By Katie Belton
When trying to obtain news coverage for your organization you need to understand how the media determines if something is newsworthy. What you may consider news is not necessarily what reporters consider to be “newsworthy”.
To gain coverage you need to think like a reporter and understand the news media. News directors act as the gatekeeper for what stories get reported on and what do not. Tailor your story or your pitch to meet the needs of the news director.
Elements of newsworthy coverage:
- Timeliness– if it happened today its news. It is no longer interesting if the same thing happened last week.
- Proximity – what is the local angle to this story? Local impact? If it didn’t happen in the local news’s coverage area or a local angle can’t be put on a national story, it probably will not be covered.
- Prominence– is there someone involved that will attract attention to your story?
- Significance – how does this affect people what is the viewer benefit?
- Unusualness – uncommon situations attract attention and will also attract the media
- Human Interest – how does your story connect emotionally with the audience?
- Conflict – opposing views on a current issue attracts interest, the audience usually takes the side of an opposing party and relates to them.
Think like a reporter and understand their schedule and deadlines. Reporters will cover multiple stories in the same day so make yours important and accessible for them to cover. Reporters will most likely want to shoot your story in the morning -midday so they have time to write a script and edit the story before the evening news airs.
Reporters will generally not know very much about your area of specialty and neither will your audience. Reporters need to be presented with clear facts and information that is simplified for the general public to understand. Reporters will not want to cover stories that are confusing or hard to understand.
Know the needs of the reporter and modify your story pitch accordingly; refer back to the newsworthiness elements to accomplish this. Find out the editorial needs and pitch appropriately, this is another good reason to have an ongoing relationship with reporters in your area.
Ask yourself “why would a reporter want to cover my story?”
The Public Relations Society of America developed a seven-question litmus test to help you judge.
