Results tagged “journalists” from Life's a Pitch

Though many, many more music journalists are on Twitter, these are the people I noticed interacting with the publicists I interviewed the most. Oodles of thanks to  @nightafternight: Steve Smith, New York Times, Time Out New York;  @anastasiat: Anastasia Tsioulcas, Gramophone, Variety; @gsandow: Greg Sandow, Wall Street Journal, ArtsJournal; and @sethcolterwalls: Seth Colter Walls, Newsweek for their answers.

These interviews were conducted via Telex machine. Just kidding.

___________________

How long have you been using Twitter?
@nightafternight: Since April 2009.

@anastasiat: I just went back & checked my profile--since Sept. 8, 2008. Huh. Had no idea it had been that long.

@sethcolterwalls: Since August 2008.

@gsandow: Six to nine months, can't remember exactly.


Where you motivated by personal or professional reasons?
@nightafternight: The two are largely inextricable in my experience, but personal was probably the initial catalyst.  The short answer is that I was frustrated by my inability to keep my blog updated on a reasonably regular basis, primarily as a result of the promotion and expanded workload I took on at Time Out last August.  I very badly missed having a personal, interactive outlet for thoughts and observations that didn't necessarily extend from either of my jobs, but wouldn't necessarily exclude them, either, since they're a large part of who I am. The long answer is here.

@sethcolterwalls: My last job strongly encouraged that I take the plunge right around the time I was becoming curious about what was happening on Twitter. So both.

@anastasiat: Both, honestly.

@gsandow: Motivated by curiosity, and then by professional interests.

About a week ago, I had coffee with an arts marketer from out of town. She mentioned going to the opera with a prominent critic, and having--a meal or a meeting, I don't remember--with a prominent New York presenter. She was by no means bragging about these things, just telling me what she had been up to during her trip. No judging, I started, but if you've never worked in the city, how do you know these people? "Through Twitter!" she said.

I've never joined Facebook, and I had no burning desire to join Twitter. It's Thursday at 11:40pm, and I'm watching the Phillies (hopefully) beat the Dodgers, answering e mails and writing this blog post. Point being I work a lot, so the thought of adding personal Facebook and Twitter updating to the mix makes me want to move to Tahiti and sell sunblock. But Twitter for work purposes got my attention (label me with whatever -aholic you must), and I started looking into which publicists and which journalists were active members of the twitterati. More importantly, which publicists and journalists interacted with each other on Twitter. Were stories being pitched? Introductions being made? Contacts being found?

When soccer moms in army-grade Hummers would double-park on New Canaan's already-narrow Elm Street, my mother would always mutter, or sometimes shout, "Some people think the rules don't apply to them."  She would declare a similar sentiment when we'd be in line for the movies and would hear a parent tell his or her child "just say you're 7" to get a cheaper movie ticket. Some people think the rules don't apply to them...and by all means teach your child to lie.

I sent out a press release last night with extremely specific instructions on how to access, download, and burn a review copy of an album, stating very clearly that physical review copies would only be available at a promotional rate. Of the 20 people who e mailed me back asking to be mailed physical review copies, only one asked what the promotional rate was and how he could order a copy. Lewis Lanese from Stereo Times, you are the reason there's a patch of hair still left on my head, and I thank you for that.

Sure, there was an entire paragraph explaining that physical copies would only be mailed at cost, but she can just send me a copy, right? Mailing one isn't a big deal. My favorite response to my calm and polite reply e mail asking if someone saw the download instructions was, "Yeah, I just didn't want to have to look for my password." SOCCER MOM IN THE HUMMER! Elm Street. New Canaan Playhouse. Amanda spins into Fembot self-destruct mode and blows up.

Beyond this strange sense of entitlement, I suspect a lot of people just don't read press releases. My favorite response last night was "Please send for review  -- John." I think he just saw the artist's name and hit reply. This could have been such-and-such artist recites the Gettysburg Address backwards and in Pig Latin and he would have responded the same way. But what of the content? What of my prose?

Last week, F. Paul Driscoll, editor-in-chief of Opera News, offered the following advice to publicists on this very blog:

The most effective way for any publicist to secure a story or profile in ANY magazine is to present a pitch that reflects a working knowledge of the magazine.  That starts with the magazine's readership.  Who are they?  Why do they buy the magazine? Clearly, our readers buy a magazine called OPERA NEWS expecting its editors to present opera as topic one, but that doesn't mean that every "opera story" is right for us...And  --  last but not least  --  it helps a pitch if the publicist has read at least one issue of the magazine and can identify just where in OPERA NEWS a potential story might fit best. 

