Speaker 1Hi pals, welcome to the Hack Your Own PR podcast, dropping in here because I'm a little bit excited to tell you about the Hack Your Own PR on-demand library. Now, you don't have to wait for the next program to launch. Instead, you can access the on-demand library anytime when it works for your schedule. You can learn how to become a publicist in just four hours. And launching this week, we now have two new mini masterclasses, the go-to expert and the sellout brand, a product PR masterclass. If you are interested in finding out a little bit more about this offering, please jump over to my website. I'd love to see you in the on-demand hub. Welcome to the Hack Your Own PR podcast, where I chat with journalists, editors, producers, and publicists about the commonly misunderstood world of PR and how you can nail your next pitch. I'm your host, Edette Barry, publicist, PR mentor, and founder of the Hack Your Own PR program that teaches entrepreneurs how to DIY their PR. This podcast is recorded on Bundjalung country. I acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. It always was and always will be Aboriginal land. Welcome back to another episode of Hack Your Own PR. Now, today, I am joined by the ever so lovely and fun Ewan Black, a reporter covering workplace issues and trends at the Australian Financial Review. Now, Ewan began his career in journalism quite by accident after finishing an internship in Cambodia. He landed his first journalism job at the Southeast Asia Globe before moving to Australia, where he is very happily writing for the Financial Review. Now, in this episode, I'm joined by Ewan Black, a reporter covering workplace issues and trends at the Australian Financial Review. Now, in this episode, Ewan shares how he generates story ideas through one-on-one conversations with industry sources, the challenges of balancing idea generation with writing, and he also shares insights on how much weight he applies to performance data and how that informs his storytelling. Ewan gives us an excellent glimpse into the market trends and topics he loves writing about, from the influence of Gen Z workers to the future of hybrid work. Yes, that conversation is still happening. He offered plenty of advice to improve our pitches, either as an expert or a case study, and the importance of building a relationship. I hope you get lots of value out of this episode. Get your pen and paper ready. Well, thank you so much for joining me. I feel like I've been chasing you around the internet for a little while.
Speaker 2It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1So, we always kick off the podcast with getting a bit of a background and how you, you know, found your way in this industry. Where did you begin?
Speaker 2So, I got into journalism by accident. I was in Cambodia at the time, and I just finished doing an internship at a human rights organisation there, and was kind of thinking about what to do next, wasn't quite sure. And then someone else who was an intern there said, have you thought about applying for an internship at the South East Asia Globe? It's a magazine. That is based in Phnom Penh, and I thought that sounds like fun. So, I sent in an application and I started there about four weeks later. That's my first job in journalism. I did an internship there for six months and then ended up staying on as a reporter for another 12 months. It was an amazing experience. I got to do lots of travel there. So, I kind of did stories in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore. I never travelled so much for a job. I kind of think I never will again. So, that was a great kind of grounding in the basics of journalism. And just, yeah, it was something that I kind of thought about doing when I was younger, I just had never explored it.
Speaker 1I love that also that it was like a loose discussion with someone four weeks later here in the industry.
Speaker 2It was actually one conversation, and I think I just kind of applied that night. So, quite impulsive, but it's worked out quite well, I'd say. And I'm very happy I did it. It's definitely the first job that I had done where I thought, OK, I want to get good at this. And yeah, then I was there for 18 months in total. And then I got a job. And I came to Australia and did a bit of hospitality work just to make ends meet. Wrote about kind of new bars and restaurants for Broadtree and wrote about kind of property for realestate.com.au. That was about a year all up doing that kind of arrangement and then applied for a job at the New Daily. Well, applied, didn't really apply for a job that I said, I just bombarded them with my CV and met a couple of them for coffee chats. And eventually, the editor-in-chief rang me up. It was like, look, your CV keeps on popping up. I'm struggling to fill this role. Are you still interested in the job? And I was very much interested and did an interview there and writing test. And yeah, I was there, luckily got a job and did a few different jobs there. I was there for about three and a half years in total. And then went from there to the financial review, which was just a simple, there was a job online. I applied and I got the job.
Speaker 1Amazing. I just love the tenacity in writing. Going after something that you're interested in and just relentlessly chasing it. How would you compare the time where you were freelancing and pitching stories, you know, from the outside versus being in-house and really understanding the like mechanics and drivers within a news publication?
