The responses provided me with an observation that I will humbly share with our learned and highly literate readership.
Some professionals, it appears, do not attentively read queries from reporters on sites such as Help a Reporter Out or PR Newswire’s Profnet. Failure to do so is sure to doom your pitch.
If this were my problem alone, I would assume that I am not writing clearly. The trouble is, I have heard other reporters make similar observations.
I write this not in the spirit of peevishness, but as, I hope, a public service. All have sinned, and I am as guilty as the next person of hastily replying to an email, only to reread it and realize I missed the point. This means I must write a second response, and then apologize on top of it, wasting both my time and that of my recipient.
Look before you leap
This said, take extra care when leaping in with a reply to a query on platforms such as HARO or Profnet. The same goes for when a journalist puts out feelers seeking sources on Twitter.
I am almost tempted to suggest that you read the reporter’s query aloud to make sure you don’t skip any key phrases as you skim it. Trouble is, you might get locked in the broom closet if you slip in there to avoid irritating your colleagues as you read.
For my recent story, the subject line was “Communications and writing lessons from first lines of famous novels.” I was hoping to gather diamonds of wisdom from professionals in the field for readers of our publications, which (for those who haven’t noticed) cover internal and external comms.
[EVENT: Internal Communications Summit]
The replies came in three forms:
- On-topic. These were the majority, and I thank all who wrote me, even if I couldn’t fit in your suggestions. I drew quotes exclusively from this cohort.
- Close, but no cigar. These folks suggested opening lines of books, but they interpreted their text from a literary perspective rather than offering a takeaway for (again) readers of a PR or communications website. I am guessing many are fellow former English majors. Comrades, I tip my fur hat to you. For the future, please take a closer look at our websites.
- Thanks, but no. Several respondents sent first lines from their favorite books, but they didn’t include any takeaways at all, just lines such as “Call me Ishmael” and “It was a pleasure to burn” and so forth. One response read in total: “Famous Lives in Novel: Joan Slater Social Crimes.” (Oh.) I commend this group’s literary tastes. Nevertheless, I, too, read books, and I could come up with my own list of opening lines. What I needed was communications tips.
Those who succeeded
This suggested a distinguishing characteristic between the group that got to add another mention to their monthly quota, and those who didn’t. The successful pitches came from those who:
1. Read the query carefully.
2. Tailored their reply to our readership.
HARO polices for off-subject responses, so I wish to make clear: Everyone responded in good faith. Nobody abused the system. A love of books ran through all the replies. No doubt we’d all have a splendid conversation over a pint of stout in Dublin or a couple of vodka shots in St. Petersburg, Russia. In fact, let’s do it.
Still, as when you send off a press release, each HARO pitch comes to me in the form of an individual email. Possibly there’s a way to turn these off, but that would force me to keep monitoring the website for updates.
If the responses aren’t on topic, they just get in the way. Unlike spammed pitches, though, I don’t delete them unread, because that would be counterproductive for me and unfair to those who took the time to reply.
So, thank you all for responding. I am grateful, truly. First, though, take a moment to reread the query. We know communicators are good at deriving meaning from texts.
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