Fifty PR pros packed into a "At Breakfast With the Media" workshop featuring broadcast media at the Century City offices of Burson-Marsteller, which sponsored the event along with On the Scene Productions and PRSA-LA.

The Panel included Nickie Bonner, field producer, West Coast Bureau, CNN and Jay Jaramillo, news assignment editor, KABC-TV, Los Angeles.

Jaramillo said he asks PR firms to fax story ideas before they pitch a story. He said editors will put the story idea in a file of the date that the event is happening. The day before the actual event, he said, an editor will take another look at it to decide coverage.

Jaramillo said KABC mainly deals with breaking news because that's what viewers say they prefer. He said most of ABC's audience is women, a majority of which watch at five, six and 11:00 PM.

Jaramillo works from 3:00 – 7:00 AM for the morning show.

Bonner said, "We work in a national environment, so it is a little different than KABC-TV."

"I deal with corporate PR people all of the time, because we're covering Fortune 500 companies most of the time," she said.

Bonner said her audience is mainly investors since she covers corporate needs on the West Coast. She said CNN also does big picture and political economy stories.

Bonner is always looking for economic trends on the West Coast and accepts story pitches all of the time.

"Unlike other reporters or producers, I don't mind PR people and I'm happy to take your pitch," she said.

She does not take product pitches, however.

"I'm always looking for interesting people, who have a high profile or a good track record in their industry," she said. "PR pros who ask us to cover a breaking story, but can't tell us what it's about, drive me crazy, and often they're excited and out of breath."

Looks for two types of people in pitches

There are two kinds of people CNN is interested in producing stories about, Bonner said.

Those are people for one-on-one interviews at "CNN Financial News" and "Moneyline," and packages (interviews with the CEO, cover video of story plus a reporter standup close) for both shows, she said.

In terms of guests, if a PR pro pitches a CEO, Bonner said she will refer that person to New York, because that's where the bookers are for CNNfn and Moneyline.

Packaged pitches are produced in L.A. by correspondent Casey Wian and Bonner.

"I can pretty much tell you what will fly with Moneyline, and what won't when you pitch it to me." Bonner prefers e-mail pitches over a fax or phone call. She can be reached at nickie.bonner@cnn.com.

Bonner, a field producer primarily for CNN Moneyline since March 2000, has been in Los Angeles for three years. She migrated from Toronto, where she worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a 24-hour news channel called News World.

Bonner was the coordinating producer for four 30-minute daily business shows. She has done some on air work, but prefers being behind the camera.

A pitch might end up in another story if the shoe fits, Bonner said.

"I might not use your pitch, but the person your're pitching to me might end up being used in another story as I might be working on something which needs an expert in a particular area," she said. "If I know that CEO or expert is out there, I'll put them in my Rolodex, especially if they're willing to talk to the media. I might call on them another time for a different story we're working on."

She said stories have to have some national interest in them in order for them to be relevant.

Bonner added that she feels PR Newswire is "so dense," she prefers Business Wire stories, because she likes "the way Business Wire interfaces with the Internet."
Find local angle

Jaramillo said his station prefers the local angle and told PR pros to fax before the event.

"Don't call until the day before your event, and fax us every day a week before, because it might get filed wrong or lost by an intern," Jaramillo said.

In regards to national news, he said if there's a local angle, KABC will always try to take that. "If movie prices are going up, we'll try to localize it," he said as an example.

As for booking guests, Jaramillo said the station does have them on the morning show but they are mostly entertainment and sometimes cooking guests.

Jaramillo said the "latest drive" is the power issue.

"Anytime you might have a client, who has anything to do with the power-related problems or solutions, it is always a good time to start pitching those clients," he said. "We think we have exhausted all of our possibilities, all angles, all ideas, and then all of a sudden someone calls and tips us off on another lead. Don't assume that we've already thought about your new story ideas, often we haven't," he added.

"That happened to us as well," said Bonner, who cited an example where she was pitched by a small Chatsworth, Calif., company which she never heard of before. That company was involved in making power turbines. "We started covering the power shortage last summer, and we were right at the beginning of it," she said. "Under any other circumstance we would not have paid any attention to this company, but its stock had gone up like a rocket because of all the turbines they were selling as a result of the power crisis."

She said CNN incorporated the company in stories the network was doing on how people were making money as a result of the power crisis.

Bonner said if PR pros have a client who is tied to a story that is on the news right now, "that's definitely what we're interested in."

Jaramillo said TV editors are concerned with visual aspects of a pitch. "When you pitch us a story, one of the first questions we ask is what are we going to see," Jaramillo said. "If you're pitching someone to us, and all we're going to see is a talking head, and he's not going to show us what products or services he has or what he's making, then it is boring."

He added, "We need something the viewers can look at and say wow, look at him do that."

Jaramillo was born and raised in Los Angeles. He worked on the news desk at KFWB 980 AM, all-news radio for five years before he made the transition to TV for "more money" four years ago. Jaramillo is one of several assignment editors at the ABC- owned, network TV station in L.A.