Speaker 2I was terrible at pitching stories. I could count on the number of stories I pitched on one hand, to be honest. I was lucky in that when I had those gigs. I was fed stories for, well, Broadsheet fed me stories. They just said, hey, it's a new restaurant here. Can you open up? I would have pitched some features to various magazines, but I think I did a lot of that self-limiting belief stuff where you think I was not good enough or yeah, I think I just really struggled with it. I couldn't really offer you any advice on the pitching stuff. I wasn't very good at it. I was lucky that Broadsheet came along and they kind of offered me stories. And then, then in realestate.com.au to that second point, I was kind of brought in as a contractor. So they paid me a day rate and actually worked from the office. And then when you're inside, it's much easier to get a sense of what the editors is like and what the readers care about and what other people are writing because you're on that, you're on the site every day. So I think if going back now, if I was freelancing again, I would probably just read way more, try and really kind of get into the head of, imagine what the editor inside a publication would be thinking. Because you have to, it takes a lot of time to kind of get used to publications. So if you're not reading every day and, you know, trying to predict where things are going to go next, you're going to really struggle. You're going to struggle to pitch relevant stories. And so I was terrible at pitching. That's the short answer. Yeah. Terrible. Absolutely terrible.
Speaker 1Oh, that's good. Okay. So tell us about what you're doing today in your gig. Like, tell us a little bit about your beat.
Speaker 2Yeah, sure. So I'm working careers reporter, which sounds quite vague perhaps, but it's basically just writing about workplace issues and trends, changes in how and when and where we do work. And. Kind of tips on how to progress your career. So I guess big topics would be remote and how we're working, return to the office, obviously. Yes, we are. Although, I mean, to that point, I get pitched a lot of ideas around this stuff and I knocked back like 95% of it because I feel like it is settled, right? Most people are coming in two to three days a week. If you want to talk about productivity, you can find researchers to support your bias. We're not going back to the office five days a week, full time. Any time soon. So I think it's pretty settled. So I'm not interested in port leadership, don't send me your opinions on that kind of stuff. For me, it's just like new policies, right? That's interesting. If, you know, ANZ links it to bonuses, then I'll write about that. Or if Amazon comes out and says you can't get promotion unless you come to the office three days a week, I'll write about that because that's a real world policy and not just an idea. But yeah, I really love it. You know, they want to know about it. I think it's that kind of fear element. People read it because they love working from home so much. So they see when like a big company like ANZ links to the bonuses, they worry, is it going to be taken away from me? Who's going to do the washing? Yes, exactly. So you're still right about it, it's a big issue. And then the other issues are kind of artificial intelligence, the real kind of big things since the pandemic in our changing attitudes to work, particularly among Gen Z workers. Gen Z, you know, we've got an older audience, they love to know what the kids are doing, they love to know how they're different. So that's really big. But I also think that collecting.
Speaker 1Collectively, we're all bloody grateful to the Gen Z generation for pushing hard. I feel like, you know, boomers maybe like experienced a lot of things without saying anything. And then, like, you know, millennials complain about everything. And then the Gen Z are actually actioning all of our complaints.
Speaker 2Yes. Yeah, no, I think that's a totally fair point. And there's some research on that as well. I think Edelman, they do that trust promise they do, I think, once a year and they had a line in there that said, there's some stat, I mean, I'm going to get the stat wrong, but if people go and look it up after the show, they'll find it.
Speaker 1Most stats are wrong.
Speaker 2Yeah, most stats are wrong anyway. But it was something around this idea that most workers are influenced by what Gen Z are saying on the stuff and the idea that they're kind of just giving voice to what they've always wanted. I think that's definitely part of it.
Speaker 1Well, they've got so much less to lose, right? Like when you're at the start of your career, it's not like you've got a massive mortgage. I mean, then you're probably never going to be able to buy a house, but like, you know, there's like a lot less on the table for them to compromise. They can go and get a job somewhere else if they put someone's nose out of joint.
