Breaking into TV News: Black and Blue and 2 Shades of Green

If you want to generate TV coverage, don't kid yourself -- your story needs to be simple, easy-to-understand and have good visuals. TV is a powerful but simplistic medium that serves the lowest common denominators of our society. That's not necessarily a bad thing or a putdown -- there's a place for CNN, and a place for The New Yorker. Your job as a media relations pro is to know the difference and pitch accordingly.

So what are TV people interested in now? I gleaned the headline of this post from a recent Bulldog Reporter PR University panel I moderated on network TV news:

• Black & Blue: crime, war, the usual "if it bleeds it leads"


• 2 Shades of green: #1 -- the environment, green technologies, and so on. #2 - the economy, natch!

Other nuggets to note:

• TV news is always about people. People who do things, how things affect people. If you don't pitch people, you're basically DOA.


• How to pitch experts: they have to have something to say, but they also need a recognizable pedigree. So Harvard is better than Oshkosh State U., and an author is better than a blogger, and so on.