Don’t Be Afraid to Tell Your Story
Are you passing up opportunities to tell your story because you’re afraid the positive story you want to tell will turn negative?
Any story, no matter how positive, can go into the ditch. So, it’s important to consider the potential negative consequences before pitching a story to the media. But don’t be so afraid of the negatives that you don’t tell your story — because if you don’t tell your story no one else will.
There are times when the risks of ending up with a negative story are high enough to skip the pitch. But my experience is that clients often talk themselves out of telling their story because of what I call the what-if-the-sun-rises-in-the-west syndrome. They talk themselves out of telling their story by “what iffing” it to death. In fact, sometimes it seems like the more potential a story has for making a big impact the more likely it is that someone will argue against telling it.
And the “negatives” can be self-fulfilling. We once succeeded after several weeks of hard work in selling a reporter on writing a major story that got excellent placement, with a headline and lead that were perfect. As I was enjoying the article, my phone rang. It was our client, upset because there was a minor factual error deep into the story — something that didn’t really matter. He wanted me to call the reporter and demand a correction. He was so focused on the factual mistake that he totally lost sight of the fact that the story was a huge plus. All he could see was the mistake that no one but us would even notice.
With that experience (and others like it) in mind, I’d love to know whether the leaders of China feel good about the news coverage of the current Olympics. They should. But I’m willing to bet that somewhere in Beijing at least a few Chinese leaders are fretting about the negative publicity that’s gone along with all the good. And, if I’m right, they have no idea just how positive the Olympics coverage has been.
Nobody will tell your story if you don’t. More often than not, you can’t tell it without taking a few hits with it. The question is: Do the positives outweigh the negatives. If so, that’s a win.
That’s my two cents’ worth. What’s yours?
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Tags: media minute, Media Training, monday morning media minute, olympics