Speaker 2Yes. Yeah. I mean, yeah, don't get stuck on Gen Z for too long, but it is really interesting. I think, I mean, I think people do kind of conflate the generational differences with the age difference. there's definitely a lot of things said about gen z that was said about millennials um there's a definitely definitely a lot of fear-mongering but then i also think there is some validity to this idea that you know they are the first generation that grew up with the internet and they know so much
Speaker 1more at this age than any of us knew i think we should be deeply listening to gen z i think they're like a very wise generation that and also vocalizing things that ought to be addressed like it's it's pretty cool i
Speaker 2think that element's good i guess uh boomer bosses would say differently yeah but
Speaker 1they're gonna be out of the workforce soon so you know and i do think like it's an interesting dynamic i think there's a much more positive intergenerational dynamic between millennial and gen z than maybe some of like our predecessors but anyway that's for another day um i'm curious um i'm curious to hear what your thoughts are on that um i'm curious to hear what your thoughts are um i'm curious to hear what your thoughts are on that um i'm curious to hear what your thoughts are on that um i'm curious to hear what your thoughts are on that um i'm curious to understand like in the pieces that you're exploring talk us through like what motivates you and really inspires you in the storytelling like what really like gets you excited that's
Speaker 2a good question i think i'm not sure around how it gets me excited so to speak but i mean in terms of i know i know an idea is an idea yeah i kind of in terms of the the storytelling process and how i go about pursuing an idea i feel like the strongest ideas come from they're kind of self-generated they're proactive or they come from me just getting out there talking to my sources talking to people who work in these companies uh talking to recruiters to hr experts meeting them for coffee hearing what they're seeing in their their work because they i'm writing a kind of about in what they do right so i need to hear from them firsthand i find that kind of one-on-one interaction makes it all a lot more real i can kind of sense okay what actually is motivating you what are you kind of getting worked up about when what are you talking about when you move up to the next level and what are you kind of getting worked up about when you move up around your seat and you kind of get a bit animated and go okay there's something there because that's visibly upsetting you and then you just get a few of those kind of data points right you get a few three or four people saying similar things about topic and you go okay there's that sounds like something's there then you go and look then i would go and look to see what else has been written about the topic have we covered it recently have we not what other people said about it are these people saying anything new is there a new angle there and then i would go and look at data we really need some data with you know australian financial review we need numbers yeah yeah readers readers love numbers so that's that's that's kind of how i build it out so i'm not sure that's answered your questions i mean yeah the other element of it is human
Speaker 1like speaking to humans and hearing what's happening on the ground do you have a like a i guess like a an internal kpi that you have in order to build that like those touch points like are you saying to yourself like i want to meet with two new people a week or a month or whatever i wish i wish i would
Speaker 2love to have that and i think i should i think i have before i said to myself i must meet three people a week for coffee and i've done it for one week and thought god i'm good god i'm bloody good and then the next week it just the wheels fall off you know and then i didn't i don't do it for two weeks like oh my god i need to go meet people so i think it's more about for me it's more about getting a list of story ideas working through and when it's getting a bit thin and i'm getting a bit like oh gosh then it's like all right i need to meet three people this week i need to meet three people next week and kind of get it going again the thing is you're always meeting people for coffee you're getting too many ideas you can't execute on the ideas so i think it's about getting that balance between enough of a pipeline of work and enough time to actually kind of deliver yeah to actually do it yeah and
Speaker 1that would definitely be a burden of the job with like so many interesting ideas coming at you and being like no realistically i can produce fun story like that that's like what i've got capacity for so tell us a little bit about what your personal timeline looks like daily weekly monthly what does
Speaker 2it look like i definitely have worked out a right best in the morning so i can get the writing done i also have a very lucky mode round um where i'm not kind of responding to real world time sensitive events a lot of time it's trends it's it's self-generated news so i can kind of decide when things go up online a bit more not always have control over it but that means like i can theoretically have a bit more control of my day i mean an ideal day would be probably writing the thing in the morning eight till ten file it you know file it at nine or nine thirty or ten then i already have ideas for my interviews for my next thing lined up and yeah i guess yeah morning would be writing and the rest of the day would be like interviews and idea generation to meet people i think that's that's that's how
Speaker 1i work best and do you have an expectation on like number of pieces that you need to produce in a week or anything like that
Speaker 2no just enough to feel like i'm pulling my weight i think yeah it varies a lot because you know i mean i did a story on ultramarathons recently and that was over 3 000 words so that takes a bit of time to write and to interview people when there was lots of scientific papers kind of cited in that piece so i had to kind of actually read quite a bit of dense literature to kind of put it together i guess to understand it so that took a while i mean when you're doing stuff like that it slows down but i'd say on average if i was a guest it's between two and six a week which is quite a big
Speaker 1variance window yeah but i mean like sometimes that you're going a lot deeper i was at a um industry educational event recently and one of the audience editors audience editor is that the role from the finn was there and talking about like audience insights
Speaker 2maybe yeah oh yeah yeah
Speaker 1and just like exploring you know what's involved in terms of like analyzing article performance and how to reshape headlines or you know where that's going to land on a page how much interaction do you have and how much space does that take up in your story ideation to being informed by that kind of data you're like i can't talk about this i was thinking
