Rick Schwartz Straight Talk

Don't Do Press Conferences!

Biting your nails while waiting for the media to show

Here’s the scene. It’s Wednesday morning at 9:55 a.m. The Happy Feet Center for Dance is beginning a press conference in five minutes to announce it has snagged ballet genius Igor Terpsichorean for its upcoming season.

Problem is, only a single reporter from a local weekly newspaper has arrived thus far, and he looks to be about 12 years old. The artistic director is shooting daggers at the public relations guy, who is sweating bullets. 'I sent out detailed, embargoed press advisories yesterday, and I called all the assignment desks first thing this morning,' he reassures himself. All the editors promised they would 'try' to send someone to cover the event.

Just as the Center’s Board chair and president can’t delay any longer and start the press conference, a crew from the least of the three network TV stations comes bustling in. Everyone is so grateful that they stop the speeches and wait for the cameraman to set up. The press conference concludes 20 minutes later. After a brief additional interview, the TV crew packs up and leaves for its next appointment. The story is on the noon news, but not at 6 or 11 p.m.

For most of the attendees, the only measure of success was how many press outlets showed up. By that standard, the press conference failed.

Get the story in the morning’s newspaper and celebrate with people who matter

I probably haven’t conducted five press conferences in the past 20 years, but I’ve had more than my share of front page, above-the-fold stories on exactly the day I wanted them to appear. I haven’t held press conferences; I’ve hosted dozens of wonderful events to which I’ve ‘invited’ the press (and they’ve come).

Here’s the process:

  1. Make sure you really have pressworthy news. Hiring a new CEO generally isn’t. Announcing a new program to end homelessness is.
  2. Determine who you really want to hear the news. It’s seldom the ‘general public’. It may be prospective large donors, important local or state officials, your own board of directors. People you want to impress.
  3. Design an appropriate event for them. For Happy Feet, let’s say, we have an early evening occasion with cheese, crackers, and wine for all the dance aficionados in town. We show a film of Mr. Terpsichorean, who appears at the podium immediately after. We allow plenty of time for our key donors to meet him personally. We’ve invited our season ticket holders, too, since they are most likely our future major donors. We invite our wavering corporate sponsor from last year, and perhaps even the companies that bought full-page advertisements in our program book. We allow not only the Board Chair to introduce Mr. Terpsichorean, but also the chairwoman of the state arts agency (from whom we’ve been begging money forever).
  4. Oh, yes, what about the press? Our goal is to have the story appear in as many media outlets as possible the morning of the event, specifically in newspapers and on the radio. We contact the arts editors of every newspaper that serves our area at least two weeks in advance and promise them a story with full access to the principals, so they can write the greatest possible pieces. They only have to promise to honor an embargo for the morning of the event. You proceed, making sure every couple days they have the information they need.
  5. Timing. We’ve broken a classic rule, which suggests you should hold press conferences by about 10 a.m. to try to appear on the noon, 6 pm, and late night broadcasts of TV. But, frankly, you don’t have a story that warrants three-time coverage, nor does your audience (or most important audiences, for that matter) watch the noon news. Your audience reads the local newspaper and listens to public radio all day. And your key audience will be partying with you in the evening, with even greater resolve once they read about you in the morning paper.
    1. (The TV stations, not known for their innovation in news gathering, read the newspapers that morning -- just like you and me -- and say to themselves, “This seems like a good visual story” for the late news.)
  6. Thursdays are good days for such events, too, because your weekly newspapers – an oft-forgotten group – most often publish then. No reason why you shouldn’t get them in the fold. Business weeklies, too, might be just that medium for reassuring your corporate sponsors that you have the capacity to get their names in the press. They usually publish on Mondays or Tuesdays.
  7. What if someone breaks the embargo, there’s a fire in an abandoned warehouse and the TV crews don’t show, or a couple major donors don’t attend? That’s the bad news. The good news is that you didn’t put all your eggs in one basket, the media basket. You still had an excellent news day, and personally touched the people who matter to Happy Feet’s future.