NEW PERSPECTIVES

By Janine Allen and Kate Morris

All good relationships are built on trust.

In the PR business, we value the currency of trust we hold inside the industry and on behalf of our clients. Our core job is to build and protect reputation. We assess data and establish credible information that profiles our clients as thought leaders. We connect with the most important stories of the day to provide expert insight and commentary. 

There is however one area of our day-to-day operations that is essential and so thoroughly trusted that we sometimes overlook its value: media relations. To us, traditional media is the gold standard of trustworthiness. In our Kaiser & Partners staff meetings and on our Slack channels, staff constantly exchange the news of the day; we follow journalists the way other people follow their friends on social. We have the utmost respect for the tireless work of Canadian journalists.   

In 2020, when the US elections were wrapping up and the pandemic was becoming a fixture in our lives, we decided to survey Canadians to understand how their trust and consumption of media – both traditional and social – might be shifting. Anecdotally, we were aware that current events had changed the way people were consuming media and getting information, but we wondered if there were also changes in their levels of trust towards it? With so much important news coming out of regional public health authorities and governments, we wanted to understand where people were getting pandemic-related information and whether they found it credible. 

The 2020 survey supported our assumptions. When faced with a generational blow like the pandemic, Canadians increasingly turned to broadcast, online newspapers and magazines for the facts and information that matters most. 

In our second annual survey this October, we found that while respondents indicated that they had returned to more traditional news sources, they remain skeptical of the credibility of those same outlets. 

Of the 1509 respondents, 25 per cent reported consuming more broadcast television news than before the pandemic, while 22 per cent reported that they are reading more online news from established daily newspapers and magazines than they were in 2019. Surprisingly, Canadians between 18 to 34 reported the highest increases (28 per cent) in consumption of established media. 

While year-over-year, trust in the credibility of all news sources declined, there were positive notes. Established news media (newspapers, online newspapers, broadcast news and radio) was still regarded as the most credible source of information (55 per cent) by respondents, followed by public health agencies (51 per cent) and government news (42 per cent). Public health agencies gained some reputation points with Canadians as 59 per cent consider content from these organizations to be more credible because of the pandemic. 

It comes as no surprise that social media platforms have a serious reputation problem. Our study shows data consistent with what has been reported on disinformation on social platforms, and it also shows that Canadians are becoming wise to it. Social media was reported as the least credible source of information by 73 per cent of respondents, while crowd-sourced platforms such as Reddit and Quora were the second least credible, at 45 per cent. 

Broken down by demographics, 78 per cent of Canadians aged 55 or older found social media less trustworthy than they had before the pandemic. Seventy-four per cent of those between 35 and 54 reported social media as less trustworthy as a result of the pandemic, while 66 per cent of those aged 18 to 34 reported a similar decrease in trust. The info-demic has affected public perceptions of media of all kinds, and that has not gone unnoticed by Canadians using social media.

Reputation is the currency of public relations. As advisors to our clients, we must hold ourselves to the highest standard of truth and information, facilitating our clients’ ability to share fact-based opinions and data-backed news with the public through trusted media sources. As we advise clients on communications strategies for the post-pandemic world, where new information and policy will likely continue to evolve more rapidly than before, we can now argue for the connection between credibility, reputation and trust in our tactics. Our survey shows that media relations is still the gold-standard for trust and credibility. Our profession, when held to the highest ethical standard, has a responsibility to facilitate the work of journalists by preserving that trust. 

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Janine Allen, president and partner at Kaiser & Partners, is a seasoned senior communications advisor for clients across all the agency’s industry sectors. As president, she also oversees and has responsibility for the overall operations and strategic direction for the agency.

Kate Morris is a recent graduate of the Centennial College corporate communications and public relations program and is the fall intern at Kaiser & Partners. She holds degrees from McGill, the University of Glasgow and Oxford University and has extensive experience working as a researcher, writer and editor.

