Media Relations for Security Professionals

10 minutes of priming you guys to ask good smart intelligent questions and then 15 minutes of QA in which she will answer your question so while she's talking be thinking of things that you want to know about the media anything you want to know about the media jin knows including all their phone numbers and how to get in touch with them where to find them right now she's got a GPS at alternating I think if the questions are too intelligent we might have a problem so welcome to the toolkit and prepared all the reason is you can't do media training in 10 minutes so this is not media training I just want to be really clear on that I'm gonna talk for

ten minutes about the media and how to sort of think about it at a high level and then I'll answer any questions that you have as far as I'm able to provided an orientation to intelligence and I'm sorry about my strange accent that's the one I have okay so the media I'm mainly going to focus on print and online rather than broadcast broadcasters a little bit different in the way that you approach it and we're not going to really have enough time to get into the nuance of it so quick quick thing on the day in the life of a reporter your average online news journalist probably gets somewhere between 200 to 400 emails a day of that the large majority of

pitches and by pitches I mean they could be a press release it could be a story idea it could be comment on something that's breaking news and so the reality is they're going to read a very very very small portion of those most online reporters the right for sort of news titles will aim to produce maybe one article a day so when you think about press you have to think about people who are inundated with information and really like the odds of you getting into what they're looking at very very small because you know you're going through the sort of 300 down to like maybe the 50 they actually read and pay attention to to the one thing that

they pick is their story for the day and then whether or not you're relevant to that and how you're going to get into it so with that in mind when you think about press you want to think about relationships relationships are incredibly important building relationship being solid being responsive being fast on your response is the number one thing for any press they are in a race and I'm assuming the most of you are security people hopefully if not this is probably the wrong group but if you think about it like when you do research you know if you find a vulnerability or whatever it is you are typically you're in a race right when I talked to the metasploit

guys they're always like very clear that like you know they're competing with the internet and it's the same for reporters they are always competing with the rest of the internet so for them speed is the important thing the way that a reporter's day works is they come in in the morning they look through feeds from things like ap anybody that sorry that's the associated press any of the wire services they think are actually worth something twitter is the big one for them and then the people in security who've been around for a while will have certain groups that they follow and the lurtz that they get so go through all of those until probably around about like

930 or 10 by that time they know what their story is for the day and they're already starting to think about it they want to have that story filed by noon the story is filed by noon and it goes off to the editor the copy editor who gets it onto the site and at that point they then move on to other things they've moved on to other research other opportunities that they're looking at they clear out their inbox of all the that they didn't read for the morning and so your your window for for tapping into the press is very small you have to be really really reactive really fast you don't need to send them a

treatise that you wrote you don't have time for that they don't have time to read it they're not interested they don't care you need something like super to the point keep it relevant keep it easy to understand know what their audience is make it relevant to them and make it easy to them and tailor it as much as possible and that's the major stuff when it comes to briefing press most of the press in our industry a good guys honestly I work with very few that are problem people most of them are eager guys they're not out to trap you they're they're not trying to pull a fast one that said as I said it's a very competitive space if

they don't know you and they don't have relationship with you they will rinse you if they think it's worth doing it's a complete like risk analysis in their mind that they will make so you have to go into a situation knowing that there is there is a difference between on the record off the record and on background unless you have an excellent relationship with a reporter and I mean really excellent relationship with a reporter you're never off the record you should assume that you're not off the record you can go on background on background means is that they can use the stuff they can't attribute it to you so they can they can take information

from you and they can go off and they can talk to other people and a lot of the reporters in our space or investigative reporters who will use that sort of information quite eventually and they know they get much better stories by having relationships like that so they actually will normally honor on background but anytime you talk to a reporter and you want to do that you have to get agreement up front you can't like share information than be like wait this is on background right that doesn't work so be very clear what the dynamics are with the reporter before you give them information if they are trying to get information out of you there are a few key things that you can

