I’m lucky because I’ve had the opportunity to be both a journalist and a PR person and I’ve seen the good, bad and the ugly from all sides.
So with that said, I also want to quickly touch on why it’s wise to think before you ask a journalist to sit through a one hour briefing. This is espescially the case when the journalist literally has only about a 300 word story to write.
(If you’re an author or musician of course you want the journalist to read your book or listen to your CD so they know what they are writing about!)
But if you’re a tech company please don’t encourage your PR folks whether they be in-house or outside agency to force a journalist to sit through a one hour briefing for an updated product release. (Unless this product is going to take us all to the moon, then we don’t need a one hour briefing on it.)
Journalists that cover your industry are smart and generally savvy folks who really know the products etc. they are covering so they don’t really need a one hour briefing on an updated product release.
Also, on the journalist side, it’s not all that great to have a PR person on the phone while you’re doing an interview. It’s not that journalists don’t like PR people, it’s just that it tends not to make the conversation as convivial and lively as it could be. And when I say lively, I don’t mean your CEO spilling company secrets, I just mean letting the journalist ask questions without prompting or response from a PR person.
Be open and authentic, that goes a long way.
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Great advice. I always ask for a 20 minute briefing. After all, most anyone can spare 20 minutes. If the reporter finds the topic great and wants to continue, then he/she will. As for sitting in on the call, I advise to do it, but with the mute on and pen in hand. By taking notes of the call, not only do you have a record of what is said, but you know if there are any action items to follow up on (i.e. if the reporter wants to test the new product), you can critique the CEO so he/she will do a better job and finally, if you are lucky, you find new ammo for pitches. I once had a CEO who I loved to hear talk. He was such a visionary and he came up with new ways to put things. This always sparked my thinking of how we should tweak our PR messaging.