If anyone’s ever wondered why I’m so hard to reach on my desk phone at the office (read: I never answer it) I’ll explain why.<\/p>\n
Yesterday someone, I really<\/em> won’t say who, called me and left a message. It was along the lines of:<\/p>\n “I’m just following up on an announcement we released on behalf of our client and was wondering if there was any possibility for coverage in Computerworld…”<\/p>\n Little did the person know the release in question was<\/em> covered by us (not me personally) THREE DAYS<\/em> before the call. So it goes without saying I didn’t, and won’t, return the call which would have been even more of a waste of my time if I had answered it. Now for one of gedda.info’s<\/em> legendary translations…<\/p>\n “I get paid by the minute to bother journalists so instead of reading the Web site, or searching for any coverage, I’ll call the journalist and make a fool out of myself by asking if something was covered when it already was.”<\/em><\/p>\n Again, before you jump to conclusions, I’m not attempting to ridicule my friends in the PR industry, rather I’m trying to help them communicate better with the media. Here are some quick tips:<\/p>\n – Always look for coverage before you call (or e-mail) and ask a journalist (well, duh!) To the elimination of irrelevant communication!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If anyone’s ever wondered why I’m so hard to reach on my desk phone at the office (read: I never answer it) I’ll explain…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,23,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-media-relations-every-pr-should-read-this","category-the-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gedda.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gedda.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gedda.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gedda.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gedda.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gedda.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gedda.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gedda.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gedda.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– E-mail is almost always the best option in the first instance. Why? It’s quick an easy to make a decision on and doesn’t waste nearly as much of a journalist’s time as a phone call.
\n– If you really, really, really<\/em>, want to chat on the phone, send an e-mail or leave a message explaining what the story is. To be honest, if the people I deal with regularly sent me an e-mail saying “call me I’ve got a good lead for you” then I wouldn’t hesitate to pick up the phone.
\n– Unless you’re asking the person out on a date, don’t call a journalist on their mobile phone, ever!<\/strong> [Note: the only exception to this commandment is during an interstate conference when a journalist may need to be contacted for work-related and social appointments. Always ask first and don’t be surprised if the journalist says no to giving out a mobile number regardless.]<\/p>\n