Valley PR Blog

Humanizing your PR, getting off your royal high horse

By Angelo Fernando on August 27th, 2007 In Advice

On Saturday NPR aired a story on Princess Diana and her media savvy angle –seen through the eyes of Tina Brown, the former Vanity Fair editor-turned Royal chronicler. She made an interesting point (discussing her latest book The Diana Chronicles) that ought to apply to anyone or any organization juggling with multiple constituencies.

The schoolteacher with an eye on the prize intuitively knew the value of her public image and adroitly managed the media to achieve this. The first of these three publics of course was Charles; the second was the royals; the second was the the British Press –that could act more like attack dogs than watch dogs.

Diana made it her business to know the journalists covering her beat; she knew their wives’ names, where they lived, she joked with them, and didn’t deny them too much access. They fell all over her.

We hear in various workshops and conferences the value of understanding journalists. But getting them to ‘work with you’ is a lot different than getting them to like! What do most organizations get wrong, or don’t do enough in reaching out to the media? They create an aura of royalty, and don’t come across as human. Here’s my list. I am sure you could add to it:

1. Playing hard to get. Organizations that go after the media don’t make their key people accessible, and put up too many barriers. Not only are they stand-offish, but suspicious, and they come across as being unreachable.

2. Not exactly sincere. They think knowing a journalists by first name, his beat, and throwing occasional crumbs his way is being ‘close.’ Journalists have a back story, they too have issues with their bosses and are equally under pressure, but few take time to figure them out.

3. Poor follow up. Senior people free up their calendar when pitching a big story, but assign a lesser mortal to follow up because they suddenly get very busy.

4. Shunning the attack dogs. If you had to deal with media such as the Daily Mail and the Sun on a daily basis would you pull up the drawbridge (put them on a banned list), or would you invite them in?

5. Linear thinking. People seldom see the media as a non-linear on-ramp to the other publics. Who knows, the two sentences you may get in the Sierra Vista Herald might lead to an invitation to lecture in Singapore, which could lead to an exclusive in WIRED….

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