Written by: Scott Baradell, CEO, Idea Grove, in Collaboration with Business Wire (CPRS Toronto Sponsor)

Even the best writing needs editing. Drawing from his own experience as a journalist, PR executive, and agency owner, Scott Baradell, Idea Grove CEO, explains that the most important edits are those we make to our own work. 

Baradell advises communicators to take the time to carefully review their work before submitting for client and internal approval, and elaborates on the following nine tips to prepare your press release for newswire distribution:

• Set aside time for editing at the outset. 
• Give it a fresh read, from beginning to end. 
• Revisit the original assignment. 
• Scan for “weasel” words and buried ledes. 
• Review tone, voice and style. 
• Scrutinize the use of jargon. 
• Trim the superlatives.  
• Check your facts — all of them.  
• Give it a proofread — a human one. 

Check out the full blog here. 

Written by: Matt Yuyitung, Communications Coordinator, NeighbourLink North York & Outreach Manager, The Pigeon

Have you ever found yourself in a position where your media pitch just isn’t landing? You’ve worked so hard and you feel you have the perfect story but you keep striking out? Never fear – I’ve asked five different journalists from a range of Canadian publications to share their own advice to help you craft the perfect pitch. 

“The biggest thing that I look for from a publicist’s pitch is some level of familiarity with what I write about and what the publication covers. I know that if a publicist is pitching me, they’re probably pitching 50 other writers and editors (as they should), but any specific reference to my and Exclaim!‘s previously published stories shows me that I’m not just another stop on their PR blitz, but someone who they genuinely think will connect with their pitch. 

“Ideally, the pitch would summarize the key points of the story, offer some context and continuity for the publication and provide suggestions for secondary points that can pad out the story or that might fit with other content ideas. It’s great to know that there’s some level of flexibility for the story to fit the publication’s needs, rather than regurgitating the same key points that might lead us to publish the same story as another outlet. Most editors and writers are looking for some level of uniqueness to help us stand out, and any intel and guidance from the publicist that can help uncover an interesting, distinctive angle can really help determine whether or not to pursue a story — plus, it helps me build a relationship and a level of trust with a publicist for future stories. That particular technique has led to some long-lasting professional connections and even friendships!

“Common mistakes I’ve noticed include going to one of my colleagues after I’ve already passed on a pitch (spoiler alert: I always consult the other editors when turning a pitch down) or demanding a particular level of coverage (e.g. a cover story or major print feature), particularly when we don’t have a working relationship. And, of course, there are the little things, like getting the publication’s name, location and focus wrong; I try to be understanding when it’s clearly a cut-and-paste error (I get it, we’re only human), but if a publicist calls me Bob, that’s a really great way for me to completely ignore a pitch.”  

– Matt Bobkin, Features Editor, Exclaim! 

“I’d say first of all that PR folks should really understand someone’s beat before they pitch. If you pitch me a mental health related story but it’s about something in the U.S. or in B.C., I am likely going to ignore it. My mandate, as shown by my bio on our website, is clearly the GTA and/or mental health issues that affect Canadians broadly.

“Also, any pitches that are too niche without wide appeal or consequence for a huge number of people will usually get turned away. If you’re pitching me about a very niche fundraising project, chances are I will ignore it. But if the fundraising project is tied to a bigger issue that affects a large portion of the city for ‘X’ reason, then I’d be more inclined to follow-up.

“However, PR pitches that also make a point to say they’d put me in touch with someone with lived experience on ‘X’ issue tend to help a lot more and I’d be more likely to respond because you’ve helped me with one of the biggest challenges of writing stories: finding a face.”

– Nadine Yousif, Mental Health Reporter, The Toronto Star

“Develop a relationship. There are emails I will pay more attention to not because of what is in the subject, but because of who it is from. That relationship comes with experience. Show that you know not just their beat, but also their particular interests, writing style and deadlines. 

“I think it is always a great idea to have real people ready to interview. Journalists always strive to include the voices of real human beings with lived experiences or who are otherwise affected by whatever news they are writing about, but sometimes the pace of daily news can make finding those people a challenge.”

