Why the US is important when pitching stories for the FT

I’ve been working on a couple of FT stories this week and thought it might be worth recapping why so many PR pitches fail to make the grade: they focus too much on the UK.

It’s worth repeating that unless it is for a report that is for the UK only, FT content is written from a global viewpoint. In particular, the US audience is a very, very important readership.

Pitches have a much greater chance of success if they reflect that, and offer high-quality global or US interviewees or examples.

Don’t just take my word for it though: this quote is from Rob Grimshaw, managing director of FT.com.

“The US is FT.com’s biggest market, with more subscribers and registered users than in any other region, and we see a great deal of potential in building on that substantial base of loyal US readers.”

(please see here for the original story on journalism.co.uk, about the expansion of US financial coverage).

So, to recap, the audience is not UK, nor EMEA, but global with a strong US presence. That’s why we put so much store on US angles and truly global commentary in FT stories.

If clients don’t get it, by all means show them Rob’s quote…

Video review: Panasonic FT1

I’ve posted a quick (2 minute) video review of Panasonic’s FT1 digital camera over at stephenpritchard.com.

It’s worth checking it out, and a companion piece I will be recording on syncing with external audio for a more professional result.

Any company that says “our execs won’t be appearing on video” should think about what happens when journalists, bloggers, or even disgruntled customers, can carry something like this in a jacket pocket.

Please think internationally

I really don’t like to complain but unfortunately I’m forced to put up this note regarding PR pitches for this Autumn’s features in the FT’s Digital Business. Digital Business (and the FT of course) have a global audience. That means the content has to have a global outlook.

If you are going to make an unsolicited pitch for your clients for upcoming features, please keep this in mind. There is no bias in favour of UK customer examples. In fact, unless they are globally known organisations or brands, it is very very unlikely I will want to feature them.

And I will not, under any circumstances, interview UK or other country executives, or regional types. Any client executives put forward need to be on the global management team. Also, I will not, unless the piece is specifically about marketing or sales, speak to executives in either discipline.

Photographers’ rights: time to make a stand

Apologies for cross-posting but given the importance of the issue, I thought it best to reproduce the whole post from stephenpritchard.com rather than just link to it.

It seems to be increasingly difficult for working photographers and video makers to work freely in public places in the UK. A minority of police officers and other officials seem to believe that public order and anti-terrorism legislation can be used to prevent anyone taking pictures or video, without any real evidence of a threat to public safety. For some reason, professional photographers and photo or video journalists, as well as keen amateurs, seem to be at the sharp end of officials’ displeasure.

For a particularly extreme example, see Henry Porter’s piece in the Guardian following allegations of mis-treatment made by Kent amateur photographer Alex Turner.

Experiences, such as those reported by Turner, appear to be increasingly common. And there are serious implications for professional photographers who need to work in public places.

It is doubtful that the legislation cited to Turner, and used elsewhere against photographers, is meant to operate in this way. It is also strange to see so much attention being focused on professionals or people with professional-looking kit, when so many members of the public carry and use simple digital cameras or camera phones. It would have to be an extreme double bluff for those with nefarious intentions to go to the trouble of carrying complex, bulky and above all highly obvious professional equipment to capture images that might assist them in planning crimes, given the capabilities of a £50 pocket compact.

Whether or not Turner was sensible (rather than within his rights) not to identify himself to the officials in Kent is a mute point. Working journalists should — and usually do — carry recognised ID, either in the form of employers’ identification cards or the UK national press card (available, for example, through the NUJ or for video crews, BECTU). Professionals working at demonstration and other public order events often wear their press card where it is clearly on view to police and other officials.

Citizen journalists, bloggers and others who are not eligible for a staff or union card are in a more difficult position, as are amateurs and students. But there are a few guidelines that can help take the heat out of most day-to-day situations:

carry media ID, if you have it;

carry a business card (amateurs and part-timers can easily order cheap and professional-looking cards online);

sometimes it helps to ask permission — unless doing so prevents covering the story;

make sure you are in a public place — there are places, such as shopping centres, which are not;

in a public order situation or crime/accident scene, identify yourself to the officer in charge before taking pictures, unless it prevents you capturing the story

if you work in a specific area or beat, get to know the local police and PCSOs, as well as private security guards. Building trust always helps, and can provide a rich seam of tip offs.

know your rights and read the police guidance (such as this from the Met)

stay calm and polite even in the face of hostility

Meanwhile, groups such as the NUJ, BECTU, and CPBF and the British Journal of Photography are actively working to raise awareness of the law and also for legislative change. Click here to contribute to the BJP’s online campaign on Flickr.

New survey: media training

This is one for the in-house PR and marketing folk. We are trying to gauge the extent to which spokespeople are being trained for multi-media interviews (podcasts, online video, as well as conventional broadcasts).

