Understanding Higher Education Coverage

Presenters
Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report and Times Higher Education
Menachem Wecker, US News and World Report
Richard Perez-Pena, New York Times

This panel was the comic relief of the conference!

Jon Marcus

The Hechinger Report and Times Higher Education are, according to Jon, the two biggest higher ed publications you've never heard of, which feed national news. They are foundation supported.

Looking for emerging national trends. Local story can be of national importance if they contains examples that resonnate. Jon likes the 45 minute rule -- every reporter gets a call back from University media within 45 minutes, even if it's just to say, "I can't help you with that expert today."

He is looking for experts who study higher ed and who can talk about higher ed. 60% of visitors to Times Higher Education are outside the UK. It is widely read in the U.S.

Stories of interest include those related to scholarship, curriculum (interesting, unusual courses, and trends like Ayn Rand being taught in business schools)

He uses ProfNet and doesn't get a ton of responses so he encouraged the group to respond to his queries. Schools can get a lot of mileage out of ProfNet if they response is related to the question and not offering some other idea.

All three reporters stressed the difficulty of finding media contacts easily from the university homepage.

Menachem Wecker

prefers social media rather than email -- collapse your story to 140 characters on Twitter

Like several reporters, he uses Twitter to mine data...looking for real students who are authentic and will respond truthfully. Does not want to talk to students who have been fed talking points.

LinkedIn: the tool he uses most--more up-to-date...pitch to him through LinkedIn

On Twitter/FB and Google+ the posts ever story he's working on.

He says they do not break news...U.S. News & World Report is a consumer publication for people trying to get answers about higher education decisions, such as…
• how to get into school
• tips for applying
• what to look for when choosing a school
• trends (international education, cost of school, online education)

Needs one or two good sentences to pitch to his editor --
• Here's the story
• Here's why it's relevant

He mentioned dontgetcaught.biz as a great read

Richard Perez-Pena

New to education beat
Bar is very high on stories...must be really interesting and unique
Trends -- point to 3 or 4 other schools doing the same thing -- provide a center of gravity for the story
Likes email/uses social media for his stories

Attracting the National Media

Presenters
Tim Goral, University Business
Mary Beth Marklein, USA Today
Ronald Roach, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education

Tim talked about the content they are looking for -- what helps presidents and administration tackle higher ed challenges

Interested in ...

Campus depts that find ways to save time and money

Experts list...he wants link to expert profile pages

Relationships with campus vendors

Construction ideas

Sustainablity in campus, energy saving

Retention

Note: Presenters agreed that finding media contacts online was difficult on many college websites.

Ronald Roach is interested in...diversity and underrepresented with

Access to college, enrollment, gender issues, disabled community, LGBT, diversity and international recruiting, movement of minorities into professions

Wants local stories about students and diversity on campus

Mary Beth gave a quick overview but more tips...

Be honest and open when pitching
If we just wrote a story on x we are not going to do another story on x anytime soon
Rarely will president or campus be the focus of the story
Need stories about places and people
Looking for how our campus fits into a national trend-or bucks it
Likes to "dispense with pleasantries" when relationships have already been established and she can contact expert quickly for good quotes

Mary Beth tweets some and has used twitter to find sources. Most reportes use twitter for data mining but Menachem welcomes users to pitch him on twitter and FB

Mary Beth hangs on to her emails and searches them by topics.

She says they are paying closer attention to Gannett papers than 5 years ago

Blog content often fuels story ideas.

Mary Beth uses ProfNet a lot more than in the past. She asks that responses to her ProfNet query say "ProfNet" in the subject line. She responded to a questions that she doesn't mind if people respond both through ProfNet and the email she provides in her query.

She had never heard of HARO or Vocus...several reporters hadn't
Ronald Roach uses PRnewswire

One school mentioned they are doing blogs with faculty experts where news reporters can grab and quotes but reporters said for this to be worth the time it would need superior SEO