Speaker 2of that i think yeah i was thinking that i was i was thinking about how much i can say in terms of head i mean if i start with headlines i guess i'll put a headline on it i buy definitely don't get final say and i'm i'm very happy to be overruled a lot of time because more often than not my editors when they put a different headline on there it's a lot better uh in terms of being dictated by like the numbers do you mean do you mean me looking at numbers and or just knowing
Speaker 1what knowing what performs really well and you know maybe like skewing things towards like gotcha yeah having a high performing piece versus like exploring the piece that you think is more interesting for yourself personally i find
Speaker 2a lot of time there there's there's a the venn diagram is quite kind in that respect that's good there are i mean you look i've written so much about work from home and i sometimes don't want to write oftentimes don't want to write anything more but you know the the masses are calling for it so i i must obey them and their wishes so it there's a bit there is a bit that i mean yes i do look at the numbers every day for sure about how many people reading want more people to read your stuff than fewer because it has more impact but i wouldn't say it it's a fact in my decision making when deciding whether to write a story but if i think a story is really important it's a really important issue you know typically those worthy stories you might say the stories that you know uh are about important issues but aren't perhaps like that sexy i will still write them and i'll just accept that i'm not going to get great number of readers and if i get some decent readers on it i'll be like okay that's that's a bonus but i'm still yeah yeah and i mean a lot of time some of the stories that don't aren't read well they still have impact with the people who read them yeah so the people really you get emails saying oh god i love that piece you wrote this and you look at numbers like not many people read that but obviously you
Speaker 1and my mom loved it so
Speaker 2yeah exactly exactly so yeah it's it's i guess like in some ways it's definitely a factor in my decision making but it's not there be all and end all
Speaker 1yeah realm and if you were to like look back at some of like the best performing stories are there some consistencies across like you know obviously you've mentioned yeah hybrid working and working from home is up there are there you know like certain topics themes or people high profile people that like perform best i'm just
Speaker 2looking without one half my screen i actually got the list of my best performing stories so the best one i've ever written actually in terms of most read was the headline was how these professionals are more than 10 000 a month on i actually can't read the rest of the headline on it i think it's their side hustles right so i mean so yeah that was just just went gangbusters i think maybe because it had that blend of being a bit specific in the headline 10 000 a month bit in the lure there these professionals that's our target market you know white global workers and then like it's just that money you know that greed thing tapping people's greed how how can i get 10 grand a month on the side if i read this article i will know the answer the genie
Speaker 1and this article will bring my dreams to life
Speaker 2yeah it's uh it's really mixed bag i wrote a story about this teenager who didn't have a degree and landed the job at macquarie because she went through a like tech education scheme that was my third most read article that's got really great readership numbers and that was i think because it's that blend of macquarie being a very high uh well-known brand very kind of prestigious very almost kind of secretive brand like people want to know more was going on in Macquarie I'd say um and it's this idea of a teenager in their degree how did she kind of get this um jump in the quarry so i think that's a bit of intrigue there but i mean yeah there's in terms of themes it's really it's really hard to kind of pick them out there's obviously work from home there's one around um changing attitudes to work and this idea that we're kind of switching off from work a bit that did really well one about australians quitting retirement i mean it's it's difficult to say i think the one that does pick up a lot is uh stuff around working from home and the other things is just chat gpts out there it's it's all over the place i couldn't really
Speaker 1say yeah yeah and so in terms of like who you're writing for so that white collar worker professional people tell me a little bit about who your audience is yeah
Speaker 2it's a good question readers yeah they're white white collar workers someone once said to me or the person who did my job before i think she said something along the lines of um it's it's kind of the young professionals in the office towers you see in cbd you know those office towers with people people's the names of people's companies on them you know the kpmg of the world i think that's true i think it's lawyers it's accountants it's consultants i think they're the main readers and then i think there's a separate branch which is kind of around people who work in hr and people in culture i think they read my piece as well and then kind of recruiters so there's there's a few different groups but i think broadly that covers most of the working career stuff and then i also write for boss which is a bit more leadership a bit more management and that's kind of uh i guess older workers who are in
Speaker 1senior management positions do you have a cadence with boss for when you're contributing there
Speaker 2there's a lack of structure in my life as you can tell um i think your boss is just as and when i mean try and get in story like try and file stories in once a week but sometimes they have these big ceo interviews that kind of take multiple pages then my story get bumped into the next week so no no cadence but i try and follow something once a week
Speaker 1if i can yeah yeah yeah and what are some of like the discerning factors for you when it comes to speaking to talent and and vetting whether they're you know going to be a good fit for
Speaker 2you so if they are kind of if they have an alternative opinion or opinion i think it's interesting they have to be a someone from a well-known company in a quite a higher position so i imagine that kind of puts the people in the some of your listeners at a disadvantage i guess if you're someone who's an expert in a field who doesn't work at one company and doesn't have that kind of name recognition then it i'll be honest it is a higher kind of barrier to entry for you because other people are less interested in what you have to say it's just the blunt way of putting it so i mean it doesn't mean it's completely ruled off but you what you have to say has to be so compelling or you have to yeah you just have to be much more compelling what you say or you need to kind of bring research that supports your view really like robust academic research yeah supports what you're saying and hasn't been widely reported it can't be a survey of 500 people by you know a company that was paid to basically find kind of derive a conclusion that kind of supports your vested interest right that's not going to get cut it so yeah it has to be yesterday something really compelling to say and there has to be some sort of research to back up what you're
