Wake up and smell the coffee!
Why can’t business PRs be ready for dawn calls? asks CHRIS WHEAL
PRESS OFFICERS are clockwatchers who have yet to wake up to the fact that news is 24 hours a day.
Industry leaders sit down at their desks at 8am and my crack-of-sparrows job is to make sure their favourite home page has the latest news. That means digesting other sources and checking the facts. With so few PRs putting up-to-date press releases on their websites, and briefing favoured journalists only, this means calling them, often as early as 6.30am.
The best I can hope for is a mobile number that wakes up the poor PR, who blearily provides a quote. But that is rare.
Sometimes I leave a message and someone calls me back — if they do it is usually only just before my 8am deadline, often because they have to go into the office before they can answer me.
But usually I just draw a blank.
Many do not provide media contacts on their websites, but instead have a form to complete. If they do provide contacts there are no out-of-hours numbers or mobiles. If there are, more often than not they are turned off.
Take HM Treasury. Alistair Darling was attending a meeting in Brussels of vital importance to my readers. A civil servant had briefed news agencies the night before but I had to check a point. I called the Treasury out of hours number at 6.30. I called the press office numbers at 7.30 and called the out of hours number back just after 8, to be told that night security had been leaving messages with the duty press officer but had received no replies.
Here are my tips for soporific spin doctors:
If you want a lie-in, put the information on your website. Even if you have briefed a tame FT reporter exclusively, post it after the FT comes out, around midnight.
Provide direct numbers online and switch the out-of-hours direct to the person on duty — and make sure their phone is switched on. Doh.
Make sure the duty PR can access the info, including company documents, spokespeople and their own emails, remotely.
Go back to the ancient technology of sending out information a day early under embargo. It worked.