial on the TV to CBS where Walter Cronkite would tell us “…and that’s the way it is..” each weekday evening.
Unlike you, I only had a few sources for television news. There was Cronkite on CBS and Huntley and Brinkley on NBC. Over at ABC Frank Reynolds and Howard K. Smith anchored the news. I didn’t watch them much, because we didn’t have an ABC affiliate in the Yakima Valley until I finished junior high.
Chet Huntley and David Brinkley co-anchored the national news on NBC. Howard K. Smith and Frank Reynolds anchored ABC’s national news.
I grew up watching T.J. Close anchoring the local news on KIMA-TV in Yakima.
(I interviewed with T.J. for my first television job. Kinda weird to act grown-up around a man I’d watched on TV since I was a toddler!)
Newspapers were much more prevalent back in my day. Most major cities had at least two viable newspapers. Yakima used to have two but in 1968, the papers merged to become the Yakima Herald-Republic.
A neighbor drove around the country early each morning to deliver the paper to our mailbox. No clicking on a computer and downloading a story.
Bottom line, I had a limited number of sources for my news and entertainment. When I wanted to watch television news or this week’s episode of “The Monkees”, it was appointment TV. You had to be there to watch it. No videotaping. No TiVo. No streaming.
Now, let’s think about how many sources you have to get your news and entertainment today. More than my handful of sources? The answer is, YES!
You’re getting your news digitally (and it’s hard to control the content)
While oldsters like me still turn on the television to catch the news, your demographic takes another route. You’re getting your news via social media on your computer, your tablet, or, most likely, on your phone.
While I got my news from “The Most Trusted Man in America,” you’re getting your new via your social media feed. You’re being bombarded with news sources ranging from subscription news feeds to HuffPost to TMZ to your Uncle Bob.
I could pretty much count on Cronkite giving me an unbiased view of the news. He didn’t have much competition so he didn’t have to air flashy stories to drive up the ratings. Cronkite and his crew covered politics, the economy, Vietnam, fuel prices and more. I do recall them doing a story about The Beatles when they came to the U.S. the first time, but that was pretty much the extent of the entertainment news.
Today, you have hundreds of thousands of potential news sources. Each one fights to grab your attention and, in extension, your dollars. Some sources are legit; some aren’t. Each news outlets tries to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack in hopes of attracting your attention.
So, if you’re more interested in when Ed Sheeran’s next album will drop than gas prices, you’re more likely to choose the news source with info about Sheeran. And once you make that choice, algorithms will work their magic to steer you toward more sources about Ed Sheeran and away from stories about gas prices, the economy, taxes, politics and other life impacting stuff.
What lies ahead for you this quarter
Over the next few weeks we’ll start to understanding how we communicate ideas via the media. We’ll develop some tools to help us better analyze media sources. We’ll learn how some media sources change. We’ll learn about the power of advertising, and how you’re exposed to advertising without even knowing it. We’ll learn about algorithms and how they can give us a slanted or narrow view of the world. Then you’ll explore an issue or element in media communication that intrigues you.
Your assignment: Blog Response #1
To start our journey, talk with someone at least 5 years older than you. It can be your parents, your aunt, the neighbor, your priest, your big brother, or whoever. How did they use media? What media was available to them? How has media changed their lives. Compare what they had to say with how you use media today.
Post what you learned to the Blog Response #1 (BR#1) assignment. To give you an idea of how much detail I’m expecting, what you submit for this assignment should be 1 to 1.5 pages long single spaced (2 to 3 pages double spaced).
Oh… and there’s a couple of other assignments you need to finish this week. Now, head back to Canvas and start knocking those first week assignments out!
Logistical note: I run this class from Wednesday to Wednesday. I’ll upload new info and assignments on Wednesday before 6 p.m. You’ll turn in the previous week’s assignments Wednesday before 11:59 p.m.
Making it easy as pie for the media to cover your story
For a fun-filled year I worked as a program coordinator for the Clean Plant Network (CPN).
The program focuses on testing and cleaning up viruses out of fruit trees, hops and wine grapes. Sexy, huh! Well, actually, it is… in an economic impact kind of way.
Let’s say a grower plants a couple hundred acres of new apple trees. It’s going to take five years for those trees to get big enough to produce apples. After the five years the grower goes out to harvest but finds out his apple trees have a virus the impacts the taste and the look of the apple. Goodbye apples!
