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Press Conferences

Written by: Anthony Mora

Article Overview: It's important to know when to hold a press conference. If you think that a press conference is the way to go, nine times out of ten you're going to be wrong.

Press Conferences

It's important to know when to hold a press conference. If you think that a press conference is the way to go, nine times out of ten you're going to be wrong. Although there are many types of press conferences, they are primarily utilized to give the media up-to-the-minute information on breaking news stories, or when a celebrity or well-known person is addressing a topical issue. Countless other types of press conferences are announced, but few receive any coverage. Breaking news stories, politically-oriented stories and press conferences often do go together. But keep in mind, when you are asking the media to be at a certain place at a certain time to cover your story, the odds are against you. You're story then is being set on a very specific timeline and is being forced to compete with every other potential story in your city, the nation and the world. If what the media considers a more urgent, or more ratings worthy news story breaks at the same time - you're out of luck. We have held some very successful press conferences. But we've also held some conferences that were passed-over because of a car chase in progress, a breaking murder story or a celebrity drug bust. There was one case
where two TV crews had arrived and were setting up to cover a press conference we had
scheduled, suddenly each producer was paged. Next thing I knew they were packing their gear and heading out the door. A fire had broken out at a local refinery and they were on their way to cover it. Needless to say, that was the end of that particular press conference.

In my experience most press conferences are ineffective, because the story or pitch usually does not warrant a press conference. Try to think like the media, play devil's advocate with yourself. If you were a harried producer or editor, and were pitched a story on your proposed press conference would it be of interest to you? If the answer is no, forget going the press conference route. Reframe the hook and pitch it as a regular story.

If you are going to hold a press conference, hold it in the mid-morning. The later in the day you hold it, the less media you will draw because of deadline scheduling conflicts.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2008

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Article Tags: breaking news, car chase, celebrity drug bust, devil s advocate, hook, murder story, news stories, news story, nine times, odds, pitch, press conferences, refinery, stor, timeline, topical issue, tv crews, worthy news



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