13. Gregory Galant on Trust between Journalists and PR Professionals at PRAXIS 2019


PRAXIS, world’s largest festival for reputation management professionals was organised on 27th and 28th September 2019 in Grand Hyatt, Goa. The summit was based on ‘Trust at the core of Public Relation’ where various keynote speakers spoke on their take on trust in PR. Gregory Galant, Cofounder and CEO, MuckRack spoke on ‘Creating a sense of Trust between Journalists and PR Professionals’ on the second day of PRAXIS.

Building media relation is very important for any PR professional to work effectively and get coverage for their clients. In his address to the audience, Gregory Galant spoke on some key factors which can help a PR professional to improve media relations and build a repo with the journalists. Following are some of the points explained in brief:

  • ·         Always email a journalist before calling, avoid calling straight away without any prior notice, it can irritate the journalist and may come across as impolite, especially if the journalist is at a senior level.
  • ·         Morning pitches are very important, try and pitch your story idea before 11 am. That is the best time to pitch a story and journalists will be more inclined towards listening to you and working on your story around that time.
  • ·         Address the journalist by their name, this might not be a good idea for a fresher speaking to a senior journalist but after a certain point of time when you have established a good repo with the journalist, try and bring in familiarity in your professional relationship.
  • ·         The pitch should always be sharp and clear. Try and pitch in under 3 paragraphs, a long story idea is not a good pitch and will most likely be ignored by the journalist.
  • ·         Follow up after every pitch. This goes without saying, keep a track of your work and follow up with the journalist time and again to check the progress of your pitch. Don’t overdo it, but do follow up when necessary. It will indicate your presence of mind and interest in the story.
  • ·         Try and pitch exclusives when you can, journalists love exclusives and there is a higher chance of it getting published than any other pitch.
  • ·         Social media is everywhere now, each and every person is on social media, use it properly to build and maintain media relations. Follow the journalist on social media and stay in contact with them to maintain the familiarity.

Apart from this, his speech gave great insights on journalist behaviour, preferences and tips for the reputation management professionals to follow to create a sense of trust with journalists.

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