I’m enjoying a biography of renowned Chicago journalist Mike Royko (Royko: A Life in Print by F. Richard Ciccone) that was lent to me by a colleague.
The book paints a colorful picture of Royko, but also illustrates the gnawing, nagging toll the column took on his health and personal life over the years.
In addition to his journalistic prowess, Royko was an avid golfer with a solid short game, and hit the links as often as he could with pals such as contractor Dan Hurley.
“Mike, if my life depended on it and I had somebody to make a five-foot pressure putt for me, you’d be my guy,” Hurley once confided.
Royko snorted. “That’s not what pressure is. Pressure is when it’s six forty-five, and I have a seven o’clock deadline, and I don’t have a [expletive] thought in my head.”
Not everyone writes five columns a week like Royko did, but whether you’re a producer for a TV morning news show or a three-posts-a-week blogger, everyone needs to feed the beast.
In that sense media relations is a two-way street. Journalists appreciate story ideas that might be of interest to their readers, viewers or listeners. If those ideas happen to feature an expert from your organization, or cite a report your company has authored…that’s par for the course.
-- Tim Frisbie
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