Capturing Coverage for Softer News

Dan Cashman, Public Relations Director at Sutherland Weston, shares his firsthand experience navigating the tough media landscape where hard news dominates airtime. He recounts how two check presentation events earned coverage despite the odds, thanks to their local relevance, visual assets, and concise structure. 

Dan encourages marketers and communicators to understand both the newsroom’s constraints and the audience’s emotional bandwidth. By keeping things visual, short, local, and meaningful, softer stories can still break through and provide a welcome balance to heavier news cycles.

You’ll learn:

1. How to Pitch Softer News Stories

2. Understand What Newsrooms Need

3. Leverage Visuals and Convenience in Public Relations

Got a question?  Reach out to the Sutherland Weston team at sutherlandweston.com. 

 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Pitching softer news stories that again are easy
because they're close and they are quick and
they are short helps the likelihood of getting
coverage.
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(00:23):
I'm Dan Cashman, Public Relations Director for Sutherland
Weston.
In all of my years in television and
radio broadcasting, it's cliche, but it's true.
If it bleeds, it leads.
Hard news leads the newscasts.
And sometimes the softer side of news doesn't
even make it to air.
Sometimes it does not.
And when we are in a time of

(00:43):
so much hard news right now, softer news
pitch becomes more and more difficult because there
are so many different groups and entities vying
for that time.
And what I saw was something like check
presentations, for example, wouldn't even get the time
of day because there were so many people
doing them.
There were so many worthy causes and it
just didn't float to the top.
If it's a television station, it's sometimes hard

(01:04):
to do those because you want visuals to
back it up.
And there's only so much visual to show
of someone with a big check gripping and
gripping.
So the key to something like a check
presentation is get the big check because that's
always a nice visual, but also have a
few people on hand to talk about what
makes the project unique and why the donation
is especially important to that organization.
Not too long ago, you had one or

(01:26):
two check presentations that earned media coverage.
How'd you do it?
Well, Hollywood Casino gave a couple of large
donations to area organizations, very worthwhile causes, the
capital campaign for the Bangor Y to build
the beautiful new facility that we've all seen
on TV and in print, and also to
Bangor Area Homeless Shelter in advance of their
annual event, Hike for the Homeless.

(01:47):
What made those stand out, I think, to
television stations is there is so much hard
news right now.
All they're covering is hard news.
These were events that at a time, a
location, and more importantly, a location close to
where the television stations are.
So reporters could pop over, get a couple
of interviews, get a visual, and both events,

(02:10):
both entities have existing B-roll.
There's existing B-roll of the Bangor Y,
there's existing B-roll of past Hikes for
the Homeless, and it allowed them to create
a news package that was visually appealing, close
to home, and some good news to fill
out their newscast.
Did you pitch it as a softer news
story to balance out the hard news of
the day?

(02:30):
I did not, but it was certainly not
lost on me that there was a lot
of hard news, a lot of difficult news,
a lot of things that are difficult for
people to grapple with when they're watching the
news.
And I think that by knowing your audience,
and in this case, knowing the times that
we're in, pitching softer news stories that, again,
are easy because they're close, and they are
quick, and they are short, helps the likelihood

(02:51):
of getting coverage.
And that was another key component, is it
was a photo op with some interviews.
This was not going to be a half
hour long speaking engagement.
The reporters could get in and out reasonably
within 15 minutes.
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