Turn routine pitches into headlines with this simple twist

If you ask both a journalist and a PR pro, “What makes something newsworthy?”. . .

. . . there’s one answer the PR pro will never give, yet it’s the same one the journalist might say most often.

Conflict.

Journalists might also call this “tension” or “drama.”

We on the PR side naturally lean toward positive news. But journalists know that audiences tend to prefer something with an edge to it.

We usually ignore that preference because our bosses and clients don’t pay us to air dirty laundry.

But you can introduce a bit of conflict that accentuates your organization’s strengths. You present the problem or “bad news,” and then show how your org is resolving it.

Here are a few examples of this “positive conflict” in action, courtesy of my Inner Circle members:

• A medical school spotlighted a graduating student who battled cancer during her training
• A tech exec sold her successful health IT startup. But after her teenage daughter lost her mental health battle, she founded a new platform to help alleviate loneliness.
• A university launching a clinical psychology doctorate first highlighted the dearth of psychotherapists in their area.
• A hospital cited detailed figures on staffing shortages in their state, and then announced a new device they’d acquired that requires fewer technicians.

In the Inner Circle, we call the first two bullets “hardship stories” and the last two “shortage stories.” It’s not rocket science, just a way to think like journalists and create the kind of angle that appeals to them.

All of these pitches resulted in standalone coverage in outlets including the Washington Post, Forbes and major dailies. These otherwise routine announcements – a med school graduation, new product launch, new psych degree and new medical device – wouldn’t have merited much coverage at all.

Want to see the exact pitches these pros used to land this coverage – and more examples of hardship and shortage stories? They’ll be waiting for you inside your Vault if you join the Inner Circle. Register here to be notified when membership reopens.

Best wishes finding “positive conflict” in some of your future stories :).