At the November 2013 PRSANY event, Meet the Media: Local Media, four media producers (two from television and two from print) shared how you can best pitch to get your story covered on NY1, DNA Info New York, and Metro New York.
The panel included:
Julie Shapiro, DNA Info New York
Wendy Gillette, Freelance Correspondent for CBS Newspath, ABC, Newsone, FiOS News
Meredith Engel, Metro New York
Julie Shapiro is a News Editor at DNAinfo.com New York and is responsible for five Manhattan South reporters. She approves and edits stories and coverage, and the ideal story for DNA info New York includes any issues reflecting those in the New York City neighborhoods such as no heat in apartments, any recent crimes, as well as DNA Info favors news that readers can use and can take actionable steps on such as how to obtain a rent-stabilized apartment in New York City.. At the moment she is seeking stories and coverage of events in the South Bronx, Upper East side, and Greenwich Village. Best way to contact/pitch Julie is through email and it is okay to include images/video. If you already had your topic covered by the New York Times Julie will not cover it unless the topic is an update. You can follow Julie Shapiro on Twitter: @JulieShapiro.
As the Lead News Assignment Editor at NY1, Jessica Steiner works on the assignment desk which includes fielding pitches from public-relations representatives, viewer story tips, breaking news, and coordinating fifteen reporters in the field and five live trucks. You can email Jessica your pitch, but since the schedule is planned one day in advance, be sure to call and e-mail her the day before your event. Daily meetings to set up the schedule for the day are held at 7 a.m., 10 a.m., and 3:15 p.m. and also use the AP daybook. Jessica advises to do your research about NY1 as she still receives pitches asking for a guest to do a cooking demo on our morning show (NY1 does not have a morning show) so it is best to visit our website that will give information on all the reporters and shows. Jessica also advised that the best way to localize a national story is how a New York City resident is affected by that national story with local stats. You can follow Jessica on Twitter @jessicasteiner.
Wendy Gillette can be reached via email but do not send a general cut-and-paste e-mail, and best to send on low volume days such as Tuesdays and Thursdays. To get through to her and other reporters you must think about the way in which news people work, and being able to answer: “What is the news value in the item I am sending?” You have to have an angle and be newsworthy. Wendy deals with a national level audience so it is different from the local where one story goes to all the stations across the United States. Lead time may not be possible due to the changing nature of breaking news and breaking events, but since television is dependent on news and articles from the Associated Press, you may have a better chance if you had been previously covered by the Associated Press. Wendy has found that local television newsrooms are always hungry for local news and events especially for their morning shows. You can follow Wendy on Twitter @wendygillette.
Meredith Engel is the Well Being, Going Out, and Travel Editor for Metro New York and her duties include proofing, writing stories, editing freelance stories, and fielding public relations pitches. The best way for a PR person to approach her is e-mail, and she tweets out stories and trends. Custom pitches work best and it is okay to attach lo-resolution pictures but if your story gets picked up she will need high res. Lead time for stories are one month for health features otherwise a giving a few days before your news event is fine and please let Meredith know if your event was covered by another paper. You can follow Meredith on Twitter: @MeredithAtMetro.
You may also be interested in these posts:
How to Get the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek to Cover Your Story, Book, or Guest
How to Get Your Story or Event on New York News Shows
How to Get the Associated Press to Cover Your Story, Book, or Client
How to Get Your Client or Book on CNBC, Huffington Post Live, The Chew, and Better TV
How to Get Your Story or Event On Television and Radio Shows
How to Get Your Guest or Book on Rachel Ray and CBS This Morning Saturday
How to Reach and Foster Relationships with Mommy Bloggers
How to Get Your Story, Event or Client on Bloomberg TV
Get Your Products and Stories Featured in Mainstream Magazines
The October 29 eMarketer report “Is Twitter Better Than Facebook for Targeting Teens?” reveals that from a September 2013 Piper Jaffray study of 8,650 US teens (16 being the average age) that Twitter was most used social network by them. I thought Facebook would still hold the top spot but according to RBC Capital Markets, 41% of Facebook users 16 to 18 years old spent less time on the site in the previous year, and eMarketer predicts that Facebook will remain through 2017.
You may also be interested in these posts:
How to Get Your Client or Book on CNBC, Huffington Post Live, The Chew, and Better TV
How to Get Your Story or Event on New York News Shows
How to Get Your Guest or Book on Rachel Ray, Piers Morgan Tonight, CBS This Morning Saturday
How to Get Your Sports Story or Guest on ESPN, Boomer and Carton, and USA Today
Get Your Product, Book, Movie On Television and Radio Shows – PRSANY Panel
Get Your Products and Stories Featured in Mainstream Magazines – PRSANY Panel
How to Reach and Foster Relationships with Mommy Bloggers
After reading the eMarketer report, “Consumers Click on Marketing Emails Most on Friday” and found the following to be helpful:
– Friday’s worldwide marketing email click rate is 4.9%
– Email inboxes worldwide receive the largest influx of email marketing material on Tuesdays, according to an October 2013 study by GetResponse.
– Out of the five days of the work week, marketers sent the fewest number of emails on Friday— just 14.9%. Consumers, however, were highly responsive on the last day of the work week. They opened a whopping 19.6% of Friday marketing emails.
