Every month, the PR team at Martin Davison hosts a lunch’n learn with different members of the media. The goal is to help us build personal and professional relationships with reporters that extend beyond the newsroom, while also learning how we can more efficiently work with them.
In late January, we met with Rob Kaiser, executive editor at the Niagara Gazette and the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal. Rob recently joined these publications, after serving since 2010 as a professor at Canisius College.
With such writing for major publications around the countryRob brings a wealth of knowledge to the Niagara Gazette and Lockport Union-Sun & Journal.
A few key takeaways and quotes from this lunch’n learn session:
- Rob strives to continually “bring fresh and surprising story ideas to people, to put news into perspective and provide context for readers.”
- PR practitioners should strive to make sure a pitch falls within one of these areas if you’re trying to work with the Niagara Gazette or Lockport Union-Sun & Journal: timeliness, topicality, local relevance.
- If you’re a Niagara University student pursuing a journalism degree, Rob said the Niagara Gazette is currently searching for students to write articles.
- If you’re looking to publish an article, consider writing an op-ed. The Gazette favors these pieces and happily accepts non-paid/contributing writer pieces. The publication also accepts outside video to support news stories.
- “Take readers behind the scenes; put news in perspective.”
- A few times each month, the Gazette publishes community content on special topics.
- “Make writing fit into the world around us, don’t rely on cookie cutter stories.”
- When writing a news release or pitching a story, use strong elements of human interest to make the story more personable. According to Rob, “A thousand is a statistic; one is a story.”
- “Good stories put people in places they wouldn’t ordinarily go or rub elbows with people they wouldn’t necessarily meet.”
- The Lockport Union-Sun & Journal is working on a Q+A section to appear in the Sunday print version as well as online; however, both versions will be different from one another.