Attracting Television to Campus

Presenters
Melanie Jackson, NBC Today Show
Ellen Schweiger,  C-SPAN

Melanie talked about what makes a good story for television.

Showed a piece done by Jenna Bush Hager who she suggested everyone follow @JennaBushHager.
Jenna does education stories and stories that affect young people. Jenna likes profiles.

Melanie looks for trends, tragedies and triumphs.

One theme that came up several time from reporters during the conference was owning your bad stories and showing how good came from them.

"Stories start with someone who can tell that story," she said. Don't pitch someone who can't tell their story.

Tell about research from a quirky angle.

Best way to pitch: Keep it short. Send emails after show goes off the air...send links to photos and video. If they bite, make sure you help NBC get the story done by providing assistance with logistics, facilities, crews and be willing to do this at off times.

Tips from Melanie included:
• Know your faculty and students
• Pitch experts who can talk on camera, what does the expert look like, can they tell their story
• Know who is willing to talk when it's inconvenient, who is willing to go all out
• Familiarize yourself with on-air talent and producers
• Local affiliates are a good place to start...they will put the story on the news channel
• Don't send pitches too early (heard this from a number of reporters)

Ellen emphasized C-SPAN covers public affairs and not news....they are looking at public policy

• C-SPAN is interested in event coverage related to public policy, ie., a Supreme Court Justice coming to school..."Clarence Thomas is always visiting schools and we find out the day after, " she said. Yes indeed!

Symposium or lecture that national audience would be interested in? The cover it "gavel to gavel" and it will air 5 to 6 times during congressional recessions (month of August for example)


EMAIL: events@c-span.org (2 weeks notice needed) explain who the people are...C-Span is looking for up and coming speakers "biggest expert on x teaches at my school"

C-SPAN covers dozens of commencements each year.

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

Inviting Campus Coverage

Panelists
Howard LaFranchi, Christian Sciencd Monitor
Mark Stencel, NPR
Will McGuinness, Huffington Post

Mark spent his time talking about the ways that the audience for NPR has changed and how the organization has had to rethink how it delivers stories and news. Talked to him quickly after the presentation. There was a long line!

About HuffPost college, Will talked about:

Creating sub communities within Huffpost college

Using a wide variety of content...something serious next to something lighter to let readers choose what they want to read. (Huffpost college receives 6.6 million visits per day)

Stories should't feel like required reading even ones covering student debt or value of a liberal arts education

New ideas for community building sub sections include:

Profs, prezzes and pitchfork

The thesis project (publishing student theses for smaller community group)

Quarter life crisis (featuring people in early 20s who do or experience something that drastically changes the course of their lives)

The college debate society (real debate around real issues, Huffpost teaming up switch largest college debate society in the world)

Howard talked about how his job has changed at the Christian Science Monitor No surprises...where he once wrote two to three stories a week, he is now writing the same amount each day. "Reporters need a lot more people, more often and need faster responses," he said.

He mentioned great work by a Notre Dame media relations person who proactively sent him information on an expert available on a topic she felt would be hot in in the news soon (anticipating news). When the news broke, she sent a follow up email with a quote from the professor to show his angle. She provided a cell phone number and the expert was available. Howard uses this professor regularly in his stories because they have a direct relationship.

"Cell phone numbers are golden," he said.

What irritates? Yep...pitching an expert, the reporter calls to make contact and the expert isn't available.

In our media training, in might be good to talk about different kinds of reporters and why being willing to respond quickly and provide a cell phone number is critical to making national news. Or have Ananda teach that part!

Heading to the College Media Conference in Washington, DC, on Wednesday! Plan to keep a good record of meetings and workshops. Wednesday focuses on social media strategy...inviting campus coverage from online outlets. Looking forward to hearing how best to use twitter/FB to share story ideas with reporters.

Newswise announced a new service to help journalists find experts for stories. For a few months it's a free service. Is this something journalists will take time to search?

Since we're not sure exactly where to put our experts and how to be most helpful to reporters looking for them, there's a tendency to be drawn to the latest offering -- hoping we'll gain visibility and better connect writers and experts. I'm having an epic battle with one of our services -- trying to input data, upload photos, PDFs, video. Is it really worth all the time it's taking? Now with the newswise service, there's another avenue to explore... what if we upload all of our experts there as well? Then we can have them in three places instead of one.

Next issue: updating profiles not just on one platform but three. How are other colleges handling the deluge of options, and where are they finding success?