– Joanna Smith, Ottawa Bureau Chief, The Canadian Press

“Do your research! I’m sure this seems obvious, but I get a lot of pitches addressed to a name entirely different from my own, or that pitch a Calgary-based story despite the fact I moved to Toronto months ago, or that don’t even bother with a name and address me as ‘Dear newsroom.’

“With some exceptions I would hazard a guess that most reporters aren’t interested in pitches about a singular company, product, launch, etc. What I mean is this: A pitch about a cannabis company opening a new store in Toronto is not something I would write about, unless there was something really significant about that store opening. What I would write about — and did write about — is the fact that Toronto is getting a TON of new cannabis stores recently. If a PR person had pitched me that story, and offered their client, a new cannabis store, to interview, that would have been a yes. In other words, I’m looking for a story, not an announcement. I’m not here to do free advertising for the sake of writing an article,     . 

“Similar to the above, I’m not a fan of pitches that offer up an interview with someone — say an industry expert, or a company CEO — about a topic, but without an actual story attached. If something happens in the news and one of those people is well-qualified to comment on that event, then that pitch becomes very timely. I often add those people to a list of expert sources available for comment. But without a news hook, it’s probably not happening — unless you’re offering up someone uber-famous and hard to get. 

“It’s great when PR pitches reference a previous story of yours to explain why they’re pitching you a story. It’s not great when that story is from when you had a different job. For example, I used to report on Calgary. Now, I report on business — national, with a Toronto focus. So if a PR pitch begins with a reference to a story I wrote before I got this new job, I doubt it’s going to be successful. It’s not difficult to find a journalist’s current job and location, we usually keep that on Twitter. 

“I don’t like getting pitches on platforms other than my work email. I’m talking mostly Twitter and LinkedIn, as I haven’t received pitches on other platforms (though I do occasionally receive them to my personal email, which I do not recommend!). If I get a pitch on Twitter or LinkedIn, and it sounds interesting, I’ll ask the person to email me.”

– Rosa Saba, Business Reporter, The Toronto Star

“I receive hundreds of PR pitches a day and, from my personal experience, I feel that I can say most reporters/journalists out there are not looking to write content that sounds advertorial (there is a whole niche of writers who DO write advertorial content, but that’s a different ballgame). 

“So, if you’re writing me a pitch, I want to know WHY your product/event/company matters to my audience at this exact moment in time and space. I don’t want a pitch that is just telling me something is launching because I can’t write that — it would read like a paid advertisement. But, if you create a narrative of how your story fits into the larger picture and why we need to know about it in today’s world, that’s great. 

“For example, if you’re pitching a new flavour of cookies and you send me an email saying ‘Hey! On Monday, ‘X’ Cookies are launching!’ I will pretty much instantly delete that because there’s no real way for me to easily spin that into a relevant news story without doing a ton of work on it. 

“However, if you’re pitching me the same product, but you do your research and crafted a strategic angle like the owners of the companies has a really captivating life story and you lead with that, or maybe Toronto is currently experiencing a chocolate chip shortage, but this cookie company defeated all odds then, you’ve successfully set up the writer with a pre-crafted newsworthy narrative.

“And last but certainly not least, include quotes, photos — anything that creates a narrative!”

– Abby Neufeld, Digital Journalist, CTV      

In a nutshell: build relationships, know who you’re pitching, provide high-res photos and sources – and most importantly help the journalist understand what makes your story idea so compelling. This is your opportunity to really sell why your story deserves attention, so make sure you make it count!

If you’d like to read more on working with media, we encourage you to check out some past CPRS Toronto blog pieces below and follow us on social media for regular industry updates.

• How to write the right quote for your press releases
• Tips for securing top earned media coverage despite the changes in the media landscape

Submitted with credits to Business Wire Content Team  (CPRS Toronto Sponsor)

On October 2, 2021, we celebrated 60 years at the forefront of the newswire industry. From our start in San Francisco to our longstanding presence in Canada, we have been an active player in the global news ecosystem. 

