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When to Pitch Reporters & Producers

Written by: Mark Macias

Article Overview: When is the best time to pitch reporters or producers? Should you pitch your story idea in the morning, afternoon, or after the reporter files his story? There are better times to pitch your story idea which can be the difference between a successful or failed PR strategy.

When to Pitch Reporters & Producers

When to Pitch Reporters

Television and newspaper reporters face different deadlines, which means one size does not fit all when it comes to pitching. To be a successful publicist, you must learn to approach journalists at strategic hours of the day to increase your chances for coverage. You never want to reach or pitch a reporter when he is under deadline because his attention won’t be focused on you. Just like life, you will have more success holding a person's attention when he or she is not facing multiple distractions, like a screaming editor or ringing phone.

The journalist's deadlines will vary by beat and city but generally speaking, every television reporter that files a daily story is under deadline three hours before the newscast. Some specialty reporters, like consumer, health or investigative correspondents, don’t file reports every day so they could be approached during the newscast, but you must be certain they are not under deadline. Most publicists know the unwritten rule is to never pitch a story during a newscast, but for many specialty reporters and producers this can be the best time to reach them. As a specialty producer in the consumer and health units, I rarely received calls during our newscast even though it was probably the best time to reach me. I wasn’t under deadline, I was unwinding for the day, and I was receptive to hearing new pitches at that time.

Many newspaper reporters with a daily beat must file their stories between 6pm and 7pm, so you should avoid calling them after 3pm. Reporters who file weekly stories in the Arts and Leisure, Sunday Business or similar sections typically face a Thursday deadline. You should avoid calling these reporters on the day of their deadlines. If you are uncertain of a reporter’s deadline, do a Google search with his byline name to see how often his stories appear in the newspaper. If his stories run every week you can safely assume he works under a weekly deadline. When in doubt over a deadline, just ask.

In many cases a reporter’s daily deadline can work in your favor, giving you a better opportunity to shape the media’s coverage. If there is an issue brewing in the morning news that impacts your business and you have uncovered a sidebar element, you should pitch it to the reporter by 8am. Every newsroom has a morning meeting where reporters pitch stories for the day. These meetings typically start at 9am although in some cities they can start as early as 8:30am. If you are pitching a daily story that is tied to a daily news topic, you must pitch the reporter before that morning meeting. The morning meeting is one of the rare times when reporters can get instant approval for a story idea since all of the news managers are hearing the pitch at the same time.

If you aren’t getting responses from your pitches, you might want to reconsider your entire approach. Perhaps your story idea isn’t focused or you are pitching to the wrong reporters. Maybe you haven’t properly identified why your story is newsworthy. Take the time to re-evaluate your press release to see if you are communicating the essence of your story.

And remember, public relations is not advertising. No newspaper or television station wants to do an advertisement or commercial for a product or service. So make sure you have communicated in your pitch how your story will benefit the public. There is a home for every story. It’s just a matter of finding the proper niche and tailoring the pitch directly for that niche.

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Article Tags: bad publicity, beat the press, crisis communications, get reporters attention, how to deal with the media, how to handle ambush, how to handle negative publicity, how to improve your image, how to send a news release, how to write a news release, how to write a press release, how to write a press release, macias, mark macias, negative news, pitch a producer a story idea, pitch a reporter a story idea, pitch the media a story idea