But we’ve just started with the economic impact. The grower has to bulldoze the virus infected trees out, comb through the soil to pull out any remaining root that can spread the virus to new trees. Then they use chemicals to clean out any leftover virus in the soil. In some cases, the soil has to sit dormant before new trees can be planted.
The grower has lost time and money. And it’s going to take more time and money to get that orchard planted and producing again. (This time, hopefully, with “clean,” virus-free trees.)
When you consider how big agriculture is in this state, you start to realize how important clean plants are. Here are some quick stats from the Washington State Department of Agriculture.
So, the Clean Plant Network plays an important role in six of Washington’s biggest crops; apples, hops, pears, sweet cherries, apricots, and grapes.
Okay Terri, we get it. Agriculture is big in Washington.
Well, my job involved letting growers, nurseries, stakeholders, the government and the public know what the Clean Plant Network does to make agriculture so successful.
Tactic #1: Using news releases to get the CPN’s “clean” work out there
I used several different tactics to get media covered for the CPN. I wrote news releases posted on Washington State University’s College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences web site. Other publications could use that material in their own publications.
A few weeks later, Plant Health Progress, a journal for scientists and industry leaders, printed my news release word-for-word.
The same thing happened with many of my news releases…. I just don’t have visual proof!
Tactic Number 2: Pitching stories
Pitching a story is different from writing a news release in several different ways. It’s more directed toward a particular reporter rather than the media in general. It’s more specific to that particular media outlet’s format or style. And a good story pitch makes it real easy… and inviting… for the reporter or news outlet to cover your story.
So, what is a story pitch? It’s like a baseball pitch… sorta…
Let’s say you’re a Mariner’s pitcher. It’s your job to pitch balls at the opposing teams hitters. In our little scenario, let’s pretend the pitcher is a PR professional. And let’s pretend the opposing teams batters are news reporters.
When the pitcher steps onto the mound, his job is NOT to strike the news reporter out. His job is to make sure the news reporter hits a home run!
To continue our scenario a bit further, the pitch our pitcher throws at the newspaper reporter will be a different pitch from the television reporter. The pitch he throws at the radio reporter will be different from the pitch thrown to the sports blogger.
Warming up for the pitch
In order for our PR team to be successful, we need to scout out the reporters to find out what kind of pitch is easiest for each one to hit. To do that you need to investigate the reporter’s “home field.”
Step 1: Establishing relationships
When I started at CPN, I stopped in to get reacquainted with the KNDU news director, Christine Brown. Christine and I met several times before and she hired some of my students from Weber State.
When I met with Christine she invited the newscast’s executive producer. I told her about the CPN and why her viewers would be interested. She then pounded me with questions relating to agriculture, but not necessarily my program. I told her, I would go back to the research station and see what I could find out. And I did. I provided her with names and numbers of experts her reporters might want to contact for future stories.
Did that list of experts help promote the CPN? No. But, it did prove to Christine and her staff that I could be a reliable source of information when it comes to agriculture? Yes. Because we built that relationship, her people paid attention to me when I pitched CPN stories. Basically, it turned out to be a “I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine” relationship.
Step 2: Knowing the obstacles your reporter faces and showing them away around those obstacles
Prosser is home for the WSU Research Center. Everyone in town knows someone who works tat the research center, but nobody knows what they do out there!
The Prosser Record Bulletin publishes twice a week. At the time they had one and a half reporters. The half reporter also edited the paper. The reporter had just started and didn’t know anything about the Prosser Research station.
I sent her an email saying I heard she had just started at the newspaper and I had just started at the research station. I wrote that I’d love to take her on a tour of the research station and… I promised her she’d leave the station with a story to write immediately, along with leads to at least two other stories.
I recognized that as the sole reporter, she didn’t have time to take tours that didn’t result in a story. She needed to walked away from the tour with a story in hand. She did. She immediately wrote a story about CPN. She also walked away with four leads for future stories with the grapes and hop folks.
Step 3: Knowing your reporter’s style and audience
The Good Fruit Grower is THE way to reach fruit growers. It’s in every orchardist’s and grape grower’s mailbox each month. It has a very specific audience. Knowing the reporter’s audience and pitching stories that fit with that audience is key. At the time, the Good Fruit Grower had several reporters, but Geraldine Warner covered most of the fruit stories in the Pacific Northwest.