Speaker 1saying i think yeah and so let's talk about like where you're going to review data and insights like what are some of your go-to resources
Speaker 2go-to resources i mean they vary a lot i mean abs obviously a lot of their releases um like i i guess everyone goes there but you know they they kind of the final word on anything around the labor market so i mean i do get pitched a lot of in a labor market indicators and indexes and it's just i don't really take them too seriously because when you've got something that's that authoritative in the abs and that it's something saying something different they have to be like really credible to me for me to pay much attention to it um i mean i did a story recently about kind of the number of diverse action claims that employees are making against their bosses and how they're kind of on the rise and that was just me kind of going on a fair work commission website and just i kind of download i had actually had to email them to get all the data i needed and then kind of adding into a spreadsheet and kind of just telling of yourself so yeah i mean i don't really have that many beyond kind of the big the big name stuff you know sometimes we're going to might commission some surveys from someone like pull tricks i've done something with them before but yeah it's it's just they have to be really credible organizations
Speaker 1really yeah and so if you had some advice for someone that is going to be interviewed by you talk us through what that process will look like for them your advice
Speaker 2for someone to be interviewed by me would be kind of relax i guess in terms of it's it's not a gotcha moment i'm not going to you can afford to say lots of ums and ahs like me don't really worry about that you're not on radio on tv so i guess just relax be yourself be candid be open avoid jargon be specific you know there's lots of abstract words in the world we don't want to talk about transport infrastructure we're going to talk about buses roads moms dads use real language that real people understand what else would i say i mean that's that's the big part of it don't try and sell anything you know don't try and push a product or yeah promote your business because i'm not going to put it in the story if it's too self-serving so you're just wasting my time you're wasting your time as well so yeah i think just be be honest be candid and yeah try not to get too stressed by
Speaker 1it yeah yeah easy easy to dish that advice you are not so easy um in terms of like what that physically looks like are you sending through questions beforehand do you prefer to just wing it is that a phone um or zoom chat do you do an email interview yeah
Speaker 2preferred to do them all on phone i'd love it if i had time to to do them in person i mean i probably do actually have more time to do in person but i just don't no one no one really does anymore unless it's like a profile piece right so it's it's phone or email email is just to um the words don't they're not they don't sound natural on a page because the
Speaker 1person's had too much of a
Speaker 2play yeah yeah yeah so i mean i will take email occasionally you know if i'm interviewing someone overseas and it's just a last minute job and they're not like a big part of the story they're just an additional quote and now i'll take email quotes but generally on the phone uh for a news article if they're an expert and i've only got one or two questions it could be as quick as five six minutes on the phone if it's like a news article and it's quite a complex subject or i'm or i'm getting bill their personal story it could be between 15 and 20 and in the meantime i'm going to be on the phone with them maybe it's like a something a bit longer the longest it would go is probably like 45 minutes
Speaker 1yeah yeah and in terms of like what goes into that um between you know like are you pitching your story ideas into your editor before you're running with them or are you sort of flying
Speaker 2a bit of both there'll be um some stories you're just pretty confident they're gonna they get commissioned so you kind of start to work on them you might just mention them briefly to an editor and sometimes i mean it's annoying for the interviewee but sometimes you don't really know 100 if it's story before you kind of interviewed them so sometimes i mean you're led to believe they're going to say something you can offer something and they don't so that's one of the reasons it doesn't end up being a story so yeah the process is mixed it depends on the story sometimes i'll have already pitched it so sometimes i wouldn't have done so it's mixed back
Speaker 1yeah yeah and and in terms of like the turnaround typically between an interview and a story running what does that look
Speaker 2like uh again yeah it depends on the story a new story um it could be i'd chat to you 10 a.m in the morning and it's it's an online two hours later and in the paper next day it's a new story especially if it's something responding something that's happened in real life you know then it's there's there's a very time sensitive and then it needs to go quite quickly other times it's on the news that's for the next day it's on the news list until 4 30 p.m you're telling your texting your source saying yeah we'll be in the paper tomorrow don't worry and then at 5 30 p.m something happens and it gets it gets bumped for the next edition so the gap between the interview and the publication can be a matter of hours it can be days sometimes it can be weeks if it's a feature and i'm just chipping away in the background yeah some of that i'm kind of venturing into a bit of kind of health and fitness writing on the side as well so if i'm doing that it's kind of like in addition to all my daily stuff so that the leading time for
Speaker 1me is just going to be a bit longer yeah yeah just trying to have all of the pots on the stove at the same time exactly yeah yeah and so in terms of linkedin how important is that for you in your
Speaker 2work very important actually i haven't been huge on posting recently i haven't been posting all my stories but um i is great for finding case studies i feel like there is an i do get a have uh i've got all getting case studies on there i'm pretty lucky i kind of stick stuff out there i guess because all the stories um they're just asking for people's case studies and um so there's nothing too negative about it's just someone sharing their personal story something people are pretty happy to talk to me for it pretty lucky in that regard so oftentimes i have the opposite problem right i have put something on there and i'll just keep on getting emails weeks later i'm like that story's gone please stop emailing me yeah so it's really important i do sometimes feel like a bit cheating by putting a call out on there like i should be trying a bit harder to get there what do you mean -
Speaker 1Run around the streets calling out? -
Speaker 2Yeah, pound the pavement. You know, work your sources. I don't know. It just sort of is a bit easy. But it is super helpful. So, yeah, it's very important. So, I mean, any PR out there, it's definitely, you want to know what I'm writing about before it's written. I'd kind of just stalk me on that, I suppose.
