News doesn’t have to be new

Right after leaving the newsroom for PR, I shot down anyone internally suggesting I pitch something that wasn’t truly new.

“Bang! Bang!” Picture me like a little kid with imaginary finger pistols, shooting down weak ideas in meetings.

Fortunately people were patient, and I soon learned that attitude won’t get you far in PR. Your job is to make the “old” new again.

Last week we covered introducing safe conflict to your topic. Another approach: Find a creative but relevant timely hook that gives journalists a reason to cover it NOW.

Let’s look at some successful pitches that were part of my Inner Circle’s “Best Pitch of the Year” competition last year.

One member works at a children’s hospital and was promoting their fertility center. Mother’s Day is an obvious but competitive time element for patient successes – new moms welcoming their first child. Our member landed USA Today by offering a dad on Father’s Day – it’s more rare to find guys willing to discuss their struggles with infertility.

Counterintuitively, Father’s Day helped a different Inner Circle member land coverage for a neurosurgeon. Five years previously, the doctor had saved the life of a man injured in a boxing accident by removing the entire right side of his skull. The before and after photos were pretty gruesome. But June 2024 marked his first Father’s Day, after the former patient and his wife welcomed twins. That gave our intrepid PR pro just enough of a news hook to land a lengthy feature in People that even quoted her neurosurgeon.

Now, from babies to bedbugs – ewww!

Our next IC member was pitching an internet-of-things device that helps hotel managers detect the nasty pests. The product has been out a while, so he had customer success stories but no news. Some quick research revealed Paris hotels were scrambling to cure a bedbug infestation before the Olympics. Voila! That time element helped him land his client on Cheddar and key trades read by prospective customers.

Old stories aren’t dead – they’re just waiting for the right timing. Find the right date, and you might turn “no” into a headline.