I knew not to pitch “warm and fuzzy” stories to Geraldine. The stories I pitched to Geraldine had to have a scientific edge. That’s because the magazine focuses on the science of fruit and grape growing. After talking with her editor, I learned the best way to reach Geraldine was via email. For some reporters it’s Twitter or a text or even a phone call. But for Geraldine I sent emails. Often, the only response I got in return would simply read: “Thank you.” Nothing else. Many times I never knew if she’d follow up on the story until I saw in the magazine.
For example, before I left CPN to come to CWU I sent Geraldine an email giving her a heads up on a possible story several months away. She wrote back: “Thank you.” About six weeks later, I found this little blurb in the back of the magazine. She put together a preview story, “Faster virus detection,” for a story that would happen several months later.
Knowing your goals, helps you choose which hitter will hit a home run with your pitch
In the spring, the CPN fills a greenhouse with 30,000 indicator trees. A group of men with very sharp knives take bits of tree with suspected viruses and “bud” them onto one of the indicator trees. The two pieces of tree grow together. After a few weeks the indicator plant will tell the scientists whether the suspected tree has a virus. How? The leaves on the indicator plant get funny leaves covered with colored blotches.
This is an important event for the CPN. We wanted people to know about it. So, I pitched the same story to two different reporters. Each pitch took a different angle.
The pitch I made to the TV station started with visuals. I told them I had a greenhouse filled with 30,000 trees. A group of men with sharp knives would flash their knives around to quickly bud tree parts together. Eventually the indicator plants will tell scientists if a tree has a virus. If it has a virus, it’s sent to a lab that looks like the set of a sci-fi movie.
I painted a picture of what the story would look like visually. They bit.
The reporter they sent out had been there for a while. I knew his contract would end soon and he’d be looking for a new job. I asked him if he had any good stories to put on his reporter reel. He gave me a mediocre response. I told him, he’d leave the greenhouse with a reel-worthy story. And he did.
In fact, he even called me that afternoon to read the script to me. (Something journalists should never do!) But I listened. I cleared up a couple of little mistakes and he put together an excellent story that ran that night near the top of the newscast.
Same story, different pitch
I also called the Prosser newspaper. I told them about the virus budding, but a gave them a different angle. I told them the station had hired several local people to help with the budding. She came out and did the story about how this particular project generated jobs for people in the Prosser area. Plus images of the workers using those knives so quickly made for a great front page picture!
A different story with two pitches
One of the mangers at the CPN planned a trip to Washington, D.C. during cherry blossom time. His travel plans included making a stop to look a tree he had helped “clean.” A sister city in Japan donated the tree to the U.S. It immediately came to CPN. We discovered viruses almost dripping off the branches! Bill and his crew cleaned up the trees so they could be planted along the Washington Mall. I told Bill to take a picture of himself next to the tree. He did.
I pitched the story to the local paper as a “feel-good, local man does good” story. They used the picture and interviewed Bill for a story that ran on the second page.
I pitched the story to a TV station saying a local man visited some trees that a project in Prosser helped clean up. I suggested they get video of the cherry trees in bloom from the network feed and combine those with the still pictures Bill brought back. They sent a reporter out to interview Bill and ran the story on air that night. The web version of the story is still online.
One more example…
For a while the Prosser station manager, pulled me off my CPN job to drum up media coverage for other projects going on at the research center. I successfully pitched one story about the weather station that provided weather conditions specifically for farmers. It has some cool video and the tv station’s audience included a LOT of farmers.
My favorite pitch had to do with a book on butterflies written by one of the entomologists (scientists who study bugs). The book had hundreds of gorgeous pictures in it. And entomologist had a super cool Australian accent and he didn’t act like your stereotypical stuffy Ph.D.
I decided to pitched the story to the morning show at KNDU. I knew their morning reporter had to do 4 live hits that ran 3-4 minutes long.
My email told them that a local scientist co-authored the be-all, end-all book about butterflies in the Pacific Northwest. I suggested the reporter spend one live hit talking about the book, and a second live hit talking about butterflies about to go extinct near Moxee. The third and fourth live hits could focus on another project Dr. James had underway. It had to do with using native plants to beautify local vineyards… AND attract beneficial bugs.
From experience, I learned they couldn’t send out a live signal from Prosser, so I suggested we could bring the butterfly show to them.