Being at the intersection of technology and news creation, distribution, and consumption has allowed us to focus on the services and innovations needed to connect organizations with audiences.

We are proud to be a trusted source and TSX-approved newswire for Canadian journalists, investment professionals, regulatory authorities, and search engines. Every day, aided by longtime partnerships with AFP, AP ETC, and Postmedia (including Financial Post, National Post, and more), we deliver news from Canadian companies to audiences around the globe.

In honour of our 60th year of service, we invite you to look back at Business Wire’s history from 1961 to the present. Download our whitepaper for the top 60 actionable best practices for media relations and public relations professionals: Celebrating 60 Years with 60 Tips.

Written by: Kate Morris, Corporate Communications and Public Relations Post-graduate Student, Centennial College, Intern at Kaiser & Partners (Fall 2021). Media Relations Lead at MaxSold.

In the wake of discoveries of unmarked graves in Kamloops, B.C., Cowessess, Sask and Brandon, MB, organizations have struggled to respond and to do so appropriately. What is the right tone for a post for National Indigenous Peoples’ Day? What tone is suitable, if any, for Canada Day? Do you feature more Indigenous content? Is it appropriate to lean on Indigenous staff for insight during a time when members of the Indigenous community are grieving? 

Ultimately, these are not the urgent questions that need to be asked in the weeks and months ahead as more unmarked graves are discovered. Instead, consider Gregory Younging’s Elements of Indigenous Style, which provides a helpful starting place for communicators looking to build Indigenous relations, work with Indigenous creators and feature more Indigenous content. 

A Style Guide for Working Together

Style guides provide valuable rules about things that most readers never notice, from capitalization, spelling and abbreviations, to acronyms, foreign language words, titles, and place names. The implicit goal of a style is to make reading seamless, by not calling the reader’s attention away from the content of the words towards the surface of the page over niggling inconsistencies of how those words appear. But Indigenous Peoples are readers, writers and editors too, and as Younging’s Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing By and About Indigenous Peoples points out, they are the ultimate source on how their cultures and peoples are represented. The given style of seemingly innocuous things can have significant impacts to Indigenous publics making it more important to get those styles right. Making small but significant changes in how an organization writes (and speaks) about its Indigenous staff or contributors, community members and stakeholders can impact how Indigenous Peoples interact with your organization.

Style guides are an agreed upon system accepted by professionals in the field either explicitly or implicitly, but they can serve as an excuse not to wrestle with complex issues, or not to allow dialogue about the ways that a certain project might exceed the style as it exists today. This extends from how something or someone appears on the page to how we work together which is also a style, and one that the profession considers neutral and thus taken for granted. For Younging, and for the Indigenous communicators that I interviewed as part of a student-led campaign for the Communicators Collective, how we work together is important. 

Younging’s Guide celebrates collaboration in a way that surpasses our current model. As Warren Carriou points out in the foreword, the book “[provides] an Indigenous methodology for working from the basis of relationships,” whether between editor and writer, or journalist and subject. Younging’s book surpasses the kinds of nuts-and-bolts rules that we are accustomed to in publishing and producing content and moves towards a framework of content creation and public relations that is necessary and urgent. Although the book is centred around publishing and print content, it also provides a framework for thinking about collaboration and community-building in the act of making content that is instructive for our industry and in reconsidering business as usual in light of the discoveries of unmarked graves across Canada.

By any measure, Younging was a generative force in Canadian publishing and Indigenous advocacy. From the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, Younging, who passed away in 2019, held an MA from the Institute for Canadian Studies at Carleton University, MPub from Simon Fraser University and a PhD from the University of British Columbia. He was a long serving managing editor and publisher of Theytus Books, an Indigenous publishing house which provided him with a wealth of personal experience which he draws on to illuminate the state of Indigenous storytelling in Canada. He also served on the faculty of the Indigenous Editors Circle at Humber College in Toronto and held many significant advisory roles with the Assembly of First Nations and Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. He was also the assistant director of research for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, and I like to think that the communications and public relations profession will take his words on as part of our communal response to Truth and Reconciliation.

