FAQS: what sources and publicists need to know when working with me
And hey it's been a while 👋
I’ve been doing some belated “Spring” (Summer) cleaning and tidying up my newsletter subscriptions across various email accounts. I love newsletters, but I don’t love the way I receive most of them. I am hoping my cleanup means I can be more intentional with how I read the newsletters I enjoy.
As I logged back into Substack to conduct my “Spring” clean I was hit with a pang of guilt for the neglect of my own newsletter. It comes from avoidance as well as shifting priorities. I mostly don’t really know what to write for the small bundle of subscribers I’ve collected. Half of you are subscribers from my professional life, another half are from my personal and then the remainder are probably bots, but Hey 👋 if not.
Clearing my email inboxes helped me clear my mind on what this newsletter will be going forward. Not much will change. I will continue to mostly write about freelancing, the media and my writing career with a dash of detail on my personal life.
What will change is that I will finally accept this newsletter will have an irregular cadence. I came into writing the newsletter well aware of the key Substack commandment of publishing regularly and I tried to adhere to that. Frankly I am embarrassed by some of the posts I wrote last year, and the year before, just because I felt I needed to write something, anything, to hit that cadence goal.
This moment of clarity on my newsletter aligned with the wrapping up of a few articles I’d been working on this week. Finishing those articles reminded me of a newsletter post that I have been wanting to write for a long while: My personal FAQ sheet.
When working with publicists and sources, regardless of the topic area, I notice some common themes and questions that come up again and again. So I wanted to write a list of FAQs to know when working with me.
9 things publicists and sources need to know when working with me
I rarely know when a story will be published.
Editors and editing teams can be wildly unpredictable. There’s been times when I’ve been told by an editor that a story will come out within a week then it has actually come out two months later. I am not being secretive or evasive when I say I don’t know when a story is coming out. Even when I think I know when a story will come out, I am usually wrong.
What I do know is that it will probably be published at incredibly inconvenient time like when I am about to get on a flight or in the middle of getting my groceries at Tesco or about to goto bed.
I will always send you the link to the story when it’s live.
I get asked this all the time and I find it fascinating, are there journalists out there that just never send story links to sources when they go live?!
I will always send you the link to the article.
But there’s a caveat. More often than not, I have no idea when articles are going to be published. Sometimes editors even forget to tell me that they have actually published my story. So I may not always be in a suitable position or location to send you the link straight away. For example, I might be in back-to-back meetings, at a gym class or celebrating a friend’s birthday. So pls don’t get mad at me if I haven’t sent it to you, it’s never intentional.
I always want to be fair.
I always want to have a fair representation of my sources and the stories I am reporting on. So again, pls don’t get mad at me if something needs to be fixed especially if it’s like a really small error in the grand scheme of things. I will want to get it fixed quickly.
But also as a freelancer, who is often on a different timezone from the editors I work with, it can sometimes take a lot longer to get things fixed or updated since I usually only have their email contact. Beyond asking the editor for the update, there’s not much more I can do and more emails asking me for updates won’t change that.
Sometimes I am even trying to get clarity for myself on changes that have been made from final review to the published version whether that’s a new headline or a copy/paste error when the story moves from Google Docs to the CMS.
I’ve stopped taking (most) cold intro meetings.
When I was a beat reporter, I would take on a ton of intro meetings and coffees to meet new sources. It was great, but I was also (mostly) being paid to take those meetings since they were happening within office hours. As a freelancer who covers a wide range of topics and who is no longer being paid to take meetings, they don’t offer the same value. I cover such a wide range of topics that I might not need the source I met for coffee for another six to eight months and then by that time they’ve probably forgotten about our initial coffee anyway. Nowadays I much prefer grabbing a coffee with PRs, editors, and sources who I’ve worked with frequently in the last 12 months. (If that’s you and you are in London, hmu for ☕️ or 🍸)
I won’t provide quote checks or the ability to review an article in advance.
As trained media professionals, I know that you know you shouldn’t ask me this but you still do. No I won’t provide quote checks or pre-publication reviews.
I can count on one hand the amount of times I have provided quote checks. These are exceptional cases and the decision comes from my editor or above. And most of these cases were an absolute pain in the ass to deal with and a reminder of why publications don’t provide quote checks.
To ease any concerns, I will always record the call for transcription purposes and I am happy for you to do the same if that provides more comfort.
And for sources who have never, or rarely talked, to the media before, I always have time for introductory calls explaining why we don’t provide these checks as well as on explaining the differences between off record, on background, and on record.
Let’s normalize taking regular phone calls again.
The pandemic normalized video calls, but its been five years can we normalize having regular phone calls again?
For some stories, like profiles or sensitive articles, video calls are perfect for building those relationships, but for others, like quick hits or multi-sourced pieces, a phone call, or video call without cameras on, is just fine.
I actually really like phone calls because it allows me to focus on note taking and listening rather than eye contact.
Airpods kinda suck.
If we do any type of call you should know that the audio quality on Airpods or other bluetooth headphones usually suck.
It doesn’t happen consistently, but if I suddenly start struggling to hear someone on a call it usually has to do with Airpods or travelling through a tunnel.
If it’s an important call, put the Airpods away and take the call the old fashioned way. And while we are on this topic, going for a walk or doing the interview to and from the office might sound like a great idea but it rarely works in practice.
You should remember an interview is different from a catchup with a colleague or friend, reporters want to hear everything your saying. We don’t want to be left trying to fill in the gaps and more often than not these kind of calls create gaps whether it’s loud background noises from the outside environment or distractions that make the interviewee lose their train of thought, which will most likely happen in the middle of a very eloquent quote or anecdote.
The worst thing you can do is misrepresent your experience or knowledge.
I will probably dedicate a whole post to this some time.
It should be obvious that you shouldn’t put yourself or your client forward for a story if you don’t have the relevant knowledge or experience on the topic, but this happens all the time because people have been told that any press is good press.
This trend is getting much much worse. Many publicists and sources, particularly on source finding sites like Qwoted, will put themselves forward and use ChatGPT to bluff their knowledge on the subject. I manage to screen most of these people out by checking their LinkedIn and previous media interviews but I shouldn’t have to do this.
Occasionally they still manage to slip through the cracks and a call gets scheduled. These calls are usually a huge waste of time for both of us. If you feel you need AI to help you answer the questions that will come up in our interview then you shouldn’t be doing the interview. This isn’t a test. I am not looking to hear textbook definitions and prior examples that AI can provide. I am looking to hear your lived experiences and raw perspectives on a topic.
I can’t promise you a backlink
One of the reasons 8) occurs is because companies want to be referenced in the press for SEO reasons and they really love getting backlinks because that’s an even bigger boost for SEO. If this is the only reason you are considering working with me on a story then do not proceed. I can’t guarantee a backlink for your company’s site. I have absolutely no control over that process. What I do know is we only add links where they actually add further value or context the story.
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- Kari
img source: Photo by Paul Volkmer on Unsplash