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PR Leads Publicity Articles
How to Deal with Reporters' Errors
By Dan Janal
Your Fearless PR Leader
PR Leads
www.prleads.com
PR LEADER Karen Lund asks:
I'm enjoying working with the leads - often I don't hear from the person who placed the lead but it gets me to think about the subject which is a good jar to my memory.
I have been quoted in four sources - one on-line newsletter, an Ottawa newspaper, The Chicago Tribune and supposedly in the April Issue of Sale and Marketing Management which I haven't seen yet.
Maybe you could help me with - The quotes don't seem to be what I said - Is this just part of the business or am I doing something incorrectly?
Thank you for the service.
Dan answers:
Thanks for your note. I'm glad you are getting the value out of PR LEADS. If you hired a PR firm, you might have gotten just one of those interviews for the money you spent for a year's service with PR LEADS.
I started answering your message and turned it into a newsletter article for this week! Thanks!
Regarding your quotes being inaccurate: Great question. Here's what could be happening:
- The reporter has her own agenda and wants to fit you into it. Doesn't matter what you say, they need someone to act as the standard bearer for a certain way of thinking. That's because many articles have a good-guy-versus-bad-guy orientation. They have you pegged in one slot, or the other.
- Your grammar is off and they are cleaning it up to make you look good (unlikely in your case).
- The reporter takes notes slower than you speak and that leads to inaccuracies.
All these cases might be true, but chances are the next one is the real culprit.
- Your message isn't as tightly focused as you could or should be. This is likely the case and it affects nearly everyone! That's because we don't think about what we want to get out of the interview, or we become so comfortable with the reporter that we say things we shouldn't say in public.
Here's what you need to do before you talk to any reporter: get media training with a pro who can help you decide what you should be saying, or work on your key messages yourself.
Here are two essential steps if you do it yourself:
- Close your eyes and imagine the newspaper headline. What do you want it to say? That's your key message. Say it over and over again until it becomes a part of you. Now think of your second and third major points. Remember 'buy my book,' is NOT a key message; 'Reduce heart attacks with my new exercise and diet book' is a key message.
- Tape record these points. How do you sound? Keep on recording until the sound bytes sound normal and conversational.
Here's the most important step of all:
Don't say anything you don't want the reporter to print.
Ever.
You can bet your bottom dollar that will be the one quote they use. As in, 'I think this is a fine law except for blah, blah,blah.' The headline will read 'Senator criticizes new law.'
Guaranteed.
Joan Stewart, the Publicity Hound and a former daily newspaper writer and editor offered this advice:
- When interviewing with a reporter, talk slowly. And ask the reporter if he or she would like you to repeat the quote.Many reporters will appreciate it that you asked.
- Ask the reporter if he or she will agree to read quoted material back to you after the story is written. The agreement must be that you don't have the right to alter the quote unless you know that it is wrong.
- After the story is printed, ask for a correction. Not because you want the world to know that you were misquoted. But because you want the newspaper to have a permanent record of the error and the correction, which will be stapled to the original story. This flags anyone who, 6 months later, might pull the story from the library to refer to. It lets them know there was an inaccuracy and that a correction has been written.
Joan and I conducted a great seminar by telephone recently on 'How to Pitch Reporters.' You can get a copy of the seminar on CD for only $29! This article can be reprinted if the following information is printed:
By Daniel Janal, dan@prleads.com, http://www.prleads.com
PR Leads founder Daniel Janal is the author of numerous books, including "Dan Janal’s Guide to Marketing on the Internet.”
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