look out for the biggest weapon in the arsenal of any good reporter is silence most people will try and fill silence and if you do a briefing with somebody and they want to get something out of you they will just stop talking and you will fill that silence so you if you're going to talk to press you have to get really comfortable with knowing what you want to say before you go in and knowing what you don't want to say and just like being comfortable with the silence and with not not trying to please too much because you want to have that relationship and you want them to think that you're a good person to come to and

you know the value of it but that means that you can easily fall into the trap of over compensating don't do that like just be very clear in your mind of what it is that you want to cover know your major points before you go in practice them like it sounds cheesy but do it like there's no harm in it get really crisp on it have no more than three main points that you want to communicate and there is nothing wrong with repetition repetition is really good repetition will set you up so that when they walk out of the room they know what that cool message was that they got from you and there will be less

confusion other things for you to think about are things like they there's some other techniques that journalists use like they do rapid-fire which is where they fire questions that you really quickly and they don't give you a chance to answer them and you get really flustered and then they drop silence in and then you're like ah and then you'll split everything you know so you just like you have to be able to keep calm in those situations and don't be afraid to take control of it like if they keep firing questions that you stop talking that's totally valid to do it and then you can say okay once you've let like a minute of silence Lorraine you can be

like okay I'm gonna take those questions in turn and then go through them you can totally take control back in a briefing it's a rapid-fire silence then there's the tan gentle question it's always hard to know where the tangential question is because they didn't understand or they're intentionally trying to take you off a side route and bring you back round in a weird way if you're not sure what they're getting at clarify it like literally say to them so wait do you mean this or do you mean this always feel free to ask a reporter questions ask them what they're interested ask them what approach they're looking out for these ask them ask them you know hey

did you get this ask them like hey am I making sense when you when you're talking to them like it's always fine to take that moment and stop and say is this you getting like and it does a sound right as it is making sense to you because the stuff that we work with is nuanced it's complex these guys aren't people who code every day or hack every day they write about it and actually they'll appreciate you taking the time with them to make sure they get it right so there's no there's no harm fouled and asking that stuff so with ten gentle questions asked what they're really getting at if they are rabbit holing then you have two options you can

either let them investigate that rabbit hole for a bit if you're interested in going down that route or you can do what's called bridging which is where you start to answer the question they're at and then you basically build a little bridge back to the point you want to make so you kind of pivot basically to put it in a tackle language um because I'm a badass hacker right that yep so those are the main kind of things there are other things obviously as I said at the beginning standardly media training can be a half-day or a full day so you're not going to get formal training in 10 minutes but those are a few things

for you to think about to kind of get a sense of it like journalists are not bad guys they're not your enemy they're not trying to trip you up most of the time but that said you know any relationship with this kind you have to just be aware of the the context in which they work and you have to try to do everything you can to set them up for success and if you do that in the right way you'll set yourself up for success and you won't end up in that situation where you you know it blows up in your face and it's awful than you ate it that said anybody engaging media you should just go into

it with your eyes open that at some point you will get misquoted that just will happen and you need to just be okay with it don't engage if you can't handle it because the reality is turning around and blowing up the reporter isn't going to be helpful and most of the time they you know they're just trying to get their job done if it's something that's actually factually inaccurate they'll mostly make a change if you ask in the right way because they don't want to look like idiots but you also have to remember they have an editor that they answer to they have readers that they've published something to you don't want to put them in a situation where they feel

like all cells basically welcome to swear I ll again um so that's that's probably my 10 minute blurb I probably went over does anybody have any questions anybody uh

yeah I'm happy to have a chat and to talk about some options there I have slides that I did for beside San Francisco that are revolting but the reason they're revolting is because they're basically designed to be read so that you they have lots of information them on the map to get into people yeah this was easy yeah you've had loads of media training hahaha and I will yeah so we didn't talk about each other lost in translation is a very good point and you should just tell your story because your story captures are the best mm okay so [Music] lost translation can work on two levels lost in translation can work on an incredibly literal level where you're

