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My Oddball Media Directory
By Dean Rotbart
I come up with new media relationsβ strategies more often than most people shower. In fact, I often dream up some of my best ideas IN the shower.
Yet while I get all lathered up over my concepts, I've discovered that packaging, marketing and selling successful media relations concepts to Corporate America is a soap of a different color.
My biggest problem is convention. Corporate America (CA) is very cozy with convention. Trying to get CA to do it any way but the traditional way is often like trying to draw water from a dry well: You can pump it all you want but nothing is coming.
My latest newfangled concept surrounds media directories. Oh, there are plenty of them out there with names like Bacon's, Benn's, Burrelle's, Gebbie Press and Hollis, not to mention online listing services such as Media Map, Targeter and Press Access.
They all offer up pretty much the same fare: name, news organization, title, address, phone, email and beat. The best of them also tell you how the journalist wants to be pitched (phone, fax, email or U.S. Postal mail) and maybe, how long they've been on the job.
If you look at these directories as launching points to conduct your own list building, they are all pretty good. If you use the directories as substitutes for your own research, you'll find they often are outdated and way too simple-minded in their approach.
In a number of media directories, for example, I'm listed as the Mutual Funds editor of TJFR Group. Why? We don't cover mutual funds and never have!
I get listed that way because the directories need to assign someone to each beat slot and as executive editor of TJFR, I am the Mutual Funds editor by default.
But I digress.
What I challenge any of the directories and listing services to do is to list journalists not by their job titles or beats, but by their personal interests. Any moron can pick up The Wall Street Journal and tell you quickly who covers mutual funds for the paper. Just read two week's worth of the Journal and you'll know. Better still, your list is sure to be more current than that of ANY printed media directory.
But wouldn't it be a true service to the public relations community to publish a directory that tells media relations strategists what actually interests the journalists?
When I say "what interests" the journalists, I don't mean what is it their job to cover. I mean, what excites them? What do they wish they could cover? What would they rather be doing than reading your annual report or self-serving news releases?
I think knowing what interests journalists is a much better means of building relationships with them and pitching them than knowing what they cover.
To give you an idea of what I mean, I turned to our proprietary News Bios database. Of the 6,000 or so influential business and financial journalists who we keep track of as part of our bios service, did you know that:
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At least 222 are fluent in French? |
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At least 321 like to ski? |
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A whopping 579 went to either Columbia University in New York or the University of Missouri at Columbia? |
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And 7 journalists scored a hat trick: They speak French, like to ski and graduated from a Columbia. |
Now that's my idea of a media directory.
In our database, we can also tell you the professions of many of the journalist's spouses; where the reporters grew up; what they'd like to be if they weren't journalists; where they've traveled on vacation, what are their favorite books and movies and which journalists have pets and what kind of pets. And their pets' names. We even have photos of some of their pets.
The number of "insights" into the true interests of the journalists we watch is innumerable. As the hot water runs out in my shower I ask myself, "Would Corporate America understand the need for such a directory? Would CA know how to put such a directory to use? Or would CA complain that the reporters' listings don't include their beats?
I suspect Bacon's and Burrelle's need not lose any sleep over my shower musings. Then again, I could be all wet.
####
NewsBios doesn't sell a media directory. Sorry! But the service can build truly inspired media lists for you. Want to know which business and financial journalists are alumni of your alma mater? We can research that quickly and inexpensively. Prefer to create a list of journalists who have diabetes? We can do that too, only it will take a bit longer and cost a bit more. For more information on our NewBios' "Inspired Media ListsTM" contact
our staff at 303.296.1200, ext. 106 or email
Tjfr@NewsBios.com. To see which journalists we profile, visit our homepage.
June, 2002
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