A Quote by Joey Skaggs
Most reporters who come to me get their stories directly from press releases. Very few do what one would consider to be their professional duty.
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If you are a marketing professional who wants to reach your buyers directly, many experts will say that the media is the only way to tell your story, and that press releases only to reach journalists - not your buyers directly. They'll say that bloggers are geeks in pajamas who don't matter. They are wrong.
A basic rule of life for reporters is that you should spend your time talking with and learning about people who are not sending you press releases, rather than those who are.
When you speak of the press, of course, you have to speak of different segments of the press. Reporters, straight reporters, wire services, you stick to the facts; you don't create the story, per se. You cover what is happening.
Let me clarify a few things about TV news on the national level at NBC and MSNBC. We write our own stories. There is no teleprompter for reporters. No traveling makeup artists or stylists. And there is very little sleep.
A few years ago I lost one of my dearest friends. He died at age 53 - heart attack. David is gone, but he was one of my very special friends. I used to say of David that if I was stuck in a foreign jail somewhere accused unduly and if they would allow me one phone call, I would call David. Why? He would come and get me. That's a friend. Somebody who would come and get you.
Print reporters have the opportunity to go so much more in depth in certain stories than television reporters do because they're working on stories for months at a time.
I didn't know how to do a press release, so I'd call the local Assembly member and say, 'Hey, can you fax me one of your press releases?' 'Which one?' 'Any one.'
I come from a family of Russian immigrant Jews who were all big storytellers, who would get together, and one would try to top the others' stories, and stories would get bigger and bigger. And the lying aspect, the exaggeration, would get large.
All my stories were usually titled, 'White House Says,' 'President Bush Wants,' and I relied on transcripts from the briefings. I relied on press releases that were sent to the press for the purpose of accurately portraying what the White House believed or wanted.
Everybody that has ever played a professional sport would like to go out on their terms and very few get to.
The UN was very media-shy, and its relationship with the press was very controlled; although periodically I spoke to the press, the rule was, only the secretary-general speaks to the press; only the secretary-general makes... So you would see many situations where under-secretaries-general would come in and speak. I opened that, and I encouraged all of them to speak in their areas, whether it was peacekeeping or humanitarian efforts.
When a very tough, old school leader announced that I was his pick to be Chief of Station in a small but important frontier post, a few competitors complained to me directly 'why would they send you?' I owe that leader much for believing in me at a time when few women were given these opportunities.
HELMER; But this is disgraceful. Is this the way you neglect your most sacred duties? NORA: What do you consider is my most sacred duty? HELMER: Do I have to tell you that? Isn't it your duty to your husband and children? NORA:I have another duty, just as sacred. HELMER: You can't have. What duty do you mean? NORA: My duty to myself.
I used to get great press. I get the worst press. I get such dishonest reporting with the media. I've never had anything like it before. It happened during the primaries, and I said, you know, when I won, I said, "Well the one thing good is now I'll get good press." And it got worse. So that was one thing that a little bit of a surprise to me. I thought the press would become better, and it actually, in my opinion, got more nasty.
Yes, Barack Obama had his clashes with the press. I witnessed those first-hand covering the second term of his administration. But we did not have Barack Obama on almost a weekly basis referring to the press as the enemy of the people and accusing reporters of treason and calling legitimate stories fake news.
AP promoted me to the White House beat because I knew Clinton, his family, friends, and staff better than anybody in the national press corps. Those contacts helped me break a few stories and get my career in Washington jump-started.
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