Navigating the PR Pro/Journalist Relationship: Finding Grace in Communication

PR pros and journalists share a lot of common ground, including stress levels. Sometimes communication breaks down. Sometimes, whether it’s beyond our control or not, we can’t give the other what they want or need. But what we can do is continue to do our best to work together.

Let us know what you think of today’s episode at soloprpro.com.

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi Karen, how are you today?

Karen Swim, APR (00:19):

Hi. I am doing so great, Michelle. How are you?

Michelle Kane (00:22):

I'm doing well. Not bad. For a Monday. Monday, Monday. Isn't that how it goes in the wrestling ring or I think dirt track races. Anyway. Yeah, not bad for a Monday. We're in the midst of the holiday season, but we thought we talked today about something kind of, well, it's kind of funny, we saw, but it also is all too real in our world. A little bit of a PR/Journo SmackDown

Karen Swim, APR (00:48):

And the smacks went both ways. Yes,

Michelle Kane (00:51):

Would you say about me?

Karen Swim, APR (00:54):

But

Michelle Kane (00:55):

Yeah, it happens. It happens. We all get frustrated with each other and wonder why we do the things we do the way we do them.

Karen Swim, APR (01:07):

That's so true. But my favorite smack downs always come with a caveat from a journalist that said that they used to be in PR and as justifies or that they know all, and maybe it was 20 years ago, and we all know that the world has changed dramatically since that time. So that would be like any of us pulling out an old job and going, yeah, I did that job, but did you do it this year?

Michelle Kane (01:38):

This year especially.

Karen Swim, APR (01:40):

This year especially. I'm just asking for a friend because there are, and I think that goes both ways. There are plenty of PR people that started on the journalism side, and if they did that 15 years ago, the world is vastly different for our journalist friends as well. So it is funny, but that they add that in as though like, well, I know, and that somehow gives me the authority to be completely icky to you and criticize your entire profession based on the actions of one person who may be new to the job untrained or completely stressed out and about to jump over a cliff and probably has the mental health hotline on hold as they're trying to hold it all together long enough to get to the end of the seer,

Michelle Kane (02:30):

Right? Because a lot of the times the issue is, oh, you reach out to us, you don't get back to us. We don't hear from you. And all the while not really realizing, well, we're herding our own cats over here. Our clients are equally busy and stretched out. So sometimes it is difficult to get them when the opportunity arises because they're not fully cognizant of the notion that when the opportunity hits, they have to be ready and not just, of course they can be mentally prepared, but no, you have to be available now. And sometimes that just doesn't get conveyed.

Karen Swim, APR (03:12):

And so in this particular latest SmackDown, it happened in a private forum which was so much nicer than it happening on X or happening on one of the open social media platforms because that's usually where you see it. And I will say that while we joke about this because, and we can laugh about the things that are said as a professional, whether you're a journalist or a PR person, it is so demoralizing to go to your feed and see something that is belittling your entire profession. And I think that there's a few things happening. One is that we do have multi-generations in the workforce, and I think we all have to stop and think about that and that every generation does not work in the same way that another generation works. And I don't mean that. I'm not saying that one generation is superior, has a different or a better work ethic.

What I'm saying is that some of the things that we assumed early on in our career are not true for every generation. And so we either have to come to a place where, and I do feel some of this is on employers to get everybody aligned on the same page. You need to teach people. Do not make these assumptions. If you are running a PR team, then you need to set the expectation, here's how you follow up with journalists. Here's the information that you provide in emails. Here's when you use email, here's when you use Slack. Here's when you make text and phone numbers available so that your entire team is operating from the same playbook. Don't just send them out into the world and expect that everybody is going to do this job The same way we have a generation of digital natives. We have actually more than one generation now, digital natives.

They do not use the phone to make phone calls. They really do not making a phone call seems invasive, and so they don't do it. And by the way, it's not natural to them to provide a phone number in a signature when people just don't use phones like that anymore. They use email, they use text messaging. And so I think it's unfair when you say there's no phone number in your email signature because not everybody does that anymore. And to be honest, a lot of people have been warned against doing that because phone numbers aren't an identifier and there's so much fraud out there. We're all trying to protect as much of our information as possible. I get that there are workarounds, believe it or not, everyone knows about those workarounds and not everybody wants those rounds.

Michelle Kane (05:57):

Right? Right. And I think one of the key things that you honed in on there was establishing systems. If you have the systems in place, then everyone can at least be on the same page. So much as just from the thinking of, okay, all of us might have to step a direction outside of our usual comfort level or patterns for following the systems for press follow up or press contact. I think that's one way to work around it, but you're still not going to fulfill everyone's expectations just for you and your team. That's not for every single journalist out there journal. And there are particular proclivities.

Karen Swim, APR (06:37):

It's interesting that you brought that up because we all probably devour those how to pitch. One pitch does this, how to pitch, so-and-so it's X publication. Those are great. However, the way that one person likes to be pitched is not the way another person likes to be pitched. Sometimes you'll go on track and there are notes like, I only want to be pitched in the morning from nine to noon in my time zone. I will not answer you if I'm interested. You'll just have to wait.

I point out that as a PR professional, we are doing outreach to so many journalists. It is impossible to follow everybody's rules to the letter all the time. Sometimes you're just going to blow it sometimes with good reason. Sometimes you're needing to pitch a set of journalists on something that is time sensitive and you are trying to get your work done and serve your client. So you may send an email that comes at 1230 rather than by the new cutoff. God forbid. I personally try to adhere to all those rules, but I'm saying it's really unfair and unrealistic to burden PR people do the best. Always be respectful, make sure that you're pitching on target that it's relevant to that journalist. But outside of that, there are just some things that we may not get perfectly. Please do not burn us at the stake if we miss one of your particular rules.

