Making your event journalist-friendly

Part 2: How to get great coverage - and journalists who want to come back

An event can be a brilliant way to get quality media coverage for your organisation, experts or campaign - if it’s put together in a way that works for journalists.

In last week’s Get Featured, I shared what makes an event newsworthy, the type of speakers journalists are looking for and how to pitch your event like a news story.

In this final part of this little mini-series on holding media-friendly events, I wanted to talk about what happens on the day. Because the smoother the experience is for the journalist, the more likely they are to maintain a positive relationship with you/the organisation - and want to come back next year.

Photo by Jaime Lopes on Unsplash

Over the years I’ve been working as a health and consumer specialist journalist, I’ve covered countless conferences, panel discussions, showcases, etc, etc…. And I’ve found that I often generate the most coverage from the events which are the most media-friendly.

At one conference last year, for example, I wrote 16 different news articles for six national media outlets - and I was just one of the journalists there. (I’ve shared what made this event so accessible to the media below).

Based on my experience, here’s how I’d recommend you tailor your event to make it as easy as possible for journalists to cover it: