Wondering how News Basis works or what makes it different? Here’s an explanation from the Times article:
Journalists post questions or search for sources with a particular expertise or point of view. Reporters can ask questions anonymously to avoid tipping off competitors. They can set an expiration date for their question and remove it when it has been answered to avoid getting bombarded with pitches.
Companies, public relations agencies and academics search for questions or, if they choose, get notification by e-mail whenever someone posts a relevant query.
Services like these can be particularly useful for small-business owners who want to connect with reporters but “don’t have 10 grand a month to pay a giant P.R. firm,” said Peter Shankman, founder of Help a Reporter Out, a competing service whose membership is 70 percent small businesses.
(Let me just say that MopwaterPR has affordable retainers starting out far below $10,000/month if anyone is looking for a firm. But I digress).
Interestingly enough, News Basis seems to take the HARO model and improve upon it considerably. And while we’re on the subject of HAROs, the fact that NewsBasis can be edited in real time is pretty cool, too. Since Vocus acquired HARO in June, the service has remained virtually unchanged. However, I suspect changes will be coming. Now with this new competitor on the block, those changes may come even more quickly. The only question is, will journalists use the service? We know journalists use HARO because the queries come at you three times per day.
More on how it works (video courtesy of News Basis):
One last thing: Back when I was a journalist, we didn’t have HARO. We had the phone, our connections, our staff meetings and our feet. I can only imagine how many more stories I would have been able to churn out with a HARO-like service.
This News Basis platform seems to make it even easier. Like, what’s the point of even showing up to work? Just throw in your query and let two dueling sides duke it out on News Basis and you’ve got your quotes. Add some context, a bit of editing and you’ve got a story?
A part of me salivates as a PR professional because I know this helps everyone connect much more easily. However, I wonder if connecting easily is truly the point of journalism. There’s just something about hustling up a story, and going out there with your preconceived notions, only to have them overturned. Or better yet, to have the story you thought you were going to cover get upstaged by a juicer, more exciting, more salacious story that you didn’t even know existed.
What do you think? Do sites like HARO, ProfNet and now NewsBasis make everyone’s jobs easier? Do they make journalists lazy? Do they make spin more probable? Do they add too much sheen and gloss to the news process and somewhat diminish journalistic integrity?
At a recent Media Relations in the Digital Age panel, I heard and interesting tidbit from Nancy Marshall-Genzer, a reporter at American Public Media’s Marketplace program. Ms. Genzer described what I think is an innovative way one news organization is leveraging its audience and using social media to shape the news.
American Public Media has created a “Public Insight Network” where you can go on the American Public Media website and sign up to be considered a source for stories. APM describes the network this way:
Public Insight Network is a new approach that journalists with American Public Media shows like Marketplace, Marketplace Money, American RadioWorks and Weekend America are using to find diverse sources and a broader range of information. It involves partnering with the public and, at its heart, is our Public Insight Network – a group of thousands of people who have agreed to help us cover the news.
Many of our public sources have told us about their work, education, passions and expertise. Almost daily, we ask some of these public sources in the network to share their observations and knowledge with us on specific stories. Our public insight analysts take that information, distill it, and pass it on to our reporters and editors. Analysts may follow up with a request for more information, or perhaps an interview with a public source.
We also ask public sources to tell us about stories that we should be covering – stories that matter to them and are not on our radar. And we ask people to participate in online interactives where they share ideas and stories and reason through tough issues.
These public insights help us set our agenda for coverage and inform our reporting. We believe this partnership creates more diverse and in-depth news and cultural coverage. It also makes American Public Media programs even more trusted and credible sources of news and information.
I went ahead and signed up to join the network and immediately got an auto-respond note thanking me for signing up. The email also informed me of another aspect of the network, the “Trading Floor” which is essentially a blog. Each post poses a question (I’m assuming from a story one of the APM journalists is working on) and to join the conversation and be considered for a story, you simply comment on the blog post.Check out the Trading Floor.
Overall I think this concept has great potential and could be a cool way to use social media to source stories, kind of like HARO and ProfNet’s alerts on Twitter.
