Coffee with a Journalist: Shwanika Narayan, San Francisco Chronicle

Publicist Must-Dos and Shwanika's Pet Peeves

[0:10:40] BB: Is there anything that you absolutely would love publicists to do more? "Please,"
like, "Please, this is my list here. Here we go." Yes, tell me.

[0:10:48] SN: Absolutely. So, with the local publicists, I love meeting up with them.

[0:10:53] BB: Oh, you do? Okay.

[0:10:54] SN: I actually do. I think it's very helpful. It was very helpful for me as a business
reporter and even as an arts editor now, I am meeting with the book publicist. I am meeting with
theater folks. I'm meeting with the classical music leadership folks. Part of that is to sort of
establish a professional relationship, and also have people understand the kinds of stories that
we are looking for, but also understand what they have coming up, so we can be a little bit more
better prepared if news breaks, and I like hopping on the phone. Sometimes, I'll like, news will
break, news will break, or I will have a story go out, and literally, I'll get a pitch from a publicist
saying, "Oh, you just heard about this. Here's a person who can comment." It's like, "I'm not
going to update my story and include your person in this story that I spent weeks reporting and
is already published. But I can give this person in mind for the next thing that might be relevant
for this particular topic.

[0:11:50] BB: Can we pause on that for a second? This happens so often on here. And
publicist, I just want to convey, when the story is out, you cannot be asking, "Oh, would you
change that story and just insert my client into the piece? There's nothing new, just –" But I bet
what happens is, the client saw it. They're like, "Why the hell was I not in that piece? Go email
them." I'm thinking it's like, predatory client relations where that the client is dictating and saying,
"You have to do that." But then, that to me is a bad client. Man, I, that's my only guess. I don't
know. It's not good.

[0:12:24] SN: Yes. Going on that, even if it's a story, if you're the publicist that I've worked with
on this specific story, also understand that your pitch is really it. How I take it from there is – the
story is going to be – and this is the thing, the story will become where the reporting takes it. So,
what you pitch can lead to a very different outcome. So, one example, when Yelp pitched me,
they wanted a story about the Yelp economic average, whatever index that they had. Sure, they
might have gotten that at maybe some more business-focused publications, some trade mags.
But that's not what I got, right? Like, I sort of wanted more of the human interest, more of the
localized take that would be relevant to our readers.

So, just understand that whatever you pitch, is that it? That's the only control you have. Is there
email, your intro email to the reporter or the editor? And then, it's really up to the press as to
how they take it from there.

[0:13:19] BB: Wow. Okay, sources. Now, you said you'd like to meet with publicists. You like
local publicists, but are there any like sources that you particularly like? I'm like, I'm kind of
struggling to think of what would necessarily be a source for you with arts and entertainment,
but you tell us.

[0:13:34] SN: Sure. I mean, we have artists reaching out to us all the time. We have theater
folks who want to chat, and these are not the leadership, but like the actual artist who want to
talk about just sort of the state of the industry in San Francisco where there's such a high cost of
living. So, there's all these other issues that are going on. Yeas. So, it's primary sources. Like,
yes, we're dealing with the institutions, we're talking to the heads of departments, and we're
getting those voices, but we also want to talk to the people that is their livelihood. So, getting
everyone involved is like the best-case scenario.

[0:14:09] BB: Okay. So, artists, welcome, directly. Great. Is there a process that you are either
religiously going after or you consistently use as editor in terms of the story approval? Because
people want to know a little bit on like story approval process. It's not just not necessarily, "Hey, I
sent a pitch of the reporter" and they're like, "Cool, let me write about it tomorrow," and it just is
suddenly up. Sometimes that happens, but usually, there's of course a process. Did I tell the
boss? Did I talk to the editor? Did we meet at the morning meeting? Da da da da da. So, how
does it work over there for you all?

[0:14:40] SN: Absolutely. It needs to be timely, it needs to have that newsworthy element, and it
also needs to be relevant to our readers. By that, I mean, it needs to be – include San Francisco
or the barrier in some way. So, for example, there's tons and tons of books that get released
every week. Which ones am I covering? Which ones am I freelancing out to our book critics or
our book reviewers?

[0:15:02] BB: But every week? Every week, there's tons?

[0:15:05] SN: Oh, yes. There's hundreds of book releases every week across the country.

[0:15:09] BB: I mean, I knew across the country, but I'm like, "In San Francisco?" Okay. What
would you say? What's the sector for San Francisco, would you say?

[0:15:16] SN: Right. For our books coverage, for example, for our books coverage, we would
like the author ideally to be based in San Francisco, because we do like to have staff shot
photos. We'd like our, whoever is interviewing them to sort of meet up in person. So, it's relevant
because it's a Bay Area author. Maybe the story is set in San Francisco, so that's another way
to get into the book part if they're not based here locally. Or, if they have an author events
coming up that's local. Though, that isn't like the most ideal criteria. The first two is what I would
prefer more. Is the author local?

[0:15:50] BB: Yes, got it. Okay. I wanted to clarify that. Okay. That's very helpful. Is there
anything you feel maybe folks don't know as much in just the process? I'm talking folks, as in
publicists, that you wish more publicists would know in terms of how you run your process.

Rapid Fire Pitching Preferences