Media Relations

In this third set of 2020 predictions, communicators anticipate strong demand for mergers and acquisitions of PR firms, a rise in personalized stories and PR pros increasing their use of sophisticated data as audiences become more difficult to reach. Other predictions include a fierce response from healthcare to political criticism and an increase in relationships with non-traditional media outlets.

As is our tradition, in late November PRNEWS asked senior communicators to prognosticate about the coming year. This is the first installment of a multi-part series containing their predictions for 2020. In this first installment, one of the dominant themes was the importance of personalization in various aspects of PR. We’ll run subsequent parts of this series throughout this week.

How can a pitch really stand out in a crowded inbox? A panel of experts from both sides of the comm fence including Laura Brusca, vice president for corporate communications at Forbes, Tom Butts, content director at TV Technology, Monica Melton, assistant editor at Forbes Innovation, Howard Mortman, director of communications at CSPAN and Seth Gilpin, product marketing manager at Cision, dispensed wisdom at the How to Pitch Reporters on Email panel at the PRNEWS Media Relations Conference on Dec. 13 in Washington, D.C..

TV journalist Soledad O’Brien offered attendees at last week’s PRNEWS Media Relations Conference plenty of tips about storytelling and pitching. For example, when telling an ostensibly dry policy story, she looks for people whose lives are affected by the policy.

Journalists and public relations experts discussed adapting to new media strategies at the PRNEWS Media Relations Conference in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 13. The panel, “Rethinking Media Relations in the Age of New Media,” included Brandon Arolfo, head of PBS digital studios, Sara Fischer, media reporter for Axios, Nicole Smith, director of corporate communications at IAC and Katina Arnold, vice president, corporate communications at ESPN.

Press releases may be fading in popular PR practice, but in some cases they’re part of the regulatory regime. Business Wire, a distributor of press releases, and the data firm Onclusive collaborated on a survey of 17,000 press releases. Some of its findings are surprising.

Not every PR project or new client is glamorous. On the other hand, PR pros exist to generate coverage, among their many other duties. Here is a series of 8 questions that will help communicators unearth news and interesting story material in any sector. You should ask them of your executives twice monthly. At least.

Brevity, timeliness, prepared spokespersons and trusted media contacts were a few of the tactics panelists touted at a panel session on media pitching during last year’s PR News Media Relations Summit in Washington, D.C. This year’s summit features an interactive pitching workshop on 12/12 and a pitching panel on 12/13. 

Ahead of her session on day two of our 2019 Media Relations Conference (Dec. 12-13 in Washington, DC), we caught up with Lauren Lawson-Zilai of Goodwill. She discuss how it scaled its influencer program to empower local community nonprofits to recruit influencers, setting a model for how other small nonprofits can activate influencers and brand ambassadors in the process.

While some communicators have the benefit of focusing solely on social, the majority of us must take a marcomm approach for our organizations, merging public relations with social media management. For those of you tasked with media relations on top of social, I’ve got a major grievance with the online media relations world to air: the current state of pitching is infuriating. Online communicators need to break the cycle of bad pitching practices and start giving media relations the strategic attention it deserves.