Pitching stories to local television stations
One key to getting on your local TV news is to pitch your stories to the right people.
Here's how most TV newsrooms are organized, and who is best for you to pitch:
Everyone goes to the "Queen Bee," that main assignment editor. For the purposes of this, I'm going to call them an assignment editor. Everything gets funneled back to them because they're the gatekeepers. They have all the press releases that they take into the 9 o'clock morning meeting. They know everything that's going on. They know all the trials that are going to take place that day. They know all the stories that are going on because everybody funnels it to them and it's good to be in a relationship with them.
But it's a really good idea to bundle your information to more than one person. So it's great if you want to send your press release to that "Queen Bee" or managing editor, but the next person in the chain of command is the producer.
There are two kinds of producers, so I'm going to educate you a little bit. One type of producer is what's called an online producer. And newsrooms will have many of them in one day. Each online producer is in charge of one show. They're kind of like the quarterback of the show. They come in 10 hours before their show starts, so the people who are in the morning show are in at 11 o'clock at night working on their show, getting ready. They're writing all the teasers for the show. They're responsible for all the stories in their show. They're responsible for all the reporters and gathering the information and bringing it back to them and writing the openings and closings of each piece, where the commercial is going to air. So they're completely quarterbacking that show. They never leave the newsroom. It's great to know their names because you can always pitch to them.
Another producer to pitch to is the special projects producer. Most markets have little niches - business reporters, health reporters, consumer reporters. And most of those reporters, in most markets, have a special project producer that works with them. They do the exact some thing that the reporter does, but only you just don't see them. It's kind of like the “two heads are better than one” theory. They’re going out shooting stories and writing them, but it's the reporter that you see all the time. And many markets have those. It's good to know those names, as well, especially if your story fits in a niche, whether it's consumer or health or medical or business. You can also call the reporters directly. Find out who the reporters are in your market.
Also call the anchors directly. They rarely get story ideas. Anchors just get calls to come and host publicity events, or to emcee events. Rarely do they come to morning meetings. People don't bother them because they think they're too high on the totem pole, but they are another resource. When an anchor comes in and pitches a story in the morning meeting, everyone kind of goes, “Whoa, this must be something if she wants to do it.” And they usually listen to the anchors because they have clout in the newsroom.
This is just one of dozens of timely publicity-generating tips from How To Get On Your Local TV News Tomorrow.