Those same words of wisdom, I think, can be/should be applied to journalists. Not reading the press release I wrote, revised, sent to a copy editor, revised again, formatted and tested on three e mail accounts does not instill in me a great desire to bend over backwards for you. How about "Please send a copy for review...because I noticed in your release that only the deluxe edition of the album will be for sale in the US and would like to pitch a piece to my editor about the different ways classical music is being packaged and presented differently in the US vs. Europe."

Perhaps this is asking too much, and I'm not being sarcastic. Journalists are inundated, I realize, with press releases, so the e mail subject really may be all they have time to read. In that case, however, we need to think of a more efficient and effective ways to communicate with them. Everyone might win that way; I don't think any publicist would breast-beat over the demise of the 800-word press release. 

I did receive an e mail from a journalist in response to a different press release last week that simply read, "can't wait!". And that just made my whole day.

Is it possible that our generation has become so absorbed with the Entitlement of Free that it will to refuse to pay $5 per month for The New York Times? Or is that so not the point. [Via Gawker.]

At long last, the New York Times may have figured out how to make money off its website: by charging for it.

Bloomberg reports that the NYT is floating the idea of charging $5 a month to access its website in a survey of readers. (It also asked if subscribers would be willing to pay $2.50 per month).

...If all 650,000 print subscribers paid $5 a month for the website, that would be an instant $39 million per year. More likely, many people would choose either only the print subscription (old people) or only the online subscription (non-old people). That means that the NYT could potentially sell many more online subscriptions than it sells print subscriptions. Its website is orders of magnitudes more popular than its print product already.

Also on Gawker today, the demise of the democratic comment system. Gawker: Encouraging People To Not Be Idiots Since 2009.

I'm enjoying the growing list of what me and my people do wrong in the comments section of this post. To re-cap, journalists don't like it when publicists:

• ...use ALL CAPS in the subjects or bodies of their e mails.
• ...mail discs with no liner notes/track listings/context of any kind.
• ...blindly send press releases to journalists who have no history of writing about that artist/concert/repertoire/genre.
• ...don't include audio or video clips in their press releases.
• ...act all lover-scorned when editors aren't interested in their clients.
• ...send releases under the oh-so-attention-grabbing subject line "Press Release".
• ...over-package physical CD mailings.
• ...do anything BUT include releases in the bodies of e mails - no attachments, no external links.
• ...seat themselves next to critics at events and concerts.
• ...talk about other clients at concerts they've invited critics to review.
  
• ...don't actually have a reason for pitching what they're pitching, besides being paid to do it.

To this list, I will add, journalists (also probably) don't like it when publicists:

• ....pitch journalists about artists/concerts they've already written about (simple...Google...search).
• ...include huge photo files.
  
• ...don't spell-check.
• ...write poorly.
  
• ...don't think it's their job to come up with and put forth creative story ideas.

 
THAT SAID, two can play this game! Classical music publicists of the world, what do JOURNALISTS do that annoy you most? Be Brave, little ones!  More accurately, Post Anonymously!

I'll start:

I'm all about taking the on-a-pedestal mystery out of the classical music industry, but my gears get slighted grinded (ground?) when journalists write about the trials and tribulations of arranging and conducting an artist interview in the feature said-interview was intended for.

Opera Chic brought these OC Register and San Diego Union-Tribune features to her readers' attention(s) last week, and while both pieces are otherwise interesting and very well-written, I have to wonder if the journalists really had to mention that Maestro-elect Dudamel only gave them ten minutes? And that his publicist interrupted the interviews? And that he was running behind?

The hardest part about preparing for a 10-minute telephone interview with Gustavo Dudamel is figuring out what to do with all that energy.

Not with it, actually, but without it: What if his legendary pep didn't come across in a chat crammed between six other interviews? What if he was worn out, or distracted? Because if there's one thing that pops out from all of Dudamel's five-star YouTube clips - the one attribute both fans and skeptics say defines him - it's that indomitable energy.

The second hardest part was getting a hold of the man...It took nearly a month of planning, with entreaties from certain well-connected individuals to other well-connected individuals, dozens of e-mails and phone calls to the presenter and publicists, and one minor last-minute rescheduling, but at 2:53 p.m. last Friday, I was on hold for Dudamel. He was at his publicist's office in midtown Manhattan, wrapping up another interview. Running just a little behind schedule. (San Diego Union-Tribune, November 21, 2008)

You get ten minutes, take it or leave it. I took it. I called at the appointed time. Sorry, we're running behind, please call back in 20 minutes. OK. I went and did the dishes, then called back. Can you hold for three minutes? OK. Then Gustavo Dudamel comes on the line.

He doesn't seem to know to whom he is talking, so I introduce myself...

