How to talk to the media

Speak slowly. Tap your foot as you speak to slow yourself 

down.

Pause between phrases. Wait for the reporter to catch up.

Speak in sound bites. The shorter the sentence, the better.

Use short words. Two syllables are better than three.  

Do not use jargon. If you have to explain a word, you will 

lose your audience—and your reporter.  

Use the "child" test. In your mind, explain it to a child.

Avoid complex sentences. If half got lost, would it mean 

what you want?

Never say anything you wouldn't want your boss, your 

mother or everyone you've ever met to know.

If you must say something you don't want to admit, go  

"Off the Record." Never do this unless you absolutely 

have to. The reporter may respect it, but an editor may 

not.

If you don't know something, say you're not sure, but 

you’ll find out. Then, get back ASAP.

If a reporter calls and you can’t talk, find out their 

deadline. Tell them when you’ll get back to them.  

The media usually only calls once on a story. If you don’t 

get back to them—and you are not absolutely crucial to 

the story—you will never hear from them again. 

For more information on Dell Richards Publicity, call us 

at 916.455.4790 or visit www.dellrichards.com.

Ethics trumps expedience....

We recently had a press conference that television covered—only to find a few hours later that the spokesperson didn’t want her face seen because of domestic violence issues.

We immediately called the reporter to see if we could get the woman’s video clip removed.

The reporter said she’d pull it, but was very curt. It had been her lead.

We got other coverage, but were disappointed to lose a story on homeless housing.

I thanked the journalist, apologized via email—and sent a large box of chocolates to her, even though she wouldn’t get it for a few days.

In the meantime, the client put better controls in place for choosing spokespeople.

In the end, the journalist was able to salvage the story, which ran the next day. By cutting the anecdotal lead, she made it shorter, which the producers loved, she quipped.

We were lucky it worked out for all concerned. But we didn’t know that when we acted.

We did what we had to do, no matter what the potential cost, because it was the right thing to do. Period.

For more information, call Dell Richards Publicity at 916-455-4790 or visit us at www.dellrichards.com.

The worst time to pitch a reporter is

People sometimes call us because a competitor has a story in the media.

It’s great they want publicity, but they’re not going to get an article from that source, which is usually what they’re after.

To paraphrase Jeff Haden, a columnist at Inc.com, “If I just wrote about the subject, I’m good for the next year or so.”

Luckily, there are always other media to approach.

If the article was in the local daily paper, we could pitch the local business journal, the local weekly or monthly magazines.

We could go for broadcast media: television and radio appearances or quotes in Internet stories.

We could target trade journals—not the ones clients themselves read—but the ones read by their clients.

To do so, we come up with angles focused on the specific media.

That way, a missed opportunity becomes a way of creating a broad-range public relations campaign that delivers long-term results.

For more information, contact Dell Richards Publicity at 916.455.4790 or visit us at www.dellrichards.com.

Swamped in information, how do you get your message across

People used to see 10,000 pieces of information daily.

That number has risen exponentially. Now we “consume” 100,000 words outside work daily, according to a recent report by the University of California, San Diego. *

That’s like reading 2/3 of a hardback novel every single day.

In 1960, we spent 7.4 hours of our free time daily on media. Today, we spend nearly 11.8 hours.**

Most of our time, 45 percent, is spent watching television.

Contrary to stereotypes, teens spend less hours a day (4) watching TV than people age 60-65 (7).

Although we talk about the decline of reading (books, newspapers and magazines), that is not the case. When reading on a computer (Internet browsing, reading online papers, texts from friends, etc.) is counted, reading has actually increased.

But, the medium has changed. Who does business with first-class mail or fax now? Very few people.

What does this mean? It means the competition is fierce. Your message must be informative and interesting—or it’ll get lost in the deluge.

For more information, please call Dell Richards Publicity at 916. 455.4790 or visit us at www.dellrichards.com


* "How Much Information? 2009 Report on American Consumers" by Roger E. Bohn and James E. Short.

** By including weekends, work is calculated at only 3 hours a day. When multi-tasking, each medium is counted, doubling the amount of data and hours consumed.