Persistence and perserverance in media relations

It’s an overnight success story, five years in the making. 

Anyone who has tried their hands in pitching a story knows there are many factors that lead to a yes or a no from a journalist or editor.  The bottom line is sometimes a story is just not newsworthy but it is your duty as a PR or media relations professional to give it your best shot.  

That is not the case however with one of THP’s long-time clients, Commonwealth ChalleNGe, a great program funded by the National Guard Foundation and federal and state governments around the country.  The program is literally a last chance program for teens that teaches them responsibility and rewards their hard work with a GED and a path for the future.  

Great story, visual with military style training, great personal stories, etc.  

THP’s Sean Ryan has led the THP ChalleNGe team for five years and while the team has scored a tremendous amount of coverage from around the state, the one placement that was missing for all these years was one in the state’s “paper of record,” the Richmond Times-Dispatch.  There was never one reason for this, always a combination of “not the right fit,” or “not the right person to focus the story on,” or “not enough space.”  

Until this week.  

Talented columnist Bill Lohmann and equally talented photographer Alexa Edlund featured the program both in print and online.  I will let the story and the multimedia slide show speak for themselves.  

But the fact the story ran at all is because of Sean’s never losing sight of the media relations goal, his always trying to find the right reporter and right ChalleNGe cadets.  Here are some lessons we all can draw:  

• Just because you get a “no” doesn’t mean the story is not a good one:  You can also be a victim of circumstance like the time of year, the wrong reporter, not enough staff, a change in a news outlet’s philosophy.
• Things change:  New reporters and editors are hired, outlets’ philosophies change again.  Re-pitch the story a couple of months later and you may be surprised.
• Believe in media relations “karma”:  When it is meant to happen it will.  The truth is five years ago the story would not have been as good because the multi-media element would not have existed.  So now was the right time for the story to run, even though we had to wait five years.
• Keep Choppin’:  Borrowed from the Rutgers Football philosophy of keep plugging and keep working.  If you keep pushing on one end, something wonderful will likely come out the other end.

So congrats to Sean and his team and thanks again to Bill, Alexa and the folks at the T-D.   

If you know a teen that is in trouble, please take a look at what Colonel Early and the folks at Commonwealth ChalleNGe have to offer.  I have personally seen teens and their families transformed by this program that has sister programs in states outside of Virginia as well.