Anecdotal evidence suggests that many are not, but I will post a summary of results here in a few weeks’ time.

Here’s the link – thanks for helping out.

Survey on podcast logistics

I’m looking at how flexible people are when it comes to recording podcasts, and trying to find out whether there is more scope for remote (down the line) interviews.

If you are a PR (agency or vendor) and have five minutes to complete the survey here, that would be a great help.

If you are interested in remote interview technology, or training for podcasts and broadcasting, please click here to get in touch.

More on pitching

For another view on the pitching story, please see an interview with Digital Business editor Peter Whitehead, courtesy of Paul Stallard’s blog.

New podcast series on cloud computing

Apologies for cross-posting but we’ve put a lot of effort into this!

Every cloud has a silver lining – at least it does if you’re trying to rein in your IT spending. That’s the message from interviewees in a new series on cloud computing in the FT Digital Business podcast. You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (for UK listeners, it’s in the Business section of the directory), or you can play it here from the web.

First up is a commentary piece from Digital Business columnist Ade McCormack, and then an interview with Mike Redding, of Accenture Technology Labs. We’ll be adding more interviews over the coming weeks.

If you all subscribe to iTunes – who knows, we can get Digital Business into the UK iTunes top 20. Here’s hoping.

Updated pitching guidelines

Over the last few months there’s been a significant increase in the number of pitches I’ve received, especially for Digital Business. So I thought it would be worth putting up some up to date guidelines for how to pitch story ideas, or how to pitch content for stories I’ve been commissioned to write.

The Independent on Sunday

Generally the best section for technology and telecoms stories is the “Business Interview” slot, although there’s also some scope for analysis or features, and news stories.

For interviews, the editors will generally only consider CEOs (or sometimes chairman or founders) of companies, though there might be some scope for others, such as chief scientists. As a rule, the paper will not cover VPs or country/regional managers. It helps if the company’s a well-known name in the UK, and if they are listed here, so much the better. In the pitch, give some idea of what they are willing to talk about and why they are likely to interest readers.

For analysis pieces, there does need to a strong topical hook — usually it’s best to discuss the story over the phone first. Deeply technical stories are unlikely to work.

For news, it needs to be an exclusive. Exclusives are a great help with interviews, too.

FT Digital Business

OK, OK calm down. The wait is over.
It’s actually been incredibly hard to decide exactly how to advise people to pitch.

To start, deadlines. The official guidance from the Digital Business website is that background information and offers of interviews should be with the writers six weeks prior to publication. That’s usually four weeks ahead of the copy deadline on the synopsis. The deadline on the synopsis is not the deadline for submitting PR content. I will not even read submissions after the copy deadline – they will be deleted. Sorry. The later you leave it, the less likely I am to be able to include your interviewee.

Second, pitches. A few people have said that the process of creating written submissions is time consuming. So, the best way to pitch is to:

Step 1: send a very brief email indicating your interest, with the name and job title of the spokesperson or persons, availability, and any background you have (white papers, bios, cuttings – better still links to these). Please don’t send any pictures or anything over 500KB.

Step 2: I will then email sources on a ’short list’ asking for a paragraph or two setting out their point of view. This shouldn’t take too long to compile.

Step 3: I will then email or call those people I want to speak to, to set up an interview. I won’t quote from ‘canned’ comment in any case. If I can contact the exec directly, that saves time.

Third, don’t call to ask if I’ve received any of this. I read all submissions. Calling just cuts into the time I have available to respond.

A couple of general pointers

If you are pitching a company, please include the URL. Quite a few people don’t do this, and search engines are not infallible.

If you are putting forward an executive for interview or comment, please either include a short bio (no pictures please) or a link to one. At the very least include their full job title and geographical areas of responsibility.

Usually I won’t be able to quote UK/EMEA or other regional officials, nor marketing officers/corporate comms types for features. Don’t gamble that by leaving this information out of the pitch, I will somehow bend the rules. I will check, and it wastes everyone’s time.

For Digital Business, it is pretty much a hard and fast rule that we don’t quote country or regional execs, or marketing types. The supplement has a global readership.

If this is unreasonable, unworkable or even helpful, please leave a comment or email me at the usual address.

Stephen

New training courses

Over the next month or two we will be launching some new training courses.

The first is a course aimed at PR professionals tasked with setting up and staffing multi-media interviews.

Not everyone has the luxury of a broadcast team (and nor do all clients have the luxury of retaining a broadcast agency). And although there is some overlap, the requirements of podcasters, videocasters and journalists working online do differ from those of the conventional broadcasters.

The course will be a one-day session covering both theory and practice (with a chance to try out some of the kit too), and is suitable for small groups of six to eight people.

Click here to contact us for more information.