Speaker 1Yeah, totally. So, talking about, like, how you're piecing the stories together, you've got your industry experts and you've got case studies. Is the case studies, like, more of a way that someone that doesn't maybe necessarily work for one of those well-renowned blue-chip companies can insert themselves into a story?
Speaker 2Yes. I'd say so, yes. Especially if they have introduced a new kind of, I don't know, it depends what the story is, but I find a lot of those kind of case studies stories work as is, you know, there's a problem, they recognise the problem, they introduce a policy or a change to address it, and then they had an outcome from it. And it's kind of that kind of free part kind of structured to a case study. Sometimes that seems to just naturally happen. But, yeah, I mean, short answer to your question is, yes, that's a good way of those people getting to the paper for sure.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah. And how much time do you invest in reading people's thoughts, feedback and comments on the things that you write?
Speaker 2I do, yes, I do read the stuff. I don't always respond because if you respond, then it's another message you have to respond to, so it creates more work for yourself. So sometimes I just read it and don't respond. Yeah, I tend to find on LinkedIn the feedback's pretty positive. It's pretty, like, maybe because people's names are attached and they're a bit more of a friend, not friendly atmosphere, but it's more respectful, isn't it, on LinkedIn than other social media platforms where you're anonymous.
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think there's a big difference.
Speaker 2Yeah. You'd be surprised, though. Sometimes people, you're like, oh, my God, your name's attached to that. Like, what are you thinking?
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? Like, people's different appetite for, like, being personally affiliated with some, like, reasonably gnarky commentary.
Speaker 2I mean, do you comment much on LinkedIn? Do you get stuck in or?
Speaker 1Oh, not aggressively. Keep that behind closed doors, human. No. Look, I think I would be happy to be opinionated, but I certainly wouldn't be, like, ripping shreds off a journalist's article by any stretch of the imagination. No. But I do, I love reading when people, a lot of people are quite opinionated on there. There's, like, a few people in my industry that I think, like, do a great job of just calling things out and that's always, you know, like, when it's the right tone and respectful. Okay, so we've talked a little bit about, like, building the stories. How can people get your attention?
Speaker 2I think email is probably the best starting point, just to have something written. But it doesn't need to be fully fleshed out media release. It doesn't need to be that formal. It can just be, it can just, I think the advice for pitchers is kind of around, just imagine you're kind of just sending it to your friends at a pub. Use real talk, real kind of language. And it comes down to the idea. The idea's got to be strong enough. It doesn't matter how good the press release looks. If the idea's bad, the idea's bad, you know. But it does get my attention. You're just sitting around here. Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, this is on pigs, please. But, yeah, in terms of getting my attention, I think just sending the email. And then I don't mind you just ringing me. I don't know where I read this from. I picked up years ago this idea that if you ring someone twice in a row, they're going to pick up. The first time they go, ah, probably isn't important. I mean, I'm going to regress saying this.
Speaker 1Yeah. And your phone number is.