A separate email went out with some samples of pictures from the butterfly book. Perhaps they could use those pictures to promote the live shot? (Hint, hint.)
They bit right away. Then, in the flurry of emails that followed, Dr. James suggest he could hatch a butterfly and have a live butterfly sitting on his finger during one of the live hits. I asked him how he could keep it from flying away. He told me he’d keep it in a cooler. Once he took it out and put it on his finger, it would take two to three minutes for the butterfly to warm up enough to fly away.
The station had visuals. They knew what topics Dr. James could talk about and they all related to the area (proximity). Plus, we threw in a live butterfly, that would fly away near the end of the segment. Now… that’s good television!
They did this live morning show hit right after I left CPN to come to CWU. They tell me it went smoothly and viewers reacted positively to the segments.
Okay, Terri, enough with the war stories. What’s the lesson to be learned here?
The lesson is simple. Know your reporters and how they work. Know their audience. Know their reporting style. “Scout” out the reporters in your market, just like the big league teams scout out their opponents.
This means you’ll have to watch a newscast or a read a newspaper. Maybe even more than once. Learn how to throw the right pitch to allow that reporter to hit a home run story. If you learn how to pitch, you can land lots of stories for your clients. And that’s a big win!
A few hints for making a pitch
Timing is everything. Try tying your pitch to something going on in the news. (Umm… remind you of a certain news release you just wrote?)
Timing is everything – Part 2. Know when the deadlines are and don’t try pitching a story when the reporter has an editor or producer breathing down their necks.
Know your media. Television will need video and live interviews. Newspapers will need photo ops and access to people for interviews. A radio show or podcast may need an expert who could answer questions and talk about the topic for 30 minutes or more. Know your media. Know what they need. Then give it to them!
Keep your pitch short and sweet. Email the basics. Give them links to the details.
Think visually. Television doesn’t exist without visuals. Newspapers will decide whether to run or where to place a story based on the strength of the pictures. Set up opportunities to get good visuals.
Respond and follow up. Nothing, I mean nothing, can irritate a journalist more than a PR person who doesn’t respond or responds too late.
One last thing…
So, why is it important to get the news media to cover your client’s story? You might remember a couple of quotes from Quote Quiz #1.
“Publicity is absolutely critical,” Richard Branson said. “A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a front-page ad.”
“Advertising is saying you’re good,” Jean-Louis Gassee said. “PR is getting someone else to say you’re good.”
Your Assignment
Think about the client you picked for the media kit assignment. Come up with a list of at least three media outlets you could potentially pitch stories to.
Be realistic. ABC News will not send a reporter crew out to cover the grand opening of your mother’s dog grooming business.
What kind of stories would you pitch to each media outlet?
How would your pitches differ between each media outlet?
Share with me your reaction, your thoughts, your concerns, your questions about story pitches.
News release. Media release. They’re the same, right?
Well, that depends. Some people use the terms interchangeably. In their world the two terms mean the same thing.
Other people differentiate between news releases and media releases. A news release is something you write in hopes it will get printed or posted with few, if any, edits. For this group, a media release entices the media to cover your story.
Terri, can you give me an example to better define the difference between a news release and a media release?
How a red-neck Alabama sheriff made hard-hitting journalism possible
Once upon a time, actually covering the news often landed you in court. During the Civil Rights movement Southern government officials had a clever way to control the press. They’d sue them. If the New York Times covered how police set dogs on protesters, government officials would sue the New York Times claiming libel. When a network newscast showed video of police using fire hoses on Civil Rights marchers, local government officials filed libel suits.
While these nuisance law suits may not slow down big news agencies like NYT, the threat of lawsuits could and did influence how or whether news organizations would cover controversial issues. The threat of a lawsuit acted as a chilling effect for some organizations to cover the news. Then New York Times v Sullivan came along.
It started with an advertisement in support of Martin Luther King
In the 1960s Martin Luther King and other Civil Rights advocated for voting rights, the right to ride a bus or go to a restaurant or bathroom without being segregated. Many times MLK got arrested for fighting for these rights. While chilling in a jail cell, supporters created and bought ad space in the New York Times trying to raise money for MLK’s legal fund.
I believe there’s a big difference between hearing someone and actively listening to that person. You can physically “hear” sounds, but you have to actually pay attention and work to actively listening.
I’m not alone in thinking this. You can count me among the wise and wonderful who believe in the art of listening.
