Don’t Educate the Reporter

The Publicity Hound’s
Tips of the Week
Issue #671 Dec. 15, 2012

Publisher: Joan Stewart

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“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”

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In This Issue
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1. Don’t Educate the Reporter

2. Facebook Changes Privacy Settings

3. New Posts at My Blog

4. Hound Video of the Week

This Weekend in the Hound House:

I’m baking hypo-allergenic dog biscuits for the four-legged hounds on my list, to be packed inside cute metal tins shaped like a dog bone.Then I’m putting the finishing touches on “The Best of the Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week of 2012” ebook, my annual Christmas gift to you. Look for it next week.

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1. Don’t Educate the Reporter
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The next time you do an interview with print media, resist the temptation to educate the reporter.

An interview isn’t about downloading your knowledge, says PR guy Brad Phillips. It’s about prioritizing your knowledge.

In his new book, “The Media Training Bible, 101 Things You Absolutely, Positively Need to Know Before Your Next Interview”, Phillips says that the more you say, the more you stray.

“When speaking to print reporters in person, you’ll probably observe them furiously scribbling notes in a small notepad,” the book says. “In order to capture everything, they usually write in big, barely legible characters and flip the pages at an almost manic pace. By the end of the interview, reporters may have dozens of pages of notes.”

Remaining focused on your three most critical themes will make it easy for the reporter to actually mention those in the story, rather than choosing facts and quotes from your brain dump that aren’t pertinent to the topic or to your message.

The book arrived on my doorstep this week and I’ll be reviewing it in more detail at my blog. You can buy it on Amazon

What a great Christmas gift for a business associate who does media interviews!

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2. Facebook Changes Privacy Settings
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Two changes this week to Facebook’s privacy settings:

–A feature called Privacy Shortcuts will allow people to quickly change who can see their content and who can contact them through the website. The shortcut also features a one-button link to block someone from Facebook.

–Facebook is eliminating the ability for people to hide themselves on Facebook’s search. Until now, that control has existed in the privacy settings on the company’s website.

You can read the entire article from the New York Times.

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3. New Posts at My Blog
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Need a fast, easy blog post? Ask 10 experts for advice

Dog Tweets—8 reasons not to hire a PR firm

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4. Hound Video of the Week
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Santa will be packing his sleigh with puppies again this year. Here are some yelps of happiness and joy from new puppy owners of Christmases past