NicheKnot - where news niches knot into the big picture

HARO & News Wires: New Way for Journalists to Promote their Work?

by Pam Baker, veteran freelance journalist

These days, freelance journalists and the few remaining mainstream media staffers are pressured to gasp! MARKET their own work. Page views trump reporting quality (yeah, who needs truth when it's eyeballs that sell to advertisers!?) Get the numbers or be gone, say publishers! So we writers rush to push every article via slashdot, reddit, digg, stumbleupon, etc ad nauseum. But now Peter Shankman, of Help A Reporter Out (HARO) fame may just prove to be reporters' surprise! saving grace.

A good many mainstream journalists are already familiar with HARO and the majority find Peter's service tremendously helpful in locating reliable news sources. In general, we journalists post our queries, reap the email responses, do our research, write our stories, and then move on. Rarely do we take a moment to say thanks to the sources (especially those who answered our call but didn't make the story). 

In our own defense, that odious behavior comes from our having to do the work of ten journos these days (without the aid of a massive newsroom) AND market our work to the masses. In any case, we are not great at following up with folks on the other side of Peter's table -- no matter how great a feast was just served there.

We are even worse at letting Peter and his HARO gang know when our story is published. Overworked and sweating page view numbers (as publishers and bean-counters continue to scream at us yes! but what have you done for me LATELY!?) we focus on marketing our stories elsewhere and thus completely overlook the value of marketing our work before the collection of news consumers/participants in the HARO universe. 

Peter says he'll soon be adding an easy way for journalists to notify HARO that the story behind the query is published. Sure, it's to Peter's advantage to do so. No doubt a continuous list of published stories will give Peter bragging points and help him promote HARO. A published mention is after all the Holy Grail of PR, especially given the rarity of media exposure these days in light of harsh cutbacks, layoffs and outright media crashes. But, such will also help journalists promote their work as HARO members click on the stories and pass on links to clients, friends and public places on the Web. 

There has always been an uneasy relationship between journalists and PR pros. Today is no different. But what is different is the journalists' need to self-promote and Peter's HARO can inadvertently help with that. So can his competitors.

The next time you have to promote your article and/or your brand as a journalist, look for help in places you already work within -- like HARO, Profnet (PR Newswire), Businesswire, and NewsWise. 

Will news services promoting articles buy favor from journalists? No, they won't. Good journalists don't play that game. Wires and services will have to be content with promoting themselves and their clients this way -- the byproduct will be that it also promotes individual journalists. 

However, aggressive article promotion could attract journalists to using services like HARO, ProfNet and NewsWise much more often. Indeed, a brilliant way to attract journalists would be to add a clip service and automatically list stories by journalists that used your news service. THAT would help tons as it would reduce the time we journalists spend on marketing (an activity we detest, btw). 

What are your thoughts on how journalists can promote their articles to readers? 

UPDATE: Peter Shankman had this to say to me and fellow reporters "We encourage you to post all your completed stories at http://facebook.com/helpareporter - close to 10k fans in there, all waiting to read your work!!"

  

Where to Find Best Sources for Your Article or Book

by Pam Baker, veteran freelance journalist

Herd mentality rules from Wall Street to Main Street. Lately, the journo herd has stampeded towards Helpareporter.com  (HARO) for news sources. But just because HARO is the herd’s favored watering hole, doesn’t mean it’s the only place you ought to go to drink.

 

To reach the best sources for your article or book, leverage all the source services to your advantage. Here’s the lay of the land so you can map your own path and thus stand out from the herd:

 

·         HARO – a free service for both journalists and PR types, supported by advertising. Owned/operated by Peter Shankman, a PR guru, found on Twitter at http://twitter.com/skydiver

 

Pros: Fast responses, quality sources. If your deadline is really tight, Peter and crew are great about Tweeting your  source needs to a massive following on Twitter. They also screen members and punish spammers thereby eliminating “junk” and off-point responses to your queries. Reporter query form is streamlined and easy to use.

 

Cons: Responses are generally strong from PR folks, company owners and technology leaders. Short on big name analyst firms, Fortune 500, political types, celebrities, economic development groups, and scientific and university sources when compared to other services. Also, you run the risk of your story idea being stolen as your query is very public; doubly so when it is tweeted by the crew. However, you are at similar risk when you tweet for sources yourself or use competing services that also use Twitter. Also, historically speaking, prime sources will tip their fav reporters to your story angles on occasion, so this problem is not unique to HARO.

