Eye On PR
HOW TO GET ON THE RADAR OF EDITORS AT NEWSWIRES
By George S. Mc
Quade III
Nearly 100 PR pros packed into a PRSA-LA and
Burson-Marsteller-sponsored workshop in Century City, CA (Feb. 20, 2001) "How
To Work With the Newswires" "At
Breakfast With AP, Bloomberg News and Reuters." Scheduled
panelist included: Patrick Chu, West Coast bureau chief, Bloomberg News, John
Hayes, reporter, Associated Press, Steve
Loeper, news editor, Associated Press and Arthur Spiegelman, bureau chief,
Reuters. Spiegelman
was a
“no show,” and some of the panelist jokingly said “I wonder if there’s
breaking story we’ve missed this morning?”
AP Freelancer, and Stephen Loeper, news editor, AP, LA bureau.
--"Make your client more relevant to a bigger story," said
Steve
Loeper, who is a Los Angeles bureau news editor for The Associated Press.
--"It's not the company so much, but the subject matter; it's the product, it's the service and it's what happening, not the company per se," said Patrick Chu, Bloomberg's West Coast bureau chief, based in San Francisco.
--"When you pitch the wire services, there are two faxes that need to be sent: One to the photo desk, and one to the news desk, because if one picture sticks, your client is in," said John Hayes, a freelance photographer and reporter for the AP.
Loeper, Chu and Hayes gave these placement tips to nearly 100 PR pros who packed a Feb. 20 breakfast workshop in Century City, Calif.
The meeting was co-sponsored by the PRSA/Los Angeles chapter and Burson-Marsteller.AP aims for wide selection of news
Loeper said the AP tries to give their newspaper and broadcast members the "widest possible selection of news."
He said newspapers are currently using more brief stories, and AP has had to respond by writing tighter reports.
As for selecting stories, he noted Bay Area stories are put on the California state wire, and it is up to editors in the New York headquarters to decide on the value of the story nationally.
Loeper's bureau is responsible for coverage of Southern California and Southern Nevada. It has satellite bureaus for San Diego, Las Vegas and Orange County.
Chu said Bloomberg has been increasing its coverage of technology, business, general assignments, biotech and a number of different areas.
Since joining Bloomberg three years ago from The Portland Oregonian, he said the number of reporters working at Bloomberg on the West Coast has jumped from eight to 33. Most are based in San Francisco.
Chu gets about 500 e-mails every day.
"I like it that way. I don't like calls, especially while I'm editing 25 stories a day, and I might be up until 4 a.m. on the energy crisis story," he said.
Loeper dislikes e-mail pitches, but once "I enter into a relationship with you on a particular story that would be the time to use e-mail.
"Until then, I prefer to get pitches by phone, fax or
regular mail, provided each are tightly focused," said Loeper. "You'd
be surprised how many times PR folks are sending two or three pages of research,
and no one has time to read them," he said.
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Hayes, who will work for PR firms, believes "the best way to get on the wires is to hire a professional photographer, especially one who has a working relationship with AP."
"Additionally, if AP or Bloomberg are not going to cover your story, if you can get your own photographer to shoot and pitch it again, editors will see you were at the event and might be interested," said Hayes.
Chu said Bloomberg generates 95 percent of its revenue from clients who manage money, security analysts and most of the top 1,000 corporations.
"We are not only a wire service, we also provide background, knowledge, and intelligence information so that money managers can make a quick investment decisions based on our news," said Chu.
He said Bloomberg's subscribers, who pay about $1,400 a terminal, demand hard news.
"We have to get our stories out in 15 minutes of knowing something, and we have to update that story constantly if it is of major importance," said Chu.
Patrick Chu, Bloomberg
Bloomberg has 80 bureaus around the world, and 1,000 editors and reporters.
Chu believes the number will "probably double" over the next two years.
"We want to work together, we need you and you need us," said Chu.
Loeper said AP has to do it all.
"We crank out a lot of stories, a lot of production, which is done by our staff and our clients. We give them news, and they give local news back from their region.
"If we pass on your story pitch, there is another avenue to get your story on the AP wire. Watch for your client's coverage in the local newspaper."
"If you discover a story that The Los Angeles Daily News or Los Angeles Times did on your client, you can call our attention to it, and we might get it out, quite effortlessly.
"First of all, we rewrite all stories we pick up to give it a broader focus. Our basic rule of thumb is would I care in Peoria if I were reading about a story in Century City? If it involves a celebrity or a bigger issue, which people are facing everywhere in the country, yes. We would apply all of those journalist values in deciding," said Loeper.
While AP has to get out the "quick stories" like Bloomberg, it also has to step back to reflect the news and attempt to tell readers what the events mean to them as consumers, and business people, said Loeper.
"We are expanding our business coverage. We also do sports, entertainment, political news and breaking news. We are the vast supermarket of news, which is a challenge, because we have to do all in an increasingly, competitive environment," said Loeper.
Bloomberg HAS LITTLE KNOWN PHOTO SERVICE “Bloomberg has a photo service that not too many people know about it. A lot of our newspaper subscribers know about. A way you can access it is on our website. A lot of our newspapers clients download these photos off the web site free. And that’s fine as long as we get credit for it. We use a lot of freelance photographers. We are doing a lot of stories on the energy crisis. For example, we recently did a story on how alternative energy providers are not getting paid for selling their power to companies,” said Chu.
About AP
The Washington bureau is the AP’s largest single reporting bureau-120
national writers; photographers, editors and regional reporters cover the U.S.
Government. At the Broadcast News Center, headquarters of AP’s broadcast
division, nearly 100 anchors, editors and reporters produce broadcast news wires
and AP network news, a full-service radio network that is one of the larges in
the U.S.
About 1,000 people – including editorial, technical and administrative
staff – are based at AP’s International headquarters in New York. “When a
story is of national or international interest, the local bureau relays it to
new York for further distribution. New York is the main control point for
national and international news, business news, sports, features, photos and
graphics. AP’s 93 international bureaus serve 10,000 newspapers, broadcasters
and news agencies. The AP’s news is translated into dozens of languages, and
AP itself provides news services in Dutch, French, German, Spanish and Swedish.
London is the headquarters for APTV, AP’s global video newsgathering agency.
APTV, founded in 1994, provides video news to broadcasters worldwide. One
of the biggest surprises to most news organizations and PR firms is that the
Associated Press is a nonprofit organization with a web site at www.ap.org.
About John Hayes
John Hayes, who covers events as needed, also freelances for PR pros.
John charges by the project or hour. He uses film, but scans the images and
sends them to the local AP bureau and newspaper outlets. “I usually offer my
opinion on what might get picked up and what might not. I try to cover the event
with a twist that will make interesting to the wire services.
If I can captured a news story, instead of the contrived or grip and grin
photo, often it will get picked up,” explained Hayes.
Hayes can be reached at 562.987.2989 or Email: JohnHayes@HayesPhotography.com
www.Hayesphotography.com
To contact Bloomberg’s
Patric Chu email:pachu@Bloomberg.net. For AP’s Stephen C. Loeper call first at
213.626.1200 and John Hayes is 562.624.7000.
If you have an marketing communications or PR event or a trend that others should read about please send us an email. Please send the event notice two weeks in advance. If you got a PR, marcom or geek question for non-geeks send us your question, we'll get you an answer with our endless resources! gmcquade@MayoCommunications.com
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