Related Forum Posts
Pitch Like A Girl: How a Woman Can Be Herself and Still Succ - Pitch Like A Girl: How a Woman Can Be Herself and Still Succeed Ronna Lichtenberg 2005 From the inside cover: "As a woman, you probably feel uncomfortable when it comes to promoting yourself and asking for what you want." WHAT IN THE HECK IS THIS, I asked myself when I read that. Women are the fastest growing business owners in the US and Canada, there are t housands of women executives and CEOs - though not as many as might be expected, admittedly, yet the book opens with this surely out of date stereotype. However, as she continued to give examples of women who had high paying jobs but were routinely not paid as much as men because it hadn't occurred to them to ask for raises, etc., I decided it was probably true for a majority of businesswomen... Anyway, more of the info from the jacket: "Other books have told you how to get what you want by being more like a guy. Pitch Like A Girl tells you why its an advantage to be who you are and how to do better by bringing more of yourself to work." The TOC: 1. Pink and Blue 2. The Quck-dry Chapter 3. What's In your head that's not in his 4. The Me, Inc Mindset 5. Visioning: Discover What You Really Want 6. Identifying Prospects 7. Pre-pitch homework and heartwork 8. Crafting the pitch 9. Pricing the pitch 10. Packaging the pitch 11. Delivering the pitch 12. Closing Conclusion A Word to the guys The Empathy Quotient The Systemizing Quotient Bibliography And on a side note - non-fiction books without indexes - of which this is one, annoy me.
Why women don't charge more - I just read a chapter in Pitch Like A Girl: How a Woman Can Be Herself and Still Succeed, by Ronna Lichtenberg that deals with this. THe chapter is called Pricing the Pitch. "In a WAll Street Journal article about what might be holding women back from corporate success, Terry Dal, a former vice president at Wells Fargo bank, said, "Good girls don't advertise; only prostitutes advertise. We feel dirty promoting ourselves." The author's advice: The first step in getting the money you desserve is to understand the market rate for your offering. Not what you think you need, not what they're willing to pay, but the going rate for similar goods and services offered in your area by someone with your skills and experience. Then, seek expert advice. "Men routinely consult lawyers, financial advisers, exxecutive recruiters and any other paid counselors to help them assess what constitutes a fair fee." Your research into going rates should not lead you to a single price for your pitch but rather a range of prices - both a market range and a personal range, which should overlap but won't necessarily be identical. In pricing, one size does not fit all. The final step in determining your price is to consider what you think you'd be paid for the same job if you were a man. The author also discusses why women usually discount their prices (must'n't appear too over-confident), the difference between discounting and "giving a discount", and other issues. I'd advise every woman wondering about what to charge to read at least this chapter of the book.
Books for Women Entrepreneurs - There's a thread for good books in the Resources folder, but it doesn't target books for businesswomen particularly, so I figured I'd start such a thread here. It doesn't matter how successful you are in your business - it's always possible to learn something new. In subsequent posts I give Table of Contents and brief descriptions for various titles - most of them devoted to the businesswoman - and sometimes a review. If anyone else has read a review, or has read the book and found it useful, please comment! 1. The Old Girl's Network 2. Mother's Work 3. The 7 Greatest Truths About Successful Women 4. Pitch Like A Girl 5. Workplace Warrior 6. Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the Modern Consumer 7. Contingency Planning & Disaster Recovery 8. She Wins, You Win 9. Napoleon On Project Management 10. Why Good Girls Dont' Get Ahead, But Gutsy Girls Do 11. Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children, and Restart your Career even If you Haven't Had a Job in Years 12. The One Minute Millionaire 13. Talking From 9 to 5 14. Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambitions 15. 101 Best Home Based Businesses for Women: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Started on the Road To Success 16. Work With Passion: How to Do What You Love for a Living. Revised and Expanded 17. Fail-Proof Your Business: Beat the Odds and be Successful 18. Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End 19. Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide 20. Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen 21. Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start - and Run - Your Own Successful Business 22. Rewired, Rehired or Retired: A Global Guide for the Experienced Worker 23. The Martha Rules: 10 essentials for achieving success as you start, build or manage a business 24. The Essentials of Entrepreneurship: What it takes to create Successful Enterprises 25. Net Ready: Strategies for Success in the E-conomy 26. The Promotable Woman 27. Leave The Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro shows you how to do more in less time and feel great about it 28. The Work At Home Balancing Act: The professional resource guide for managing yourself, your work, and your family at home 29. Secrets of Six-Figure Women


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