[ten minutes later]

"Excuse me, Tim, it's Mary Lou Falcone (his publicist) interrupting rudely, I apologize. But we need to cut it as we have someone waiting, OK?" (OC Register, November 21, 2008)

It certainly makes for good reading (as I've said time and time again on this blog, people love behind-the-scenes drama), but that time-crunch is a fact of artists' lives: when an artist is touring 300+ days a year, he or she is forced to do interviews in a crazy speed-dating fashion! Of course it's not ideal, and the concept of a ten-minute interview is pretty silly, but if you couldn't get what you needed in ten minutes (fair enough), why not tell Dudamel's team thanks but no thanks, we'll wait until he has a bit more time?

This kind of thing is very frustrating for publicists and artists: we try to make time for everyone, and then sometimes get punished for it. Last spring, a writer e mailed me to fact check Hilary's interview with her. No, not what Hilary said in the interview, but rather how many interviews had she done before their's, what time did she get up to do interviews that morning, and how many journalists had I turned down for interviews on her one press day in New York City? Erm....while I appreciate that this makes Hilary (and Dudamel, in the cases above) look all in-demand and celebrityish, I'm not entirely sure it's fair to the artists.

And one more thing, before I hand it over: Just as Greg Sandow commented in the publicist post that press releases should give him a reason to care about their subjects, let me go on record as saying that features and reviews should probably do the same.

The opera blog Parterre Box is looking for critics to cover The Met's gala opening night, critics ("  ") not necessarily employed by a newspapers, and perhaps all the more critical!

La Cieca is looking for a member of the cher public who is already planning to attend the opening night gala at the Met and is willing to write about it for parterre.com. Your doyenne will need 400 - 600 words by 11 AM on Tuesday, September 23 for publication that day with your byline. If you are willing to commit to getting in a review of the night's festivities by this deadline, contact lacieca@parterre.com.  Preference will be given to regular commenters, and attendance at the "La Voce Renée Fleming" launch party is a definite plus, but not required.

The site is also looking for people-on-the-ground to cover the HD simulcast and the Sirius satellite radio broadcast of the opening night. More good play-within-a-play journalism stuff: regular people reporting on the multiple forms of event media coverage on a blog. ((boom))

Perhaps crowdsourcing will save the day when all the critics disappear.

Sometimes, I'm ashamed of my race.

I've heard tales of publicists pitching writers about an artist who the writer had literally covered the month before, publicists sending out mass e mails to any writer they can find on a publication's website (one classical journalist told me she was contacted about a local football game), and publicists asking journalists if they had ever written about the artist he/she was pitching. I mean, if you don't have your own artist's press kit in front of you, let's do some brisk Googling; let's not go ahead and ask the journalist. And who can forget the NYC venue that misspelled its own name in a press release, a story I've mentioned before. One journalist told me that he got a thank-you note from a publicist for his "kind words", for a review of a performance he had canned; did she even read the review? I'm sure I've made these mistakes - and many, many others - myself, so I'm not throwing stones; just, sympathizing with our comrades in the press.

Here's an e mail from a close-to-top symphony orchestra that a journalist friend received and sent me this morning:

Whether your publication is interested in concert and event coverage, musician, board and philanthropic profiles, education and outreach or society news, I hope you will consider utilizing the X Symphony Orchestra as a source of current up-to-the-minute news and features.

No pitch? Just a quick, "Keep us in mind!" for good measure? Seriously? "What shall I have my people write about today," muses Joe Editor, "I know! That symphony orchestra press person told me they had concert and society news, should I need it..." 

But then I sometimes feel bad for my own kind as well. Both a manager friend and I were fairly-to-moderately appalled to receive a mass e mail from the editor of a well-known music magazine yesterday:

If you've heard any good stories, or know of any good projects or new happenings, please let me know.

Oh sure, I heard a good one the other day: The Pope walks into a bar...

Are publicists and editors really so busy that neither party can do their homework? The levels of vagueness on both the symphony PR person and the magazine editor's parts represents a total lack of respect for the receiver of the pitch: my time is more valuable than your time, you do the research. The magazine editor could have, at the very least, customized her e mails for record labels, and then management, and then publicists, and the symphony could have included a list of concerts or some general information about their (preferably new) education programs and philanthropy efforts. It's great that your news is up-to-the-minute, but...what is it?

These two examples from the last 24 hours have spurred me to be overly specific in my own pitches going forward. "You last reviewed The King's Singers' performance of X composers in Y year at Z venue. This is what they've been up to since then. This is what they are doing now. Here are some angles you can bring to your editor", etc. etc.. Yes, we're all very busy, but let's step back and think about what we're e mailing before we click send. We'd all give pitches a little more thought if we had to handwrite them and drag ourselves over to a fax machine, or pick up the phone and say what we had to say on the spot, so why not give the same attention - or any attention at all - to e pitches?