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When I was starting out in public relations about 25 years ago, P.R. 101 -- by which I mean mostly Publicity 101 -- was a lot simpler than it is today. For example: when the question arose about when to pitch a journalist, you were told: "don't call a reporter on a morning paper in the afternoon, and don't call a reporter on an afternoon paper in the morning."
Now it's not quite so simple. Now you must ask yourself not only when to call a reporter, but whether to call a reporter -- as opposed to faxing, or e-mailing, or voice-mailing -- or just mailing.
The reality is that it's almost impossible to predict how a given reporter wants to get his/her information -- or "knowledge," to fit in with the theme of this conference.
For example, when Margot Slade was editor of the New York Times' law page, she said that she prefers pitches by mail, and hates faxes. (On one particularly busy day, Margot found herself receiving a 42-page "brief" from a public relations person during a day when she was desperately awaiting faxes from her Washington correspondent.)
Ms. Slade's attitude is not unusual. But neither is the attitude of Ed Adams of the New York Law Journal. He generally likes faxes. And at a recent workshop here in New York, journalists from four media -- The Wall Street Journal, WABC-TV, WCBS Radio, and Newsday -- said they preferred getting material by fax; only the CNBC reporter wanted something by mail.
What about E-Mail? A recent survey by Columbia Professor Steven Ross and Don Middleberg, president of a New York public relations firm, found that only 13% of responding journalists do not have Internet access -- down from 37% just a year ago.
Thus the woman who edits Forbes' "On My Mind" department says that if you're pitching a story idea, she wants it by e-mail -- even though, she says, "I get hundreds of e-mails every day."
But don't assume too much from this. Here, too, the "market place" -- i.e., the media with whom we deal -- differs widely. Not long ago, few reporters could send or get e-mail at their desks. That's changed, but attitudes about e-mail vary enormously, depending on what reporter you speak to.
For those of you in love with E-Mail, here's a frightening piece of information: an editor at a major West Coast daily recently told a reporter that some of his people "haven't checked [their e-mail] in a year." And in an era when you tend to take technology for granted, you might have given pause if you had read, as I did, a remark by a CNN assignment editor that "Sometimes I see an e-mail that looks interesting, but then I can't print it out, which is frustrating." And in the same vein, the New York Times' "company news" editor was quoted as saying, "We don't absolutely forbid getting press releases by e-mail, but as a practical matter, it doesn't make things easier."
Indeed, CNN's assignment desk editor, Jim Forkin, told Ragan's Media Relations Report recently that he likes to receive a form of communication some younger readers may not have heard of. It's called "mail." "For some reason, people think that mail doesn't work," said Forkin. "But we like it because we can read it on our own time."
Then there's another problem involving E-mail. Let me quote a story that appeared recently in The New York Times News of the Week in Review:
"E-Mail has such a reputation for speed that technophiles have long sneered at the inefficient `snail mail' delivered by the Postal Service. But while E-mail zips along at nearly the speed of light, sometimes the snail gets there first.
"An electronic message sent between two Manhattan offices a dozen blocks away last month, for example, took two days to reach its destination. . . While E-mail typically reaches its destination in a matter of minutes, it can also take hours, sometimes days and, like some regular mail, may not even get there at all."
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