Making Ink & Airtime

It's Saturday and I'm in the office. I got my flu shot yesterday and am feeling a little sore but otherwise just plain tired. Today is the first volunteer orientation day, tomorrow is column-writing day (in case Sleeves is reading to make sure I'm working), and Monday no one is allowed to expect me to do or say anything intelligent day. There will not be a lick of networking, interviewing, or impressing.

Yesterday I checked out the CPRS luncheon at the Westin. The room was teeny tiny but the food was healthy and delicious. Mark Hunter Lavigne, APR, was there to report on the changing world of media relations. Mark was prominent radio journalist prior to his career in the PR industry, giving him the inside knowledge of media expectations. Mark is also the author of Making Ink and Airtime: How to conduct proactive media relations in Canada, a musician and an all-round cool guy as I found out later that day at Stayner's. That's right, a certain friend thought Friday evening would be the best time for me to make a good impression on Mark, local CPRS President Tom Peck, APR, Executive Director of CPRS National Karen Dalton, APR, and National CPRS President Derrick Pieters, APR. Erroneous, as proven by my original oversight of some of the guests present that evening.

Media relations is a field that is being increasingly changed by technology. Things are happening faster and the channels are getting more and more saturated. Only about 18 per cent of all media releases actually become stories and many of those get thrown away when the spokesperson misses their one-hour window to provide the interview.

Where we used to have the lead sentence to catch the editor's eye, we now have the six words that appear in the subject heading of the email. Scary. Mark predicts that in 20 years, media releases will be no more than 50 words - condensed to fit the variety of mobile devices that are controlling all of our lives.

As for best practices, Mark pointed us in the direction of the HP newsroom online. The site offers journalists fact sheets, Q&As, backgrounders and profiles on just about every product, initiative or executive that they could ever be interested in. In addition, the groundwork of getting images at 300 dpi and high-quality video B-roll has already been done and can be downloaded with the click of a mouse.

I'm working my way through a copy of Mark's book and will report back soon on any other valuable insights. After the columns, of course. Damn those columns!