PCC Luncheon Panel Reveals That Personalizing Story Pitch is Key to Magazine Coverage

June luncheon speakers: Brenda Butler (seated, from left), Rick Kogan, Wendy Cole, Jeff Borden, Kate DeVivo (standing). Photo by Ted Lacey.

MODERATOR

Rick Kogan, host of "The Sunday Papers with Rick Kogan" on WGN Radio, and writer for the Chicago Tribune Magazine

PANELISTS

Brenda Butler, Senior Editor, Chicago Tribune Magazine

Wendy Cole, Midwest Deputy Bureau Chief, Time

David Zivan, Senior Editor, Chicago

Jeff Borden, Assistant Managing Editor, Small Business, Special Sections, Crain's Chicago Business (at the time of the program)

Kate DeVivo, Executive Editor, Today’s Chicago Woman

PRORAM SUMMARY

By Sue Masaracchia-Roberts

The multi-talented senior writer and columnist for The Chicago Tribune "Sunday Magazine," radio host and author Rick Kogan, served as the moderator for the June Publicity Club of Chicago luncheon. The capacity crowd luncheon featured pre-eminent representatives from Today’s Chicago Woman, Crain’s Chicago Business, the Chicago Tribune Magazine and Time, all sharing their thoughts on what it takes to garner editorial coverage in their respective publications – and what to avoid when pitching them.

In addition, current PCC co-presidents Jonathan Lehrer and Jill Stewart carried on the annual tradition of recognizing the contributions of past-PCC presidents.

Rick Kogan began by telling the audience that he has a healthy respect for PR people and, as a reporter, he understands that PR people are necessary sources for stories. Offering his own perspective on this, he reminded his listeners that stories need to go beyond facts and figures, yielding a human face.

Outlining a perfect pitch, Kogan suggested targeting pitches to individual reporters, rather than blanketing the media with one pitch. The pitch needs to be crafted and tailored to the reporter and media outlet for it to have a chance to succeed, but careful study of both are prerequisites to success. For example, don’t pitch a business story to a human-interest outlet unless you can tie the two together. "If you are pitching a business trend, slap a business face on it," he said. "Too many people send dozens of releases to dozens of media outlets with the theory that one might stick." He advises PR professionals instead, "It might behoove you to go to the big elephants and ignore the antelopes. Find the perfect person at one publication for your story."

Kogan’s theory suggests spending time on a focused source instead of giving "valentines" to everyone; "Use your time with an editorial source to dig up opportunities. Pitch your story and ask a source: ‘Who would you suggest it would be perfect for?’" He further suggests talking to reporters, like Jeff Borden from Crain’s, to tap into opportunities related to a planned change in editorial direction. However, that being said, he invited the panelists to first tell those attending "what they don’t know but need to know" about their publications and how they prefer to work.

Executive editor at Today’s Chicago Woman (TCW), Kate DeVivo joined the staff of TCW in June 2002. DeVivo oversees a staff of up to seven writers, editors, designers, seven regular contributors as well as up to 12 freelancers. Her monthly publication, targeted toward professional women in Chicago, focuses on the city’s best and most influential females. It is important to note that this publication focuses on Chicago health, beauty and fitness, not on products.

"Putting a face with the story is best," said DeVivo. Each issue features more than 200 women in each issue, especially up and coming younger women, personalities and women in new, successful businesses. She also urges PR people to know her publication before pitching her.

"Know the publication, know who to talk to and what they do. Focus on the interests of the publication. Pose questions relevant to our readers."

She encouraged queries like, "I know you haven’t covered this in the past six months, but," and then give her your pitch.

DeVivo says the phone is a good way to get in touch with her, however, "calling is great, but repeat calling is not." She prefers e-mail, but warned luncheon guests NOT to fax her.

She goes through all her e-mails and can quickly discern who doesn’t know the publication. "If people have things coming up, call me. We don’t have enough access to female bartenders, architects and others in nontraditional female occupations. I would love to do more but need to know about them." She and her associates normally call back those with whom they have a relationship. If you are pitching a story, make it compelling so she wants to read on.

Having served a variety of roles and covering a variety of beats while at Crain’s Chicago Business, Peter Lisagor award winning Jeff Borden became the assistant managing editor of small business and special sections in May 2000.

Borden indicated that with Crain’s’ new, strong-willed leadership focused on taking the publication to the next level, Crain’s itself is undergoing a transition of its own. As part of that transition, there may be more lifestyle coverage and a possible redesign of the publication itself.

However, he cautions, "It’s still a tough piece of real estate! Often it is the best place for stories to go to die." Reiterating the need to know the product before pitching the publication, Borden reminded those present that this weekly demands exclusivity and is ruthlessly regional, covering eight metropolitan counties. He stresses the importance of knowing the names of the beat reporters and read the on-line as well as the print publications to know what they do, how they write it and what they write about. "If you offer me a scoop, we’ll be friends for life," he quipped. He added that PR people can be very valuable in providing access to newsmakers and hard to interview personalities.