22 Principles of Indigenous Style

Younging’s central concern in Elements of Indigenous Style is to prevent serious errors, painful biases and the perpetuation of stereotypes in how Indigenous Peoples are written about and represented in published texts. The book provides publishers and editors who “want to do it right” with the tools for doing so and they are equally useful for PR professionals looking for ways to respond and engage communities. (3) Editors often joke about taking the Hippocratic Oath to “do no harm,” and Younging’s book will help content creators to better understand how to do that in an Indigenous context. Specifically, Younging dispels the notion that an Indigenous story could be adequately conveyed by a non-Indigenous person because Indigenous Peoples “are best capable of, and morally empowered to, transmit information about themselves.” To not understand this foundational principle is to perpetuate the “colonial practice of transmitting ‘information’ about Indigenous Peoples rather than transmitting Indigenous Peoples’ perspectives about themselves.”(1) This is why much of the conversation on “how to respond” to colonial injustice needs to shift toward listening to Indigenous voices and boosting Indigenous creation. According to Shani Gwin of Gwin Communications an Indigenous-led PR firm in Alberta, some of the most meaningful projects have been initiated by communities themselves. Building a relationship and making space for those initiatives should be central to how organizations respond long-term.

The book outlines 22 principles of Indigenous style, including Indigenous terminology, capitalization and place names. These sections have concrete applications for all communicators, and outline what to do when there is disagreement between Indigenous style and other style guides in order to maintain respect. Younging centres the relationship between collaborators and the process of working together which take precedent over the finished product. If the project doesn’t build a relationship, then who is benefitting from the work? 

Other principles provide useful salient information about avoiding certain words, phrases and concepts, and these sections are educational and sit at the intersection of communications and issues faced by Indigenous Peoples. There is an explanation of pan-Indigenous terms (blanket, catch-all) and offensive possessives such as “our Indigenous peoples,” which imply a kind of ownership that is highly problematic. There is also a section about referring to Indigenous Peoples in the past tense which regrettably persists. Instead, Younging points out “Indigenous Peoples wish their culture to be perceived as dynamic, in interaction with the modern world, and existing in a continuum between past and future generations of Indigenous Peoples. They are not encapsulated in the past—static and resistant to change or absent.” (19)

Why should an organization take on this work? One possible answer comes from an international PR crisis experienced by Aveda after starting a line of products called “Indigenous.” Younging includes an appendix on copyright and intellectual property in Indigenous cultures which provide instructive case studies of businesses who appropriated Indigenous terms and symbols without adequate consultation. This section shows both the specificity of Indigenous cultural property and how companies have flouted Indigenous communities’ wishes because of limitations in how the law understands and values Indigenous culture. By its very nature, then, in-house legal counsel will not always be able to satisfy questions of Indigenous IP.

Listening and Relationship Building

Elements of Indigenous Style invites readers into a dialogue that is both rigorous and intimate, shuttling between historical research and personal anecdote in a dynamic way that redefines the stylebook genre for the better because it emphasizes the relationships at the centre of a project, whether literary or other: 

“Showing respect does not come from following rules. This chapter won’t tell you “what to do” so you can jump through hoops and check the “did it” box. There is no single, cookbook way to do Indigenous publishing, because Indigenous Peoples are diverse. Indigenous publishing is about finding your way through, grounded in respect for Indigenous ways of being in the world and for Indigenous Peoples as distinct from one another.” (30) 

The overarching message of the book is that “the key to working in a culturally appropriate way is to collaborate with Indigenous Peoples at the centre.”(31) The work doesn’t speak for anyone, but rather enables Indigenous Peoples to speak and be heard, and this certainly is part of the reconciliation work that public relations and the communications profession can participate in. Achieving this will take time and it takes a kind of open-mindedness that is willing to unlearn habits and learn new ways of thinking and being that better inform the work. A simple example is in extending the right of review to contributors and in seeking consent from the right people when using content.