 

 

·       The Eric Friedeim National Journalism Library  – $89 annual fee for just library services; no extra charge for National Press Club members. Owned/operated by the prestigious National Press Club. Probably the BIGGEST best kept secret in the sourcing/research game. Contact Research Librarian is Beth Shankle bshankle@press.org or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/today

 

Pros: A professional librarian will research anything for you, and I mean anything. This resource makes any freelancer function with all the strength of a fully staffed newsroom; staff writers suffering from shortages in news rooms will also highly benefit from this service. A research librarian can identify leading sources and contact info; complete publishing history of a subject/industry; deliver stats, numbers of all kinds, clips (video or print) of previous interviews -- in other words comprehensive info you cannot easily, if at all, find anywhere else. Looking for contact info of the big names that shy away from media? The librarian will produce it in minutes. The Library also has full access to resources journos often cannot afford themselves, such as Nexis, the news half of Lexis Nexis. They can also direct you to sources that will give you a heads up on news forecasts (what WILL be news in the future) such as NewsAhead World News Forecast.  Reliable research material and source info are handed to you on a platter!

 

Some research services cost an additional fee. The first 4 research articles are free. After that, it is $2.00 per article. Beth usually does the search and sends a citation list to you. Then, you can respond with which articles you want the full-text for, thus controlling the costs to you. There is an hourly charge for extensive research – such as researching trips to the Library of Congress.

 

Cons: Other than the fees, not a darn thing. Your queries are confidential and not shared with other journalists. Beth and her team are a godsend, simple as that!

 

 

·         ProfNet – free to journalists but not to sources. Owned/Operated by PR Newswire. Maria Perez is director of News Operations at ProfNet maria.perez@prnewswire.com or reach her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/profnet

 

Pros: Very strong in several source types: colleges and universities, corporations, government agencies, legislative offices, small businesses, nonprofit organizations, hospitals and medical centers, analysts, authors, speakers, consultants, and, of course, PR agencies. One of the benefits for reporters using ProfNet is that they can choose institution type(s) they want to send the query to. If you want to target just colleges and universities, for example, you can. Reporter query forms have been recently streamlined making the service easier to use.

 

Reporters can also search ProfNet's Experts Database to find experts and communicate with them privately (via their PR representative). This gives reporters yet another option for finding experts, without broadcasting their query to the full e-mail subscriber list. If your deadline is tight, Maria leverages Twitter to speed responses.

 

Cons: Responses can be slow although ProfNet has made considerable progress with speeding things up. Although there is only so much one can do to spur industry heavyweights and science types. Also, if you ask ProfNet to leverage Twitter to speed responses, you run the same risks you do with HARO on Twitter. Just depends, you want to keep your story idea to yourself, or not?

 

·         Newswise – free to journalists, sources pay a fee. Newswise is great for university and research institution sources (over 500 of them!)  for knowledge-based news. It was created in 1991 by Roger Johnson, Ph.D., a biochemist who became a science writer and freelance reporter in the Washington, DC area in 1978. Contact Thom on Twitter at http://twitter.com/newswise  or his boss, Newswise President and Founder, Roger Johnson at http://twitter.com/newswiseroger . 

Pros: The information found here is extraordinary. Five wires are available: SciNews, MedNews, BizNews, LifeNews, and Daily News. Journalists have access to embargoed news well in advance of release. This is an awesome advantage as it allows you time to thoroughly research a topic and yet publish a comprehensive piece on the actual release date. Offers an extensive contact directory and Find An Expert service to aid you in your own sourcing needs. A good news library and archive service enables you to find plenty of background info on a long list of topics.

 

Cons: To date, I haven’t found any. The service is limited to serious journalists; it is not sourcing turf for bloggers, citizen journalists or news aggregators (at least in terms of embargoed news and access to true experts in any field).  Also, your queries are not shared-- nor visible to-- other journalists.

 

 

Why do I share this information with you? Because I believe, heart and soul, in good journalism and I want to do everything I can to see the industry weather and prosper despite the current economic obstacles. Go forth and report – and know that I salute you!

