Press PASS

An Insider’s guide to dealing with reporters
and getting your name out there

By Sharon McDonnell

Are you a real estate developer who wonders why Donald Trump gets headlines, but not you? Or a restaurant owner or chef jealous of all those stories on Rachael Ray and Emeril?
This isn’t a primer on how to hire a good public relations firm. Whether or not you get assistance from a good professional, it is to your advantage to educate yourself on the inner workings of the media. A few tips on how to work intelligently with the press, and an understanding how journalists operate, might just help you win some press coverage.
1. Do things that are newsworthy. Anything quirky, flamboyant or—to use a much-abused word—”unique” that underlines the difference between you and competitors is more likely to be remembered. When Trump opened his Trump Taj Mahal Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City years ago, over 2,000 members of the press attended from all over the world. The hotel’s exterior was wrapped in a big red bow, and, as a genie with a magic lantern appeared on a video screen on stage and said “Open Sesame,” a laser suddenly appeared in the sky and cut the ribbon as the dramatic theme song from 2001: A Space Odyssey played.
That moment was covered by newspapers and TV worldwide that night and the next day. Now, that’s showmanship. And that’s Trump. What other developer has starred a reality TV show in which hundreds of people vied for the chance to work for him, enduring the tribulations of a weeks-long job interview on national TV? There are tons of real estate developers in the U.S., but the name of only one is known in the far corners of the globe.
Perhaps you don’t have Trump’s resources. You don’t need to.
Bakery owner Pratt Morales dreamed up his own gimmick: “bread sculptures” to make his Golden Crown Panaderia in Albuquerque a conversation piece. This Michelangelo of bread dough has fashioned Thanksgiving turkeys, skulls for “Day of the Dead” celebrations, dinosaurs and Christmas trees out of bread, gaining tons of publicity in Gourmet, the Southwest Airlines’ Spirit magazine and on the Food Network, plus the local press.
In Tampa, meanwhile, Columbia Restaurant has attracted the media attention in its own way. It’s Florida’s oldest restaurant, founded in 1905 in Ybor City, a neighborhood of many Cuban and Spanish immigrants. Still family-owned in an industry dominated by giant chains, it is run by the great-grandsons of founder Casimiro Hernandez, Sr. Besides expanding to restaurants in six other Florida cities, Richard and Casey Gonzmart have extended the restaurant’s brand by selling their own private-label cigars, wine, seasoning, salsa, salad dressing, gift baskets and cookbooks of Spanish and Cuban foods. They sell these wares in retail shops that adjoin the restaurants, by phone and on their website.
Columbia Restaurant has also done attention-getting things like preparing an enormous paella for 1,800 members of the National Tour Operators Association—not a bad way to stick in the memory of people who bring tourists to Florida—and by offering the world’s most complete collection of Spanish wines—a pretty good way to be remembered by wine and food writers.
You, too, can raise your business’ profile by doing something different.

2. Be nice to the press and be quick to respond. This sounds like a no-brainer, but all too frequently a journalist will call a business—or its PR firm, or internal PR person—and get a call-back a week later, or two weeks later, or never. Often, the calls are returned after the story is finished, sometimes even after it is in print. Journalism is a deadline business; there’s a reason why newspapers come out every day without fail without a big blank space on the page, or magazines come out every month, every two months or quarterly, depending on their schedules. Respect their deadlines.
If a journalist calls, many business people behave like they’re getting a call from 60 Minutes and avoid the call like the plague—fearing the worst, that an investigative story is being done to unearth their deepest, darkest secrets. Perhaps it is, but unless you—or your PR person—hear the questions, you’ll never know.
If your business is having problems, “no comment” is the worst possible response. It makes you look guilty, even if you aren’t. You are not obliged to share details of company problems or scandals if you don’t want to (or can’t, as advised by your lawyers), but there are ways of explaining this kindly to a fellow human being without repeating “no comment” like a broken record, and sounding like one of the bad guys. There are ways of saying “no comment” without actually saying it.

3. Be an expert in your industry. Understand the trends that drive your industry—whether it’s food, technology or advertising—and share these with the journalist. Don’t just talk about your business and brag how it’s the biggest, best or oldest. You’ll most likely be wasting our time; the journalist will probably tune out this self-serving promotion. Demonstrate, instead, that you see your business in the context of a larger industry. This way, you start to build a relationship with the reporter, who may start to think of you as an information resource and perhaps call you when he or she writes future stories on your industry, instead of just stories on your business alone.
Be generous with information. Comments that are dull and colorless or a litany of “yes” and “no” in response to interview questions fail to showcase your firm’s style or how it differs from the competition. This does not make for a good story. Being interviewed by no means guarantees being quoted: Journalists often talk to many people when doing a story, but are not obliged to quote everyone, or anyone. It helps if you have something interesting to say. Yet many businesses will complain later to their hapless PR person, “I spoke to the writer and she didn’t even quote me.”
Many businesses are loath to give out good information, fearing that their competitors may steal it. You don’t have to reveal any trade secrets, but if you are too stingy with your information you’ll find the writer will be stingy about including you in the story. Give and thou are far more likely to receive.

4. Understand the role of freelance writers. Many businesses are utterly unaware how many stories are written by freelance writers who are not staff employees, do not work in the publication’s office, and may live in another city or even another country. The fact is, many magazines are written almost entirely by freelance writers. Sometimes 80 percent of their stories are written by non-staffers. Whether a writer gets a W-2 or 1099 tax form should make no difference at all to the business person being interviewed. Yet I can’t tell you how many times a business owner has told me, in a triumphant tone, “I called the publication to ask if you work there, and you don’t.”
Usually they have spoken to a switchboard operator who merely looks at a staff directory and is blissfully ignorant of the many freelance writers, perhaps dozens or even hundreds, who write for the publication’s editors. Interviewees are also frequently curious about how I can write for a New Jersey or Florida publication when my phone number says New York. Imagine their surprise if they knew about the British, Canadian or Caribbean-based publications I also write for.
What matters is not so much where the information is being collected, but where it will appear.

Sharon McDonnell is a freelance writer in New York City. Reach her for story ideas at sharonfmc@cs.com.