Building Personal Relations with the Media
Ideas and stories cannot be brow beat, whined, or nagged into the newspapers or onto the airways. The only way is by working with the media and marketing stories and ideas to them. The key word here is “with.” There is not much point wasting time bemoaning how bad the media are and the fact that they will not reshape their world to accommodate yours. Your job is to figure out how you can fit your ideas into their world, into their stories, and into their minds.
How do you go about marketing your ideas? To do it effectively, the most important thing is to get to know the reporters that you are dealing with, and the editors that will be writing the opinion pages or that edit the op-ed pages. Get to know the bookers and the producers at the radio and television shows that you want to have your people on. Though it is simple enough, it takes time. This article provides an overview of how to market your ideas to the media.
