Title: Timing Is Everything in a News Cycle
Headings: Timing Is Everything in a News Cycle
Timing Is Everything in a News Cycle
What is a news cycle and when should I contact a journalist?
Newspapers
Blogs
TV Stations
Radio Stations
How and When to Break Your Story
Reaching Journalists After 6:00 P.M.

Content: Reaching Journalists After 6:00 P.M.
If you have good news to report, it's never a good idea to announce news (or pitch your client or company to be a part of a news column) after business hours. Reporters are scrambling to make a deadline and your voicemail or email will be ignored, or worse—you'll reach them and they'll be annoyed. It's best to contact journalists mid-morning, once their regular staff meeting has ended and they're ready to start their workday. The more time-sensitive a story is, the more you should lean toward radio, TV, and blogs, which are engineered to break news faster than newspapers. On the other hand, the more complex and important a story is, the more you should lean toward newspapers because they specialize in the bigger, more comprehensive stories. Newspapers can pack a lot more information into the paper than the short sound bites of radio and TV, where a two-minute story is considered long. Of course, if you're pitching a guest expert for a feature segment to address a timely news topic, those segments can run as long as six minutes.