EPPS Panel: CNS, Reuters and Celebrity Services

“No Attachments Please, We Just Delete Them,”
say EPPS Wire Service Panelists

By George S. Mc Quade III, MAYO Communications

“We love publicists,” said Robert Dean, managing director of Celebrity Service International, Inc., one of panelists at the September 19, 2006, EPPS/ICG panel, held at ICG headquarters in West Hollywood. It was moderated by EPPS Board Member Rosalind Jarrett, executive in charge of Publicity for the Screen Actors Guild Awards®.

“We publish the celebrity bulletin which comes out daily and informs the news media and entertainment industry of what celebrities are coming to town, what special events they’re attending, and their contact information,” explained Dean. “We do not charge for our bulletin. If you have a celebrity attending an event, we will list them. We also publish the Datebook which comes out every two weeks and lists all the Hollywood events. We also have a celebrity contact research service, so if our clients need to reach any celebrity - actors, musicians, athletes, authors, politicians - our research staff that will find it.”

“We are a wire service for the entertainment media,” said Caroline Fox, publisher, Entertainment News calendar and Hollywood News Calendar. “We list all kinds of events, from a celebrity going to court or a premiere to charity events. Most importantly, we include who the press contact is and other useful information.

“We also have a story interview opportunity area. If an entertainment publicists is planning an event and wants to know what the competition will be that day, they can call us and we’ll be glad to let them know what’s happening, so they can stay away from big premieres on the same night.”

“We are a daily service, but don’t think Reuters is like a newspaper, because we’re trying to fill the whole newspaper before they get to it. A publication’s deadline might be 5:00 or 6:00 PM, but our deadline is more like 2:00 or 3:00 PM,” said Bob Tourtellotte, West Coast Media correspondent, Reuters. “We set our schedule in the early morning, and updating it throughout the day. “Best time to call is later in the afternoon. If you pitch us a red carpet charitable event with 20 stars, we’ll pass, unless there is a star that is newsworthy like Mel Gibson, because we just don’t have time to cover them.”

“When sending emails, make sure that the subject line tells the story. That’s often all I look at. You’re welcome to follow up with a phone call. If you’re not sure which reporter to send your email pitch to, there is a catch-all email address for all writers: LA.newsroom@reuters.com,” explained Tourtellotte.   

“We primarily cover Southern California on everything except sports,” said Lori Streifler, editor, City News Service (CNS), which has bureaus in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Diego Counties. “We service newspapers, television and radio newsrooms throughout our markets. There is not really a bad time for sending us news, we’re serving so many broadcast clients, who are constantly on the air. We’re serving editors and writers all night long as stories are breaking, getting on the radio and TV, so my deadlines are constant.”

CNS has a “Daily Budget” that list news event it puts out every day in its target markets. CNS also has an “Entertainment Budget” that lists entertainment events in the LA area, which is its own “animal.” The daybook is free, contains event time, contact and exact address, but if publicists want a guaranteed placement and lengthier listing, there is a fee. CNS Video is another service, which is shot and packaged for distribution to local TV news stations. She prefers email pitches at: lori@socalnews.com.

“I think it is important to know the difference between a news service and a news syndicate,” said Luaine Lee, writer, McClatchy-Tribune News Service (formerly Knight Ridder) and Scripps Howard News Service. “A syndicate is primarily a money making organization, which often packages their writers and sells them to individual newspapers like a middle man or realtor. Whereas, a news service is a news disseminating organization with bureaus all over the world like Reuters, Associated Press and McClatchy-Tribune News Service does.

“Don’t call me after 6:00 p.m. that’s family time,” said Lee. Her day begins at 5:30 a.m. and she assigns her own stories although she reports to her editor in Washington D.C. “In 25 years I’ve never had anyone say we don’t want this story.”

“I find producers and directors, more interesting than movie stars,” she said. “I wrote a column on women directors, and the editor balked until the story ended in a half dozen newspapers such as the Miami Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer and elsewhere.

“Most newspapers have a presence on the web,” said Lee. “They’ll put the stories that run in their paper on their website. There are also upstart websites that don’t have anything do with the paper, which will steal your story and plaster it all over the Internet

with no permission, no money and often with no byline. So far, even when we complain about this to our editors, there is nothing they can do, so you have to cope with it.”

Lee offered this advice to publicists tracking articles of clients: “Google doesn’t have everything, so I recommend Lexus-Nexus, Alta-Vista and NewsLibrary.com, which covers only newspapers, to track your article clippings. You don’t pay unless you click through to buy it. I use them to track where my articles end up, but I’m not interested in buying them.”

As for new trends, Reuters’ Tourtellotte said, “From Verizon to your office elevator, Reuters is selling content accounts to a lot of folks on the Internet. Reuters will actually service a website where a client can go to get the news of the day. We run the company network, or we offer the traditional way of getting news where we send stories to an outlet, along with photos and captions, and the client’s editor places the story or image in its publication or on its website.” He cited Yahoo and AOL were cited as examples.

All panelists, except Luaine Lee, prefer email pitches, and Streifler at CNS spoke for the panel when she said, “No attachments please, we just delete them, because of the virus scare.” In other words cut and paste the text of your news release in the body of the email.

Email contacts: Robert Dean, Rdean@celebrityservice.com; Carolyn Fox: editor@newscalendar.com; Bob Tourtellotte, bob.tourtellotte@reuters.com; Lori Streifler, lori@socalnews.com and Luaine Lee, nebraskarosebud@yahoo.com.

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