 

 

 

After Haro: a journalist spills on what happens to your HARO response

by Pam Baker, veteran freelance journalist

Mainstream media is dying. Or, so I hear. If it is, I don't notice. Assignments are flowing, deadlines looming and HARO responses are flooding in. Peter Shankman is prospering, corporate America is clamoring and I am furiously writing. On average there are 35-40 responses to my HARO requests; only 3-7 are needed for any given story. Here's how I choose which sources make it to my article -- and what I do with the leftovers. 

While publisher need for freelance content is at a new high, pay is at an all-time low.  The recession has forced me to work twice as hard and twice as fast just to break even. I have to go into overdrive to make any real dough. Time is money and time has sped up. There isn’t a second to spare.

The most HARO responses I have received on a single request is 147: for a story I was writing on social media. The least was 16: for a story I was writing on health care. I have to use a minimum of three unrelated sources in any given story and no more than nine (such are the rules of journalism; the total number used is directly related to the length of the story).

A phone interview (of any depth) takes at least eight minutes (if I’m rude and rush the interviewee). But, I can never get it done in eight minutes because interviews rarely start on time and I have to push past all the pat answers, sales pitches, product pushes, and positioning statements before I can get to the core nuggets that make a great story. At the volume I write, there’s no time for three such phone calls per story, much less 147 of them.  

So I ask for email responses to my HARO requests. This speeds the process and ensures accuracy in my reporting – working this fast swings the door to the Error Room wide, freakin’ open. Email interview answers are an incredibly effective doorstop.

I read every single HARO response that I receive. They then go to two files and a database. Those I’ll use in the story at hand go in one file; the rest go in a second file for use in related stories over the next 30 days. They ALL go in my source database for consideration in stories that I’ll write beyond the 30 day window. Well, almost all of them anyway. First, I have to sort the wheat from the chaff.

 

The elimination round.

 

Any HARO responder that offers to write the story for me: DELETE. All that are off topic: DELETE. Obvious nutcases: DELETE. Any that merely are a cut & paste of web site copy, blogs, previously published articles or original manuscripts: DELETE. Any that offer a phone interview after I specifically requested full comments be emailed to me: DELETE (with the rare exception of a truly unique source which I will react to accordingly, but for the most part I simply don’t have time to chat, so the email is deleted… though I may move the source to the database for a future story in the hopes that I may have time then).

 

Who makes the cut

I look for responses that are conversational, not robotic, over- thought or chockfull of legalese. I look for valuable info and insights and skip propaganda or product pitches. Speak in terms of your industry not your product. Unless I’m doing a product review, I’m never going to advertise or endorse your product. Accept that fact of journalism. Make your answers relevant to your industry and the question(s) posed. Put your product and company info in a boilerplate paragraph beneath your answers. In the off chance I think your product is relevant to the story, I’ll pull the info from your boilerplate.

Next, I’ll read all the emails for a consensus and I’ll note contrarian views. Then I’ll narrow by relevance and look for the quotes with the most power in the punch (if your quote rambles, you’re probably not gonna make the cut as someone who can get to the point with pizzazz is much more likely to take the slot).

Then I’ll weigh those responses based on the authority of the speaker. The more integrity and authority the responder has, the more likely I am to use the quote. This does NOT mean I will only use responders from big corporations. Reader value tops corporate might every single time.

Lastly, I will verify the source and the material and follow-up with a phone call as needed.

Then, I write the story.

 

The extra benefit for HARO responders

I’m aware that you went to an awful lot of trouble to respond to my HARO request. I don’t take your efforts lightly. That’s why I make the extra effort to use your information in other articles if you didn’t make the cut for this one (and you or your client had something brilliant to say about the matter).

Sometimes that comes as a surprise to many of you. I often get emails praising my articles but asking when I interviewed the client (the fear I ran around PR is palpable in these emails). When I email a copy of the HARO response, PR folk inevitably say “Oh, I remember, I just didn’t put it together that Pam Baker at xxx publication online is the same Pam Baker at xyz magazine.”

I have been freelancing for over 15 years. I think that’s ample time to connect the dots. But even if you don’t make the connection between this HARO response and the story you’ll see in a different publication next month with my byline, rest assured I did. I have nothing but respect for your work and your efforts in answering my HARO requests. Thank you for being there for me!