Newstips Offers for Major Media

While Newstips tries to be of service to every journalist or analyst, we offer special services to those journalists we consider to be "A List".

(We take a stab at defining that below).

If you work for one of the major media, here are three ways we'll go to extraordinary lengths for you.

ANY TIME: Unrestricted First Call Response

Call on us to get you products or information - we won't limit our hunt to just clients or friends. Just tell us what you want: info, pictures, B-roll video, products for review, interviews or anything. We won't charge you or them for it, yet it's not entirely unselfish.

Our goal is to become a First Call whenever you have something new come up.

(First Call status keeps us plugged into opportunities early, which makes our clients happy; it also helps companies that are not our clients learn to appreciate the special edge that might be theirs should they decide to become our clients. So if we can accomplish all that while at the same time helping you, why not?)

ANY TIME: We can be your "proxy"

A few surprisingly influential journalists allow us, when we come across something we think they'll find interesting, to make a request on their behalf without asking first.

Would you consider extending us a similar privilege on your behalf? We will be honored to discuss it.

TRADE SHOWS: Day-before "Wow" previews

This started before the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show. Friends who know the homework we do on a show asked if we could get them on the floor early to see our hot picks. We found things that are "Wow" and not just "available this year in purple". (To skeptics: products from non-clients far outnumbered those from clients. Our sole guideline: things that are hot, or cool, or quirky, or noteworthy).

By the afternoon before CES opened, this little preview turned into some 50 "A List" journalists seeing more than 50 of those product picks, with camera crews on hand to tape the goodies and a satellite truck on standby to share the video (both sponsored by JVC).

We'll be doing more of that. (Watch the Newstips Bulletin for details). To be clear: nobody in the press pays anything; none of the companies pays to present any of the picked products; and sponsors who underwrite our costs are clearly acknowledged.

When we use the term "A List" (a common but often misused term among PR people), to whom exactly do we refer? Our judgment is based only on the size of general audience that a particular journalist may reach. As a rule (with exceptions involving things like the pay-to-play producers), if your work appears on broadcast or cable TV networks or is syndicated to multiple stations or you do TV in a major market, you're "A List". The same guideline holds for radio or print, though specific magazines may be tough to call. The decision on Web-based publications is one we make entirely on the basis of provable (especially paid) circulation. Anybody who's known us for the past quarter century knows that we work hard on behalf of all journalists; practical considerations occasionally compel us to focus certain in-person activities on an "A List" segment. There's no guideline we can possibly develop that won't cause some hurt feelings, and we ask in advance for your forgiveness if that is ever the case for you.