If we use three sentences instead of two, or if our word count is five words over your maximum, please do not berate a poor PR person for that because they're not trying to be disrespectful. They're not trying to ruin your day. And I would say the same if journalists turn that around and you have to memorize all the rules for working with the PR people that you work with, you would go insane and you already have enough on your plate. We honestly are trying to make your jobs easier and we're also trying to get our jobs done. And by the way, sometimes the people that we work with and are working on behalf, they're not being the easiest. So give us a break.

Michelle Kane (09:05):

Yeah, I think what you hit on there is that, look, we're all doing our best and sometimes if someone's best doesn't measure up to your best, well give it some grace. Just count to five, scream, write the scathing post and delete it. But sure, are there absolute buffoons in any profession? Absolutely. What are you going to do? But don't always go from zero to you are the worst. I'm going to scream about it somewhere,

Karen Swim, APR (09:37):

And I mean this one particular rant was about a journalist and a PR pro that were working together and then one couldn't find the other. The communications weren't being answered. I want to tell you that that happens on a daily basis in media relations for every PR pro that I know, at least the solos. I don't know what's going on, but I can tell you every solo PR pro, 100% of us experience this routinely. Sometimes it's just because the journalist is just overwhelmed. It can't answer everybody when you're already establishing working together, because I promise you, every single time, even when there's a yes, even when there's interest, even when you're happy that we brought you information, even when you're in the middle of writing, sometimes you guys go away and we don't hear from you. Even when we've recorded something or done an interview and you tell us to do something and we come back immediately, we don't always hear from you right away and we get it.

Life is overwhelming right now for everyone. God forbid though, that the tables are turned and it's you who can't get in touch with a PR pro. Now I will say, I don't think that that's ever professional. I'm sorry if there's a problem, speak up. But here's the thing that I've noticed, people don't know how to communicate and they don't like to communicate bad news. They don't like to communicate. If you're a PR pro, we have a younger generation that just does not know how to speak up and say, Hey, I'm working really hard to get the response back from my client and they are not answering me. I'm so sorry. I know this is frustrating. They don't understand the value of protecting the relationship with the journalist. You're not throwing your client under the bus, but your tackle in how you're managing it, they just say nothing because they're just not comfortable with it.

I mean, have you ever gone into a store and watched how people don't even want to say hello because it's like this foreign thing now and it's sad to me. Of course, and I do think that if you're in PR that we need to do a better job of training our incoming PR people on soft skills as well as the heart skills. But Michelle, I love that you use the word grace. It's so appropriate. We just need to all give each other some grace and yes, it's frustrating. It makes everyone's job so frustrating, and we've all had those moments where you want to scream into a pillow or go throw axes after work because can I just get my job done?

Michelle Kane (12:17):

Yeah, no, it's so true. And what you said about communication is so important. It's like we're reluctant to give an update that maybe isn't ideal, but I always tell people, I would rather you tell me the same information two and three times, then not at all. Just hit me with it. I know how to hit the delete key if I don't want it to hear it again. It's really not that hard to do and it is true. So almost used to this passive means of communication that we just don't want to do it. It's like, oh, do I have to do that? It's like, yeah, just do it. We've all seen the different memes or the comics of that feeling when I did that task that took 10 seconds that I've been dreading for 10 weeks. Just do it.

Karen Swim, APR (13:07):

I mean, it's part of being in business and being a professional, and we really do need to get back to training people how to talk to one another and how to handle difficult conversations because I feel like this is becoming a loss art, and it's playing out not only in the workforce, it's playing out in families. How many parents are just not having hard conversations with their kids or teachers are dealing with parents when they tell them something that's not favorable in the nicest way possible. The parents are going off on the teachers. We are going to become a society where we just don't want to talk to anyone and we never address anything, and that's just not a good place to be. And so what we're not defending the actions of a PR person or a journalist who just drops out of communication with you unless they're sick or something else is going on.

And that's the other thing. You never know what people are dealing with in their personal lives. Sometimes people are working through illness, sometimes they are grieving and they just really are not themselves. Maybe they're dealing with pressures at work that just are overwhelming, and so we do have to take a step back. But even with those hard things, if you really are just not yourself, you don't have to disclose all of your personal information, but if it's about communicating and letting people know, at least like, Hey, I got your email. I'm so sorry. I have some things going on and I'm really behind. Here's where we are. Yeah,

Michelle Kane (14:46):

Exactly. Just to check in. Hey, I'm sorry if I've been unavailable to you. I really apologize. Apologize. Here's the latest status. That's it. It doesn't have to be a big deal, even if the other person's making it a big deal. You don't have to answer at that level. You don't have to meet them at the same volume or level of annoyance you can just sail on. That's the beauty of email. You don't have to just respond like that in the same tone,

Karen Swim, APR (15:14):

But please be available by a channel that you have set. Don't just ignore that channel.

Michelle Kane (15:21):

Exactly. Yeah. That's all we ask. Have some grace. Don't ignore it. It really won't hurt. Let's just keep each other updated. Let's help us do what we do because goodness knows there's enough going on around us to add to our stress, so we don't want to do that. But we hope you've gotten some value out of our time together today. If you do, please share it around. Please hit us up with your best stories at soloprpro.com. We would love to hear that. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.