Monroe is the genius behind Monroe’s Motivated Sequence, used in business and professional communication to persuade audiences. While there’s no 100% guarantee, I think you can see how following this sequence can increase your chances of persuading others. While in the future you may or may not follow MMS step-by-step, you should identify persuasive elements or concepts you can use in your future speeches, pitches and presentations. (Note: You MUST follow the sequence for your persuasive speech. Failure to do so will cost you BIG points!)
BTW – I had a student who challenged me about Monroe’s Motivated Sequence. He said Winston Churchill did have to follow MMS to influence his English countrymen during World War II. Frankly, I didn’t know if Churchill used MMS or not but I took the student’s statement as a challenge. I analyzed a couple of Churchill’s speeches including his Iron Curtain speech.
While it didn’t follow MMS in lock step, I could identify the basic MMS structure, the use of pathos and logos examples, along with other MMS elements in Churchill’s words. So there, smarty pants student! (I thought about using a more descriptive way of describe my smarty pants student, but this is a PG rated blog!)
At Purdue Polytechnic Institute an engineering professor wanted his students to become better presenters. . He wanted them to get better at pitching the project. He wanted his students to have the tools to persuade future clients to buy into their proposed projects. So, the engineering professor wandered over to the Communications Department and knocked on the door of Dr. Alan H. Monroe.
Monroe took on the challenge and developed Monroe’s Motivated Sequence. It’s basically a template where you plug in the right information and you end up designing a persuasive speech or argument.
The thing is, this happened back in the 1930s. Yet today at Purdue, all students who take freshman communication classes learn Monroe’s Motivated Sequence. Today, Purdue professors expect seniors to use MMS when presenting their senior projects.
Dr. Alan Monroe
“Students are expected to use Monroe’s Motivated Sequence heavily for their final project according to new curriculum in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute.”
Yes, there are other persuasive techniques but I like how Monroe maps out his persuasive method. Also, a majority of the students in COM 345 come from electrical, engineering and safety related majors. I thought if it works for Purdue engineers, it’s good enough for CWU’s engineers!
A man of mystery
Take a look at a speech textbook. You’ll probably find Monroe’s name in there somewhere. Even though he died in 1975 he’s still listed as one of the authors of Principles of Public Speaking textbook. Purdue offers scholarships in his name. Mention Monroe’s Motivated Sequence to anyone who teaches rhetoric and they’ll immediately know what you’re talking about.
I remember listening for my favorite songs on KENE Radio. I even won a contest for the best joke of the day. (I remember the joke. I have no idea how I won.)
Your generation, Millennials and Gen Z, spend about 18 hours a week listening to audio. Like me, your first choice is radio, but you also use audio sources like Spotify and Pandora, in addition to podcasts. Bottom line, in my day you I listened to radio on a radio. In your time “radio” doesn’t have to come from a radio. You can listen to audio on you iPod, your computer or your smart phone. You don’t get to hear the static as you tune a station in for the evening.
They say radio is dying. In my mind, radio is like a cat… it has nine lives. Everyone thinks it’s going to die, but then radio reinvents itself over and over and over again.
A little radio history
There was a day and time where people would actually gather around a radio set and “watch” radio. When radios first moved into our homes they were a bit clunkier. As you can see in this picture, the radio was slightly smaller than today’s big screen TVs.
Whenever your program came on, you ran into the living room, sat down in front of the radio and watched it as you listened to the drama of Little Orphan Annie, the comedy of the Jack Benny Show or the soap opera The Guiding Light.
Helen Reddy’s I am Woman served as an anthem for the woman’s movement back in the 70s. Even today, people still use the phrase I am woman, hear me roar.
I grew up listening to Vietnam War protest songs, which leads me to a story about my early teaching career.
Question: What impact did the Gutenberg press have on society?
Answer: A lot. A whole bunch of a lot.
When Gutenberg invented the press in the mid-1400s, it made information accessible to the masses. The technology made sharing uncensored ideas with your neighbors, the village down the road, or even the world, possible.
Before the Gutenberg press, only the rich could afford books and manuscripts. In fact, books were so rare that most churches did NOT have a copy of the Bible under its roof.
According to a web article posted by the University of Texas, it’s estimated you could only find around 30,000 books in all of Europe before the Gutenberg press. Fifty years later, 10 to 12 million books circulated throughout Europe.
