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From Random Occurrences a Method Emerges
Rick Perry steals the Straw Poll spotlight. Wynn Resorts reaps a windfall from Paris Hilton's arrest. Oakley gets a $41 million benefit from giving away 33 pairs of sunglasses. To most people these might seem like random, unconnected events. But to a few of us who watch communications trends closely, a clear pattern is emerging. Almost every passing month brings new evidence of newsjacking.
Why haven't you heard of newsjacking before?
Because it is only since the emergence of the real-time web that newsjacking has become possible in a methodical, systematic fashion.
Sure, going back decades you can point to brilliantly opportunistic publicists who were able to elbow their way into the news with one phone call to their contacts in the press. But those opportunities were few and far between, and available only to media insiders.
What's new is that today almost anyone can newsjack ifâand only ifâthey are able to follow the news in real time and react in real time.
Newsjacking can work for all sorts of outfits and peopleâit doesn't matter if you are large and well known or tiny and obscure. This technique can be used by nonprofits, political campaigns, business-to-business marketers, and even individuals. It can work for you, too.
This book aims to teach you how to newsjack. It's a guide to gaining attention by harnessing the wind. It's a how-to manual for would-be Davids seeking to take a shot at Goliath (and a self-defense wake-up call to Goliath).
Even if you never have occasion to newsjack, you should be alive to the possibility that someone may just do it to you.
This is an opportunity to learn by example from real-life, real-time stories of newsjacking success that illustrate fundamental principles and pitfalls. You will meet the masters of modern newsjackingâa surprising group rife with colorful characters.
Start by considering a key question âŚ
What has made newsjacking possible?
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Why Real-Time Journalism Needs Newsjackers
What happens when a news story breaks?
Way back when, it used to be that newsroom reporters would rush over to a card catalog of known sources. If the story was an early report of an accident at a nuclear power plant, they might look under âNâ for nuclear to find experts on radiation or antinuke environmental groups. That plus the phone number of the power company's PR department. Meanwhile, another reporter might scan wire-service printouts to see what competitors had gleaned. The essential point is that news gathering was a closed circuit that involved only the âusual suspects.â
What happens today is that reporters immediately begin to scan online news and social media for keywords relating to the story. The pay dirt this search yields might be a tweet from someone fishing across the river from the stricken plant: âOMG I can see flames leaping into the air from Three Mile Island.â Within seconds, reporters are in direct contact with the eyewitness.
Today, news gathering happens in real time, and it can encompass anyone who steps forward quickly with credible input.
The media's news-gathering eye is now globalâbut it's still human, which means it needs sleep. So if a major story breaks at 3 a.m. in Pennsylvania when local newsrooms are down to a skeleton staff, reporters in London may well get to it first.
But even when news breaks locally at 3 p.m., writing it up still usually falls on the shoulders of one overstressed and underpaid human reporter, likely the sole survivor of multiple staff reductions. If the story has been broken by a competitor, this poor soul may be under terrible pressure to quickly file a piece that does more than copycat what's already online.
This creates a fierce and desperate hunger for newsjacking.
Searching Google, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, and whatever else comes to mind, the reporter scans for any plausible nugget to differentiate her story.
Corporate PR departments frequently make reporters' lives even tougher.
âThe company revealed the bad news late this afternoon in a terse, one-paragraph statement on its website.â Next time you read a line like this you should mentally add, â⌠begging competitors and newsjackers around the world to kick its butt.â
Corporate PR people, listen up: When you feed important news to reporters without providing the kind of supporting information needed to quickly write a plausible story, you not only invite it, you actively compel even your friendliest media contacts to run with whatever newsjack comes to hand.
Many businesses, particularly large ones, frequently leave themselves wide open to newsjacking by nimble competitors and opponents.
Still, this is only one facet of an emerging phenomenon with the potential to radically reorder the balance of power in communications. Where massive size used to confer a decisive advantage, from here on speed has the edge. That edge will belong to those who can match speed with new skills.
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The Newsjacker's Goal: Own the Second Paragraph
As journalists scramble to cover breaking news, the basic factsâwho/what/when/whereâare often fairly easy to find, either on a corporate website or in competitors' copy. That's what goes in the first paragraph of any news story.
The challenge for reporters is to get the âwhyâ and the implications of the event. Why is the company closing its plant? The corporate website may offer some bogus excuse like âbecause it wants to spend more time with its family.â Competitors may quote some expert's speculation on the real reason, but a reporter can't cite that without adding something self-demeaning like âaccording to an expert quoted in the New York Times.â Journalists need original contentâand fast.
All this is what goes in the second paragraph and subsequent paragraphs. That's why the newsjacker's goal is to own the second paragraph.
If you are clever enough to react to breaking news very quickly, providing credible second-paragraph content in a blog post, tweet, or media alert that features the keyword of the moment, you may be rewarded with a bonanza of media attention.
If there is one organization we all count on for a quick reaction, it's the fire department. So it is encouraging to find that the London Fire Brigade (LFB) is able to newsjack at lightning speed.
Sir Richard Branson was hosting actress Kate Winslet and 20 other guests at his private Necker Island retreat in the British Virgin Islands on August 22, 2011, when lightning struck the wooden building and set it ablaze. Winslet helped rescue Branson's 90-year-old mother from the inferno.
News of the rescue, along with photos of the dramatic fire, quickly became the lead story in media worldwide. But the story was thin, few outlets had an original angle on it, and no one had reporters in the British Virgin Islands. For editors in the ferociously competitive UK media, situations like this are hideously stressful. So imagine their collective relief when the local fire brigade showed up to the rescue.
Within hours of the initial reports on the fire and...
