Valley PR Blog

Pitching your story to KRAP TV

By Angelo Fernando on June 27th, 2008 In Pitching

What exactly happens to the story you’ve pitched to a TV station before it gets to be news?

At the IABC conference in New York, I attended session titled “A day in the life of a TV reporter” by Gerard Braud that involved role playing. It was interesting to see the friction of having us communicators take on the personas of those who research, package and deliver our stories.

Attendees were divided into four news stations (KSUK, KRUD, KNTS and KRAP) given the same stories, and asked to produce three news bulletins. Each station’s team was assigned to roles that ranged from the egocentric anchor, the overworked photog, two underpaid, competitive reporters, an investigative reporter with certain ‘family’ ties, and a station manager and news director with the usual budgetary constraints.

The whole point of this was to experience how stories of dubious news value, pitched to a news organization made up of dysfunctional (read: human) individuals get spiked or covered in a business determined by sweeps, ratings, budget and deadlines.

The day’s story lineup included murder, corruption, a weather related car wreck, a local government story and a technology piece among others. As we set off to report and package the stories, a story of a blogger (posing as a child to lure a pedophile) which looked great on paper was dropped by most teams, never mind the social media hook. The zoo story about a giraffe giving birth, however, survived. But you knew that would, didn’t you?

Just before the evening newscast, Braud threw a curve at all four teams dropping in a story that instantly rescheduled the lineup. Many PR pitches never saw the light of day, even on what seemed like a slooow news day. There were some great lessons apart from the ‘if it bleeds it leads’ driver. Pitching lessons, empathy lessons, and sensitivity to the news cycle. “We tend to treat them news people as special, don’t we?” remarked Braud. “We put them on a pedestal, but don’t recognize they are human, just like us.”

Comments

What a fascinating and awesome session. This is why I don’t get too hurt if a story pitch isn’t picked up. As I like to do a lot here, I’ll refer back to my days working in TV. As a promotion/news topical producer, I’d sit in on an assignment meeting and hear 30 pitches for stories from reporters, the ND, assignment desk and producer. I would always give my two cents about stories that were promotable and some producers and reporters got that and fought for some over others, but in the end and in those few hours till the newscast, that rundown of stories is usually switched and changed and modified dozens of times. So that promotable “blogger pedophile” story sometimes get dropped…or made into a 10 second reader.
Its what happens and sometimes my clients get it when their story doesn’t run or is cut. I think thats because I try very hard to continuosly educate and remind them of how newsrooms work. I would love, though, to job shadow or sit in on an Arizona Republic or other print paper newsroom for a few days to see how their lives are. Probably similiar?

KNTS?

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