Looking for ways to avoid all those journalists who have the nerve to want to know something about your business? Bothered by those pesky nosy parkers? With tongue firmly in-cheek I offer these useful suggestions:
- Don’t put anything on your website that might help them – like mini biographies of senior managers, their responsibilities, or show a photograph of them. Have no ‘About us’ page.
- If possible don’t provide a media contact phone number, otherwise certainly don’t give the name of the person to whom all press enquiries should be directed.
- Divert all calls from a ‘media contact’ phone number immediately to voicemail, then don’t answer them―especially if the caller leaves more than one message.
- Wait two weeks before calling a journalist back to say you aren’t the right person to talk to and provide an alternative name and number. Repeat step 3.
- Use a generic ‘press enquiries@’ e-mail contact with a ‘No more than 500 words max’ message box. Then set it permanently on ‘Out of Office’ auto reply.
- After a month reply to any e-mail enquiry apologizing for the delay. Then request a list of questions for forwarding to the appropriate person.
- Wait two weeks before replying: ‘Thank you for your enquiry but at this moment we are not able to help with your article’.
- Should you actually want to engage with a journalist (highly unlikely) provide answers to questions that weren’t asked or direct them on to irrelevant areas of your website.
- Demand to see all copy prior to publication (even before the journalist has uttered a single word or supplied any questions) quoting ‘It’s company policy.’
- In the unlikely event you arrange a phone interview with the relevant person, make sure they’re absent when the journalist calls at the agreed time.
- Should the worst happen and a journalist manages to avoid steps 1-10 and contact a manager or executive directly their response should be “I’m sorry you’ll have to go through our PR dept. before I can talk to you” before giving them your ‘media contact’ number. Repeat stage 3.
- Finally, try and plan all holidays and days off within the PR/marketing department so that they coincide and overlap, thereby ensuring minimal coverage in the office. Repeat step 3.
Applying the above rules should ensure it’s extremely unlikely any journalist will ever bother you again. Of course, it means your chances of generating good media coverage for your organization or business will also be lost, but who wants to talk to journalists anyway? Plus, it will leave you with more time to monitor how much media coverage your competitors are getting…