Rethinking Media Relations

He also schedules regular face-to-face meetings with media contacts, seeing these gatherings as increasingly important in a time when so much communication is on line and impersonal. He has invited reporters from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel to tour Thrivent’s operations center in Appleton, Wisconsin, and recently spent a day meeting with editors of two daily newspapers in Madison to update them on Thrivent’s strategies and the latest industry trends.

“It’s so easy for e-mail to get lost in the shuffle of a reporter’s busy life. When you can break through and meet in person, I find the media is more willing to take your call or read your e-mail after that,” Skogrand says. “It’s an important part of relationship building.”

Don’t Be a One-Hit Wonder

In fact, building relationships that are mutually beneficial is far preferable to creating a buzz that eventually falls flat. Rose McKinney, president of Risdall McKinney Public Relations in New Brighton, understands that journalists and other members of the media she works with are often looking for a marketplace perspective, not just to feature one company in tomorrow’s newspaper or on the evening news.

“Reporters tell us they want to be able to call up and ask a source ‘What’s happening in the energy industry’ or ‘What’s the latest in the food products field?’” McKinney says. Her staff will often track reporters’ work and follow up with a call or e-mail to offer background information on a topic or sources for an interview. Rather than pitching a specific story idea, that approach often builds greater trust and credibility with the media, she says, which lays the groundwork for ongoing, win-win relationships.

Katherine Roepke, president of Roepke Public Relations in Minneapolis, also works to position her clients as sources of industry insight or influence. “Our clients might not always be quoted, and the resulting story may not always feature them, but that kind of positioning does help build bonds with journalists, because they know they can rely on trusted experts who aren’t self-serving,” Roepke says. Over time, she says, such relationships usually pay off with enhanced visibility for the client company as their experts are eventually quoted or profiled.

Beth LaBreche, a principal at LaBreche, a Minneapolis public relations firm, believes there shouldn’t be an expectation that a client will be quoted or a story will result from every dialogue PR professionals have with the media. She thinks PR organizations can do a better job of keeping the media in the loop regarding company developments or management changes. 

Get-to-know-you meetings with journalists help in this respect. When a reporter needs to develop a story on a tight deadline, “the comfort level, familiarity, and boundaries are already established with the company, so the reporter can start from go,” LaBreche says.

Cultivating media relationships is essential, McKinney says, even if it doesn’t result in immediate or near-term news coverage. For example, she had a client company that sought media coverage for its 25th anniversary event, which included a name change and expansion plans. But the company had done very little to create visibility for itself over the years, and not many reporters knew about the company. “So it took several months of educating the media about the company before the event happened,” McKinney says. “Had they just sent out a press release about the anniversary, few journalists would have noticed or cared.”