Speaker 2But it's true. There's something about if it rings the second time, it's the same person you think, God, it might be. It might be important. So, you know, feel free to use that method. It's worked for me in the past. I think, yeah, just send an email. Pitch doesn't, I don't really have any idea. I don't really have any kind of tips on pitching. As I said earlier, I'm pretty terrible at it myself. So send an email. If I don't respond after 24 hours, which is very likely, feel free to email again. If I don't respond to that, then if you care enough about the story, I'd suggest ringing me rather than emailing me. Because I feel like I generally don't respond, one, because I've missed it. So if you send a second email, that kind of covers that problem. And the second reason I'm not responding is because I'm on the fence about it. If it's really bad, if it's really bad and it was so bad, so bad that it should have been directed at someone else, it's not in my field, and it was just a mass release, I'd be like, that doesn't deserve a response. I'm going to ignore that. If it was bad, but I know you and I've got a relationship with you, I'll say, hey, this isn't for me. I'm sorry. And then the other category of non-reply is I'm on the fence about it. You need to convince me. And I kind of, I'm in and out about it. So then that's when you should be ringing me and we should be kind of having that conversation on the phone because we don't want to get stuck into back and forth emails. You kind of want to, I want someone to convince me.
Speaker 1Oh, yeah. I would say. On the phone, nine times out of ten, you'll have a really positive outcome. And it might not be that the story gets to run, but you'll get the feedback on it. And I feel like so many publicists run into this problem and people that are pitching themselves as well is sometimes you don't know why it's not working. You've kind of followed a formula of like, yep, I've really stretched this idea. I've connected the dots between something that hasn't been spoken about. I've got data. I've got credibility. What's up? Yes. You know, and nine times out of ten, I say the email hasn't been read. Like, you know, that's probably a good one. And then after that, it's like, well, actually, you kind of need that feedback to tussle together to make it really work and land. Or maybe you just missed this really interesting aspect. And when you talk about it, you can speak about it more freely and kind of like get that buy-in.
Speaker 2Yeah, 100% agree. I mean, that's really good advice. Yeah, you don't know what you don't know, right? And you can't even ask those questions to get those responses almost. Yeah, I just totally agree that you're not going to find out that information unless you're on the phone with someone.
Speaker 1Yeah, and often I think you'll also get a good steer where someone will say, well, actually, I think this, like, you know, tech AI is actually going to be better suited to the health editor because it translates into the health space and, you know, the insights that you can share. I think there are more useful over there. Yes. And sometimes, like, there's a few kind of pillars that you could slot into, but you might not have recognised the breadth of what you're chatting about. Definitely. Okay, so if you could give some feedback to PRs, what would you like to share with us?
Speaker 2Okay, I have a few things.
Speaker 1Whoops out the list.
Speaker 2I think the first one is probably around, surveys. I mean, I think it's fine, it's fine to send them, but just be aware that if it is a survey that is done by a company who has a vested interest in the subjects being surveyed on, I'm nine times out of 10, I'm going to ignore it. You know, you're a company that sells office furniture to people who work from home and you survey people and lo and behold, 80% of white collar workers think they're more productive away from home, but no chance. So I think just don't do that. If you can. Yeah, pictures of what you've.
Speaker 1What about someone, and this is like totally just like riffing here, but I think say someone has access to a database and I'm just going to point to an old client that I worked with and I just was thinking they have like a podcast with 16 million downloads of people talking about birth and, you know, if you're surveying that audience database, there's such a huge, you know, like, and if you were coming out with some insights that people had experienced during labour or postpartum recovery, there's, you know, like, obviously it doesn't have the like academic rigour around it, but like, surely there's also moments where, you know, you have like access to insights that maybe other people don't have. I guess it's case by case, the sample size has to be really large.
Speaker 2I mean, I don't know if it's just, you know, I don't know if it's like, you know, I don't know if it's just, you know, it has to be kind of robust. Sometimes, I mean, sometimes if the sample size is large enough and it's just really compelling, and I know that's a very vague term, but sometimes a lot of it comes down to that, you know, you just, it comes across and you go, that's just got something in it, that's got a hook, that's got, I can, the headline, I can see the headline there. I can see why people would want to read that. That can maybe get you over the line. I just say the barrier to entry is way higher and I'm just very cautious of people sending me surveys. It's kind of that whole beware free gifts thing. You know, I just unsure about it. But yeah, I mean, I guess case by case, if you, like you said, they've got this amazing database that they can draw upon and it's really large sample size then, and what they have to say is compelling, then, and it fits into my round, then sure, I'll take a look at it. -
Speaker 1Yeah, also just thinking about the free gifts thing, that's like a real like downside of your line of work. You probably don't necessarily get like the same for meals and gifts and gifting that you might get in the like luxury products, journalism, as you do writing about work and careers. You get lots of like career coaching. -
Speaker 2No, no, I get, I get invites to things and that's probably the best I get. -
Speaker 1Damn it. Well, I mean, it sounds great to be bridging out into health and fitness. Get all the like try bikes. -
Speaker 2Yeah, fingers crossed. -
Speaker 1Okay. Integrity numero uno. Any other feedback for the PR?