You may also be interested in these posts:
How to Get Your Client or Book on CNBC, Huffington Post Live, The Chew, and Better TV
How to Get Your Story or Event on New York News Shows
How to Get Your Guest or Book on Rachel Ray, Piers Morgan Tonight, CBS This Morning Saturday
How to Get Your Sports Story or Guest on ESPN, Boomer and Carton, and USA Today
Get Your Product, Book, Movie On Television and Radio Shows – PRSANY Panel
Get Your Products and Stories Featured in Mainstream Magazines – PRSANY Panel
How to Reach and Foster Relationships with Mommy Bloggers
Left to right: Kristen Scholer from CNBC, Sira Sky from Huffington Post Live, Tracy Langer Chevrier from The Better Show, and Jevon Bruh from The Chew.
At the September 2013 PRSANY Meet the Media panel producers from CNBC, Huffington Post Live, Better TV, and The Chew provided insight on the best ways to get your client on their networks and shows.
Appearing on the panel:
Shira Sky, Huffington Post Live
Jevon Bruh, “The Chew” (ABC-TV)
Tracy Langer Chevrier, Better TV
The best way to get to Kristen Scholer from CNBC is an e-mail with attention grabbing headline and include two to three bullet points in the body of the email supporting the headline and any video/photos is helpful. A great pitch Kristen received included the headline with bullet points and the person pitching knew the demographics, but a two page press release will not be seen. If you do not receive a response from Kristen send a second email as well as leaving a phone message. Pitching a story through social media also catches her attention. The appropriate CNBC guest is an expert and knows what he/she are talking about. In terms of exclusivity CNBC has two standards: first on and best. So if Jamie Diamond may be a big guest but if he appears on Bloomberg first we will pass since the announcement has already been made, but there is no time limit for repeat guests that have something interesting to say. You can email Kristen kristen.scholer@nbcuni.com and follow on Twitter: @KristenScholer.
The best way to pitch Shira Sky from Huffington Post Live is e-mail with the headline in the subject line and video links of past appearances. Shira recommends to do your homework about Huffington Post Live and much of the content ends up on the Huffington Post and AOL websites. Huffington Post Live has weekly pitch meetings and if you pitch to her and Shira does not make the decision she will run the idea by an executive producer. Repeat guests appear after eight months for experts but it is great to have new people and different faces. Lead time to book is four to six weeks in advance, but Huffington Post Live can quickly put guests on and does not need to be in the studio since they use WebCams. You can email Shira Sky shira.sky@huffingtonpost.com and follow on Twitter: @shirasky.
As The Chew on ABC enters their third season with 220 episodes taped per year e-mail is the best way for Jevon Bruh to receive your pitch. Best to include a link that plays video directly in the email body. Since it is ABC all products must be cleared over many departments and no social media pitches will be accepted. Criteria for guests on The Chew are celebrity chefs and themes tied to food including field pieces such as restaurant openings and food festivals. Jevon recommends doing research on The Chew since one bad pitch wanted to do a couch interview whereas there is no couch on the show. All paid integration goes through the sales department. There is an eight month time for repeat guests, but some guests have returned as co-hosts. Since The Chew shoots every Tuesday through Thursday all pitches go through Jevon as she decides which senior producer will fit into the segment. The chew.com is the most visited website on ABC and in the future they will be creating exclusive web content for segments that do not make it onto the air.
Tracy Langer Chavier can be reached through e-mail pitches and include links to any shows you or your client have done so she can see them in action. At Better TV the theme is cooking, health and wellness so include before and after photos/videos that may show weight loss. Some of the worst e-mails Tracy has received look like spam/mass emailing to anyone whereas the best she gets saying this person would be a great guest/topic since I you are covering a specific topic/theme for the month such as diabetes, etc. Better TV allows paid spokespeople but they have to be a celebrity and a celebrity we like. One sponsor wanted to do a paid segment where the guest was doing a cooking demonstration mentioning their product with the product on set but Better TV only does paid integration and has to be organic, discreet. There is no minimum time limit for repeat guests so if we like someone such as author Nicholas Sparks who is able to put out new books quickly and is a great guest. You can follow Tracy Langer Chavier on Twitter: @TracyChevrier.
You may also be interested in these posts:
How to Get the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek to Cover Your Story, Book, or Guest
How to Get Your Story or Event on New York News Shows
How to Get the Associated Press to Cover Your Story, Book, or Client
How to Get Your Story or Event On Television and Radio Shows
How to Get Your Guest or Book on Rachel Ray and CBS This Morning Saturday
How to Reach and Foster Relationships with Mommy Bloggers
How to Get Your Story, Event or Client on Bloomberg TV
Get Your Products and Stories Featured in Mainstream Magazines
After reading the eMarketer August 2013 report, “Email Benchmarks: Key Metrics and Trends for 2013,” I found three useful stats with the first above showing the top five weekly digital activities as well as the time spent on that activity:
1. Email at almost eight hours
2. Facebook at almost seven hours
3. Skype at almost six hours
4. Text/SMS at five hours
5. YouTube at five hours
The second finding is the time of day where users read email with throughout the day getting the largest share.
Free Delivery, Alert, News and iPad are the top four email subject lines that get the highest open and click rates.
You may also be interested in these posts:
How to Get Your Guest or Book on Rachel Ray, Piers Morgan Tonight, CBS This Morning Saturday
How to Get Your Sports Story or Guest on ESPN, Boomer and Carton, and USA Today
How to Get Your Story/Event/Guest on Bloomberg News
How to Get Your Story or Event on New York News Shows
Get Your Product, Book, Movie On Television and Radio Shows – PRSANY Panel
Get Your Products and Stories Featured in Mainstream Magazines – PRSANY Panel
How to Reach and Foster Relationships with Mommy Bloggers
The Mike Johnson Blog 