Several of Younging’s principles address other more complex issues that arise such as publishing stories about Indigenous trauma with respect and sensitivity, the reparative work of correcting offensive historical documents and distinct conventions around Indigenous cultural property, such as Oral Traditions and Traditional Knowledge. 

Decolonize Your Style

Whether doing media relations and strategy or editing and writing newsletters and annual reports, Canadian communications professionals live by The Canadian Press Stylebook: A Guide for Writers and Editors. To this tome, we sometimes add an in-house style guide to address the particularities of branding and other organization-specific elements. Combined these guides determine how something should appear, ensuring consistency across communications products.  At times, we are guilty of clinging to these rules to such an extent that would-be collaborators who beg to differ get the proverbial book thrown at them, as if it contained the only way, as if the latest edition provides the last word in style debates. 

We forget that how we use language and the styles that we accept as given are nonetheless active decisions that we make every time we use the style. And those decisions and assumptions feed back into our assumptions about what makes a story good or newsworthy, in a way that is limiting and may lack inclusion by default.

From Younging’s perspective, “Indigenous ways of knowing and being should inform the work of publishing,” particularly when the content pertains to Indigenous Peoples. The takeaway, for a profession looking for ways to ‘Indigenize’, to be inclusive and to respond to Truth and Reconciliation, is that relationships are central to the act of producing Indigenous content. And they may be more important than what we ultimately produce.  

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Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing By and About Indigenous Peoples by Gregory Younging was published in 2018 by Brush Education, with a foreword by Warren Carriou. The book is available for purchase online at the link above for $19.95 in print and $11.95 in digital. 

This article was written as part of a student campaign on Indigenous communications for The Communicators Collective, a group fostering diversity, equity and inclusion in the communications profession. To hear more from Indigenous communicators, check out the podcast we produced here. Thank you to Seán Kinsella, director of The Eighth Fire for the book recommendation.

Written by: Kaila Currie-Bartlett, Account Executive, Craft Public Relations & Co-Chair of Digital Communications and Marketing, CPRS Toronto

For our July In Conversation With series, we connected with Media and Communications Specialist, Wemimo Onikan, who works with organizations to amplify the impact of their work. From public to private and social sectors, she has led communications and public relations strategies for diverse organizations and specializes in media engagement, strategic communications and storytelling.

How did 2020 change your role as a PR practitioner?

2020 was an unprecedented year. No one imagined the year would turn out the way it did. Now, one year later, our world of work has totally shifted. As a PR practitioner, it has meant virtual meetings with clients and co-workers rather than in person. It has also meant a heightened need for trust and empathy, as we all make the best of the situation right now. Unfortunately, the changes over the last year has meant less connection with co-workers and key stakeholders in our space, due to the distance. 

What other changes to your career/role as a PR practitioner do you see emerging in 2021 and beyond? Why?

Remote work is definitely here to stay thoughout  2021 and beyond. In cases where organizations are open to having staff work from the office, a hybrid option will likely be adopted by many. In my role as a PR practitioner, this definitely means flexibility as we support clients through the changes everyone is experiencing.  

What is your biggest piece of advice for PR practitioners moving forward? 

Network, never stop learning and understand the dynamics of the media landscape. The world is changing rapidly, including the tools and platforms available to deliver content and messages to various audiences. The needs and focus of the media per time is also changing. We need to keep up with the trends to stay at the cutting edge of our craft and continue to deliver quality in this period and beyond. 

About CPRS Toronto’s In Conversation With blog seriesOnce a month, CPRS Toronto’s communications and marketing subcommittee posts quick conversations with GTA public relations practitioners and industry thought leaders. During these conversations we look to explore the impact COVID-19 has had on communication practitioners, as well as provide insights into the future of public relations. If you are interested in participating, please contact our Digital Communications Coordinator, Kaila Currie-Bartlett.