Maybe American Public Media has created these “networks” because they’re stretched super-thin and need to be smarter and more efficient in finding sources for their stories. Maybe they were only tapping into a certain demographic and wanted to open the perspectives up to more readers. Either way, crowd-sourcing does increase the diversity of voices , so it’s a win-win either way.
The PRSA panel was the first time I’d heard of the netowork. The comments on the site were sparse, and there were only 15 queries since April, so some awareness should probably be raised. There is a Twitter Account that’s basically a feed of all of the queries. So add it to one of your Twitter lists and monitor it daily.
I wonder how many PR pros have signed their clients up to be sources on the network. Have you? If you’re not signed up for the Trading Floor, check it out. It’s free, and there’s nothing to lose. It may be a great way to find another story. I’ll let you know if I come across any queries that pan out for me.
Peter Shankman’s free service HARO, short for Help a Reporter Out, which has become an almost ritual for PR professionals was just acquired by public relations software giant Vocus. The announcement was made this morning at the Vocus Users Conference opening presentation.
Vocus purchased Shankman’s service for an undisclosed sum, but both parties seemed excited about the acquisition. HARO will remain free for its 100,000 + subscribers.
Peter Shankman’s service Help a Reporter Out (HARO) has revolutionized the way publicists and PR practitioners find and respond to reporters’ queries. Based on the premise that “everyone’s an expert at something,” the thrice-daily free email service delivers dozens of queries to a subscriber’s inbox every day. All you have to do is sign up, check your email, and scroll.
But such services have also given any and everyone with an email address access to media contacts. As an advocate of free services, I believe the democratization of media relations is great. But as a former reporter, I know that in the wrong hands, such power can be potentially hazardous.
Dealing with the media requires a certain brand of etiquette, and that may escape an artist or small business doing its own PR. And that’s completely understandable. That’s why there are professionals that do this sort of thing.
I recently caught up with Jennifer Thomas, a Florida-based travel columnist and editor of an online travel magazine. She regularly posts queries on HARO. Should you ever find yourself responding to a posted query, here are 6 tips from Jennifer on how to respond:
1.PITCH ON TOPIC.I know this sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how often I receive pitches that have zero to do with my query.
2.ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS POSED IN THE QUERY. Please do not say “I have an expert for you, click here,” or “I wrote about this, visit my blog at X”. I want to hear what you have to say about the query and how you think you or your expert fits in. Do not make me work for it. There are too many people responding to posted queries, so those who actually take time to provide relevant information will likely receive follow up questions or be included in the article.
3.MEET THE DEADLINE. If a deadline is included in the query, please, please, please, respond in a timely fashion. Just today, I am still receiving pitches responding to a specific query from 6 days ago. The article has already been written. If by chance you or your client fit perfectly into a story, then start off by saying “I know your posted deadline has passed, but I have a great source for you. I’ve included specific content below in case you might still be working on the article. If not, I appreciate you considering this client for any future article opportunities.”
4. PROVIDE THE WEB SITE FOR MORE INFORMATION. You’d be surprised how many pitches I receive, particularly for consumer products, that do not include the Web site. I then have to ask for the Web site, which could be a huge delay if the client contact is not immediately available, or I do a search on my own for the appropriate Web site and it may or may not be the right one the client/source wants me to include.
5. USE CONTACT INFO WISELY. I don’t mind being added to press lists for additional press releases or unsolicited pitches personally. Often this received proactive content might spark a story idea for me. So, bring it on. As a general rule though, only pitch me 2x a month per client unless you have a brand like Oprah.
6. KEEP FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS TO A MINIMUM.If I’m working with you/your client on a story and it is evident that I am including your information, please keep follow up to a minimum. I personally do alert my sources when an article has posted, but that’s not needed…it’s just polite on my behalf. That’s what Google alerts and the pr firm’s searching is for. I ignore the continuous “do you know when it’ll be posted” or “what is your circulation” type questions. Reduce the back and forth please…I am on deadline!!
Peter Shankman’s service 
