When I was a TV news producer, I would shudder in annoyance each time I took a pitch from PR pro—because most did it wrong.
Booking guests was one of my primary responsibilities. It was fairly easy to land a slot on my show—unlike the shows of some of my colleagues—provided you had an interesting visual story to share.
1. Give producers the goods up front.
Producers have two urgent questions:
- Why should I care?
- How am I going to show it?
If you can’t answer those two simple questions within the first minute (or less) of your pitch you’ve already lost them.
That brings me to another sticking point: brevity.
Edit yourself; give them one-two punch right away. Producers are busy people. In a shrinking newsroom, they‘re doing ten things at once, choosing content, writing scripts.
RELATED: Think like a journalist to get your story covered at our PR Writing Conference.
2. Don’t become a pest.
Here’s a story from my newsroom days: I took a call from a guy named Justin who was pitching an interview with what he called a consumer “expert.” His pitch fell apart rather quickly. My eyes glazed over and crossed. I don’t remember anything he said.
I didn’t book his expert—not because Justin’s pitch was an advertisement, but because Justin couldn’t explain to me why I should care. He pursued me for days with the fervor of a scorned ex-boyfriend. He called the newsroom every day. I would hide under my desk.
One day some poor soul chirped. “Val, someone named Justin is on the phone for you.” My eyes twitched; veins bulged out of my neck as I screamed an ear-splitting “NO!” Everyone looked around, wondering who bruised my kind soul enough to incite such revulsion. That would be Justin.
Don’t become that person to the producer you’re trying to reach.
3. Think of the producers—and his or her viewers.
I’m not difficult to work with, but you have to meet me halfway.
I once booked a guest who cleaned out closets for cash. There was a great hook there. In her pitch, she told me very clearly what they were going to show when they came into our studio. She was brief and respectful of my time.
There’s no science to getting in with a producer. PR pros should put themselves in viewer mode. If you were watching TV, what would you want to see? Once you start framing your TV pitches that way, you’ll make a stronger case to a busy news producer.
Valeria Lacourciere is a former newscast producer and the director of communications for the Caribbean-based agency Birds of Paradise Public Relations. A version of this article originally appeared on the agency’s blog.
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