How to get your news story in a national newspaper

Despite the myriad ways to share a news story, nothing hits the mark like landing a national newspaper story. Whether you’ve been in this business 30 months or 30 years, it’s always a thrill to gain national coverage for a client. It’s also worth celebrating because, as any PR will tell you, it’s downright tough to nail national coverage.

There is no winning formula (sorry) and even the best stories are vulnerable to timing. ‘A quiet news day’ really can let your story through while a national or local disaster, celebrity scandal or political coup can stop your best pitch in its tracks.

But, hey, don’t let this stop you trying – here are some tips that might help.

Be prepared

Think ahead, plan your pitch, have details, stats, case studies, spokespeople and high res (amazing) images to hand before you start. Be ready to run with things if the journalist runs with your story and prepare to turn on a pinhead if they pick up a point they prefer to lead on and want more from you.

Get on the phone

It takes guts the first few times but gets results. You have about 10 seconds to grab their attention so have your pitch and materials absolutely ready in front of you. Don’t waste time on pleasantries (they obviously enjoyed the sunny weekend) and get straight to the point quickly. (If you’re feeling nervous make the call standing up and smile as you speak – honestly, it helps!)

If you must email….

  • Remember the subject line is the most important of the whole email
  • Make it short, less than 60 characters including spaces, and put the keywords up front
  • Keep your pitch short and sweet – under 200 words
  • Ditch superlatives – ‘unique’, ‘amazing’ – and avoid over use of !!!!!
  • Avoid clichés like the plague
  • Don’t attach releases – they take time to open, can be viewed as a virus risk and generally don’t show personalisation or creativity….
  • Use “pitch points” (bullet points) to highlight key aspects of the story

 

Know who you’re pitching to

Contrary to popular opinion among PRs who’ve had the phone slammed down on them (Yeah. Me too. More than once) journalists are human. Knowing their work and understanding their views will help. Cision conducted a report on journalist preferences and found ‘their biggest motivator for interest was when you show some knowledge of their previous work.’ Good to know.

Would you read this story?

Move away from simply what you’re ‘selling’ and ask yourself: Why now? Why would anyone cover it? Why would people care? Would you tell this story to your friends at the pub tonight? Would you want to read it yourself? If you answered ‘no’ or ‘not sure’ to either of the last two questions, your pitch is poor.

Be brave.

If you have a good story, plenty of supporting information, a genuine news hook or a high level of human interest to share, pick up the phone. Afterall, if a daily paper doesn’t take it today, there’s always tomorrow….

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