The primary school had just launched a new forest-school programme – the first in its area. While not the kind of story for which front pages are held and presses stopped, it was a decent line for local media.
“We thought we’d put out our press release to coincide with the King’s coronation,” the headteacher said, “because the king is very keen on nature.”
This was the first time that I had come across this particular logical fallacy, but it is actually surprisingly widespread.
The logic goes as follows: a big national event is happening. We can connect our smaller story to the bigger national event. And thus, by association, our small story becomes big.
So: the media will be covering the King’s coronation. If our story is linked to the King’s coronation, then the media will cover our story. QED.
This is not, of course, how the media actually works.
As an education journalist, I received probably between 30 and 50 press releases a day. In the run up to an event such as the King’s coronation, this number would increase significantly. I would receive emails from schools, nurseries, youth clubs, professional associations and eccentric individuals, all hoping for coverage for their coronation-related events. After about a day – at most – of wryly reading them, I would just start deleting any emails with the word “Coronation” in the subject line.
With a major story such as the coronation, journalists will have decided their angle and found their case studies well in advance of the actual event. Unless you are skydiving wearing nothing but a crown, while playing the national anthem on the bagpipes – and you tell journalists about it a week in advance – your event is very unlikely to make the cut.
Three weeks after the coronation, however, if you were to tell the local paper that your primary school had just launched the first forest-school programme in the area, you would most likely find that they ran the story.
How, then, do you secure coverage for your organisation, when the news is dominated by a big national event?
1. Ask yourself: ‘Is it a good story?’
Journalists want good stories. They want to publish stories that people will want to read.
If your story is good, it will stand on its own merits. “Good” is a relative term here – it means different things for different sections of the media. So the first rule is to know your audience and understand what they will want to read. And if you provide that, the story will run.
2. Give your story space
If you have to crowbar in a link to a major news story, then you aren’t actually pitching a related story – you’re competing for space with the major news event. And your story is unlikely to win.
Instead, therefore, it’s best to avoid releasing your story at a time when you know the airwaves will be dominated by something else. Around the time of a political event such as the Budget or spending review, the news agenda will be full of speculation, leaks, reporting and analysis. There will be very little space left for anything else.
So either send out your press release two or three weeks beforehand or be prepared to hold on to it until a week or two afterwards.
3. Know your area
Specific stories are allocated to specific journalists – education stories to education journalists, health stories to health journalists. So, it’s always worth checking whether the journalist who will be covering your story is likely to be free.
For example, Agenda recently pitched a health story on behalf of the Society of Radiographers. Our initial time frame for pitching clashed with the Covid inquiry hearings – which would dominate health journalists’ schedules and news agendas. So we waited until the hearings were paused and secured extensive national coverage for the story.
4. Add value to a major news story
If a major news story breaks, that will be occupying the majority of journalists’ time and attention. So, you won’t have any luck trying to deflect them on to a different story.
But what you can do is help them out with the story they’re working on. If the news event is in a field relevant to you, send them a reaction comment. Send it promptly – before any embargo, or as soon as possible after the story breaks – and address the issue pithily. Try to include some emotive language – “delighted”, “shocked” and “upset” are all good – to distinguish your comment from the news report itself.
5. Offer case studies
The key with case studies is not to be too specific. This is a trap many organisations fall into – if, for example, the government were to announce a pay freeze for public sector workers, an organisation might send out a press release saying, “We can offer you a case study of a teacher who manages her shrinking salary by spending weekends busking on the tube.”
News desks often have very clear ideas about the case studies they want to accompany major stories. So, by offering a very specific case study, the chances are that you’re immediately ruling out any coverage for your organisation.
A better approach is simply to email the journalist with a more general offer: “If you’re looking for public sector workers to talk about the impact of the pay freeze, we’d be happy to put you in touch with a teacher.” And make sure you have a teacher ready and available to speak as soon as the journalist gets in touch.
6. Don’t be afraid to stand back
It’s not unreasonable to hope that a major news event can create opportunities for your organisation – but be aware that every other organisation out there will probably be hoping for the same thing. Only a minuscule proportion of those organisations who provide a comment about the Budget will actually make it into media reports. The vast majority will be deleted unread from journalists’ inboxes.
When everyone is talking, it’s hard to make out individual voices. If you have something worth hearing, sometimes it’s better to stand back, let everyone else say what they need to say, and then, when they’re quiet again, choose your time to speak out.
Adi Bloom is a PR and comms associate at Agenda. She was a journalist for 25 years, primarily as a news reporter, feature writer and editor at the Times Educational Supplement.