Speaker 2i'd say um i'm really happy to meet you in person for coffee i think that's i think you know it makes a lot of sense for both parties to kind of have a relationship i'm way more likely to respond to your email if i know who you are i'm just you i'm way more likely to pick up your phone i know you are especially especially if you kind of um if in the past you know these are working relationships if you've um done if you've done something helpful for me in the past i'm more likely to kind of at least look at your pitch and get back to you you know so it does it does make sense to me in person well i would say though i do get a lot of emails and that when i first started in a row i kind of uh would accept these kind of coffee catch-ups and now i don't but people just these generic emails that people send to journalists i think where they're saying you know hey i just joined this company's pr sometimes not even that just hey i would love to meet you for coffee and get a sense of what you're what you're right about i would like to know learn more about what you're doing and what you're doing and what you're doing and what you're doing and what you write about and those kind of i find that when i go to those catch-ups i don't i find it's a lot of times where's
Speaker 1my time well ewan now you can direct them to this podcast
Speaker 2exactly well it's just i guess the point i was going to get at is like you should know what i write about if you read my articles yeah my articles read the news say you shouldn't have to ask about that in person and also when we do meet let's like it's a business meeting it's not a social catch-up so like let's do small talk let's build a relationship but also bring something to me and then i mean i should be trying to ask you kind of specific questions and kind of get something out come with a bit of intention from my side as well but i think i've gone to a lot of these meetings where there's not been much intention behind it and i go away thinking i won't do that again so like that's that's a bit brutal maybe that's another bit of feedback just have a bit of intention
Speaker 1no but i think it's good advice because i think the advice is often build the relationship and pitch later so maybe people are holding back because they don't want to ask for marriage on the first date and you know so they're you know softly softly get to know build rapport and then pitch later but actually you can probably do a bit of both i think so yeah if you're catching up for
Speaker 2a coffee yeah i think so yeah i guess maybe everyone's different but i think yeah bring bring something as well as good cheer and uh a good chat bring bring an idea or something too
Speaker 1yeah awesome and what about like to people who you're interviewing what's sort of feedback or advice would you have for
Speaker 2them yeah i think again just um don't don't try and sell a product don't plug your own business and don't worry about sounding polished also i mean because i do a lot of these case studies with a case study you're i'm interviewing for your own personal story you don't have to worry about being an expert on the topic i'm writing about you don't have to kind of do lots of research about that topic for that kind of story you'll be into your personal experience you just need to share your story and be kind of hopefully candid i would be quite honest with you and i think that's a really good way to do that open and so i have had some it's quite rare because people normally kind of get that and i normally kind of front load the interview with a bit of context before we can uh hit the recorder and and get started in it but sometimes i have people kind of trying to uh pontificate or make points about the broader thing and i'm like that's actually i've got some i've got some experts later in the story who're going to do that stuff so you don't have to worry about that i'm kind of just wanting to talk about a personal story so that that's another bit of advice but it's quite rare that someone does
Speaker 1that yeah yeah absolutely and what about imagery um setting up you know photographers to take images versus people supplying high res imagery where are you at uh never hurts
Speaker 2to send something across but it's not a big deal i wouldn't stress about it it probably doesn't make me unless the photos are amazing uh then it doesn't make me any kind of likely to go for it if the story's strong enough and we like it enough then we will send the right photographer out you know very lucky at the financial review quite well resourced we do have photographers that we can send out so and in most cases you know we're going to prefer to send the right photographer out rather than taking a corporate headshot or a supplied picture
Speaker 1you know yeah yeah awesome wow this has been incredibly useful i know you said you may or may not have anything to say on the matter but future of the media landscape any thoughts or ideas on this one future media
Speaker 2landscape i mean yeah my uninformed opinion would be more more podcasts i think just podcasting to be doing really well i think we're just going to see more of that there's there seems to be a bit of a trend towards fewer better stories that's definitely a focus at the financial review we're trying to move towards that and i feel like other publications are doing something similar some of the metro mastheads are also owned by nine tinny morning hair with the age i think they're doing something similar i mean that's maybe that's because there's just so much news right there's so much people may be a bit overwhelmed in this more about moving towards just focusing on the quality and and focusing on the kind of
Speaker 1detail well it's been a bloody treat to have you on the podcast thank you for making time in your busy schedule where's the best place for people to connect with
Speaker 2you linkedin i'd say it's a good spot add me on linkedin um send me a message on linkedin and you can email me at ewan.black
Speaker 1at afr.com amazing it's been a treat thank you
Speaker 2so much thank you
Speaker 1and that's a wrap thanks for tuning in to hack your own pr if you loved this episode please go on over and subscribe review and even give it a shout out on social media you can find me at odette and co on insta until next time guys Thank you.
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