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PR Emails - What the Papers Say

I've been following the recent PR spam debate and the "An Inconvenient PR Truth" campaign with some interest.

Although I feel a "Bill of Rights" is perhaps unnecessary, as I work in the national news industry I was interested in gauging the thoughts of editorial level newspaper staff regarding the issue of PR emails.

So today I posed the following question to senior staff on The Telegraph, Sun and Metro:

"As an editor on a national news publication, what are your thoughts on press release emails and what tips would you give to PRs looking to achieve national coverage?"

This was their response:

Chris Pharo. Head of news. The Sun:

‘'We are bombarded with badly written press release emails all day. It is about time PR people spent a bit longer reading the newspapers to try and get more of a grip on what sort of stories we run on a daily basis. We are often called just before conference, a time when myself and everyone else on the desk has much bigger fish to fry''

Jane Hamilton. Consumer Editor. The Sun:

DO:
• Sum up the story in the subject line.
• Send ideas early - not at gone 11am when it is too late for conference.
• Know the publication, which days it has certain sections etc.
• Enjoy the job, try hard and be more creative. Journalists love really good PRs as you help us come up with great stories - but there are not enough truly excellent PRs around.

DON'T:
• Send a completely irrelevant idea - think whether you can honestly see it in that publication first.
• Send huge attachments or press releases in a word document. We don't have time to open them up - just put the details in the email.
• Never ever send a press release as a PDF as we cannot cut and paste from it.
• Ring and ask if we got the press release. If it hasn't bounced back to you then we have. We will contact you if you like it. I have over 40 calls a day from PRs asking if I've received the release which can take up to an hour of my time.
• Do boring surveys and call them 'quirky'. We know supermarkets sell a lot of BBQs in the summer - that is not news.
• Just send statistics - think of the story behind it. Why have sales gone up, what does it mean, is it a new trend or celeb-led?

James Day. In Focus Editor. Metro:

"While I appreciate PRs have a very stressful job role and are expected to get results, trying to hoodwink journalists with lazy tactics such as entitling releases as 'breaking news' is neither original, inspired or in any way inventive.

"Honesty is always the best policy and if what you are trying to plug is strong enough or of interest we will take notice and give it the coverage it deserves.

"If we've not spoken before don't act like you're my best friend or make jokes about the weather. Keep things tight and professional and direct it personally. Do your research and make sure what you're sending is relevant to the publication and warrants coverage in a particular section.

"Finally, calling my landline, mobile, landline, mobile then landline again in quick succession won't make me want to pick up the phone any quicker. I'm probably busy, so please leave me a message or send me an email. We do pick them up and more regularly than you would imagine."

Andy Bloxham. Daily Telegraph newsdesk:

‘'I would advise PR people to call first and say something like ‘I am calling with a story for tomorrow's paper' - not "Hello, My name is Shanice from TinPot PR" or whatever.

‘'Please get to the point. Also it's better if you don't try and explain to me what your client wants the story to say as I'm not interested in that.

‘'Give me a good intro or a nice fact which will make a headline. You have to remember I am not interested in products, I am interested in stories.''

Written by Harriet Crosse