One of my favorite resources for story ideas when I worked as a reporter was my own newspaper.<\/p>\n
I’d turn to the classified ad section and read the categories marked “Miscellaneous,” “Wanted” and\u00a0“For Sale.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Quite often, I’d find\u00a0an interesting\u00a0classified ad that would then lead to a phone call to the person who placed it, and then an interview.<\/p>\n
Today, reporters have an easier time finding ideas. They simply lurk on\u00a0Craigslist,<\/a> the\u00a0giant online classified ad board that features\u00a0lists for more than 35 countries around the world and separate lists for all\u00a052 U.S. states.<\/p>\n So if you post to Craigslist, there’s a chance a reporter might read your post. That’s what happened to Katy Leakey,\u00a0an artist who lives in Africa, and is the designer of the Leakey Collection,<\/a> a colorful and versatile line of jewelry. The jewelry is handmade by the Maasai women with natural, sustainable grass beads that are dyed in\u00a0brilliant colors.<\/p>\n Nancy Mills, an expert on how to use Craigslist,\u00a0helped Katy post small classified ads about the jewelry on several Craigslists.<\/p>\n A journalist who writes for San Diego Home & Garden magazine saw one of the ads on the San Diego Craigslist about “An artist making a difference in the world, from the busy fields of Kenya to the trendy slopes of Seattle” and called for an interview. The story will be published soon.<\/p>\n Nancy is a master at\u00a0creating several versions of the same ad so it can be posted on several different Craigslists.\u00a0She was my guest during a teleseminar last year called “How to Use Craigslist as a Global Publicity Tool.”<\/a><\/p>\n If you’re not posting your press releases and other news items to Craigslist,\u00a0start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of my favorite resources for story ideas when I worked as a reporter was my own newspaper. I’d turn to the classified ad section and read the categories marked “Miscellaneous,” “Wanted” and\u00a0“For Sale.”\u00a0 Quite often, I’d find\u00a0an interesting\u00a0classified ad that would then lead to a phone call to the person who placed it, and\u2026 Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","iawp_total_views":2,"wds_primary_category":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[634,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-marketing","7":"tag-craigslist","8":"tag-media-relations","9":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joan Stewart","author_link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/author\/jstewart\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41134,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions\/41134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}