Crain’s caters to the tastes of educated, powerful, management-level executives who make a lot of money. The publication is news and analysis driven, said Borden, although they do write profiles when appropriate. However, "we most want to profile those who don’t want to be profiled." He adds the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for! It can turn in ways you don’t expect." The news this publication provides affects the viewpoints of chairmen and CEOs.

Borden suggested contacting reporters in your field to find out what they are reading. Touch base with them to find out what changes are taking place and what they are working on. The redesign may offer new sections and new opportunities. Borden reminds the audience that, depending on the story, they can place a different slant of the story with several reporters.

"Not being big Saturday/Sunday business newsproducing days, Crain’s gets a lot of mileage coming out on weekends," said Borden, adding that the radio spots give the publication a great deal of mileage on the weekends. "Recognize the ripple effect," he added. "We want to break stories, not repeat stories from the dailies. We encourage creative thinking!"

Press kits are worthless, said Borden, who favors fact sheets and a few slides. The special sections are in transition and opportunities still exist. The publication, according to Borden, is looking to illustrate common business problems, obstacles and opportunities. For example, in its new form, residential real estate will be one of the topics covered. "The new editor has raised the bar as to what will get in," he added, suggesting tailoring pitches to a broader range of people and working with reporters and editors to become a good source for them.

Borden prefers e-mails and faxes from people who understand his needs and the Crain’s product. He also stressed the critical nature of understanding the publication cycles. "Deadline days are NOT good days to contact us," he said. "There are rhythms and tides in every publication. Two months out, we are brainstorming ideas. Just know, the train has left the station if you submit something past deadline in the editorial calendar. Your job is to learn that – and when to stay out of the way."

Senior features editor for the Chicago Tribune Magazine, Brenda Butler oversees the magazine’s coverage of topics such as fashion, pop culture, design and interiors, food and entertaining. Butler began by assuring the audience that "out of town PR people don’t know our product as well as those in Chicago. Our publication shows people connecting with other people in situations," she said.

Elizabeth Taylor, the section editor, wants people profiles, but the publication also does home design and fashion using real people and focusing more in depth on their stories. Butler stresses building relationships with those at news organizations such as hers. A positive side of this could prove an intended pitch taking a different form when it is pursued. Also, what might not be covered by one section could be a good story for another section; having a good relationship with reporters and editors can lead to a pitch being passed on to a more appropriate writer. She also urges that release headlines should clearly express what the press release is really about. She has little time to guess.

As Midwest correspondent of Time Magazine and Midwest Deputy Bureau Chief since 2000, Wendy Cole has been based in Chicago since 1994 after working for Time in 1986 as a New York reporter. She has been focusing on uncovering tales of Americana in the heartland. Cole indicated that everyone thinks they know Time, but often that is not what we are looking for. "Client needs most often don’t dovetail with ours. Also there is no need to repeatedly call. It is not very often that we take stories based on a pitch," she said. However, there are demographic supplements stapled into different subscriber bases. The business coverage is inside and global. With a circulation around one million, demographically, the target audience is the 55 and over crowd; they show a connection between families with young children and targets women.

"These are areas most likely for pitches," she added an anecdote about a recent suggestion from the Chicago Food Depository, which offered a timely suggestion involving a move to a new facility. The angle employed how a nonprofit organization can successfully operate on a forprofit business model. She is also interested in other lifestyle/trend stories that can be framed as business stories. Make sure to include three examples in illustrating contentions of trends.

Nine out of ten stories at Time are narratives rather than issues, focusing on service stories to help people with their lives. One of the recent stories was one about the face of homelessness featuring intact families. "We want to cover what is surprising, counter-intuitive," said Cole. She added the caution, "Covers can frequently be a curse so don’t become obsessed with trying to be featured on one." In creating an effective pitch, Cole stresses that shorter is better – no more than one or two paragraphs.

"Make sure your pitches make sense. The follow-up is our job!" She added, "E-mail is fine but spam is not." Don’t stalk her on a story. Also, do not send a similar pitch to her competitor. "Make the story pitch exclusive! Every major media outlet is doing more with less in Chicago. Some reporters are still meeting with people but most don’t have time and are doing it less."

She quipped, "We cannot compete in speed with CNN but we can buy them. Those who believe news weeklies are dinosaurs are being proven wrong. Circulation is strong, although advertising could be better. We are covering what people are reading daily, therefore we need to help them understand an increasingly complex world and deal with things". The publication closes stories on Friday night or Saturday and going online on Sunday night, appearing on newsstands on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Cole prefers to be contacted by e-mail, although she will accept concise phone calls. "If I don’t call you back," she said, "that’s your answer. I must feel you have put time into creating your pitch. Be as thoughtful as you can be and use common sense." Kogen’s parting comments suggested, "Be a reporter! Do the work you need to do to get into these publications. We need each other!"