talking somebody about something and it seems like it lands and then it gets translated into another language which is what happened in Katie's case and all of a sudden it becomes something ridiculous and you find yourself in lots of trouble or it can be much more like the case that's probably more common in security which is that you're talking to somebody on a level that you understand that's completely comfortable to you and they're in a totally different level and that's that they're going what is going on the easiest way to deal with that is essentially to always assume that the reporter has about the general level of your grandmother if you start in at that

level then let them dig deeper like if you're talking someone like Steve Reagan who frequently as my partner when I do this he's really he's technical he knows stuff he'll get he'll get into the weeds but he's not gonna be offended if you start at the high level he gives him an opportunity to then dig down but if you talk to somebody that I'm not gonna use an example because it's the intensive um some other journalists um then you know the chances are they may not be as familiar and you have to remember like reporters are effectively jacksonville trade so they're not going to have the deep deep knowledge that you have on Colonel exploitation whatever your your jam is

so you need to make it easy for them and you need to go to where they exist and then like basically briefing the meteors and negotiation and in any good negotiation you want to start where your adversary's and work them back to where you want to be it's a persuasion a subduction so that's basically what you're doing and so that that basically counteracts lost in translation but even then you'll still have the potential for issues where you'll say something that seems perfectly innocent and I'll get translated into another language where it's so much lessons and if you're lucky it'll be a little tank which that doesn't really impact your world too much and you should ask Katie for her

example afterwards any other questions all right apparently I was okay get them drunk actually the main thing to it is so how many people in the room work with PR people of any description okay so I mean it looks like really of any description so if you work with a PR person that's really their primary goal is to try and build that relationship and they will be successful on varying levels I you know one of my frustrations is that my PR agency has no relationships and apparently I have all of them which is interesting why are they not paying me money yeah but the reality is that coming to events and meeting with reporters is the best

way to do it like there's no substitution for meeting people face-to-face being friendly being authentic is a really big thing they like people who treat them as if they're human beings are not bugs you know just being straight up with people is good treating them with respect doing what you say you're going to do like if you if you never overcome it never over promise if you make them think you're doing one thing and you end up doing another thing that will burn you pretty quickly and seriously boost they really most of them really like a drink anyone else so uh what she'll mind Sean Michael Connor when he when he first got a job

at eWEEK he came out to me and he said before he was at eWEEK he had been freelancing for a while and he'd bring freelancing for honey remember who was which I feel bad about and he came up to me and he was like so weird now I'm at a week everyone's my friend and before that no one wanted to boyfriend and I wouldn't get invited to stuff and people wouldn't offer the interviews and now I'm a week and everyone loves me and you have to be careful of that because you have to remember like the media space as a small space and it's really easy for somebody who is Joe blogger today to tomorrow write for The Washington Post

in fact I just had lunch with and repeats and at the Washington Post and before she was at Washington Post she was a blogger so you want to be really respectful of everybody and treat everybody is if they're worthy of your time and your interest and build relationships where you can because people do move around and it as a small world but in terms of like knowing how to approach people just do your research check out their site look at what they write look at who that audience says how well-received it is just get familiar with with the material that's good to do whoever you're speaking to just be familiar with who they are and who that

Williams is and what they mainly focus on it will it will endear you to them if you know what you're doing in that regard and it will also result in you having a better experience because you will have tailored your content to their level and will be less likely to burn yourself okay so the there are upsides and downsides with exclusives the downside is obviously there if you offer someone an exclusive then you have the potential that other media will be put off and they won't want to pick it up and it's highly competitive and you can burn relationships there are certain people who get very offended if they don't get off at an exclusive and

somebody else does so you have to be really savvy and you have to know where you're going into a meat decision with your eyes open but the good things about doing it are firstly you can get an awesome piece of guaranteed coverage secondly you can actually have a feedback loop with the reporter and that can help you build the story and refine it and hone it make it better and the third thing is that you build a great relationship with that reporter if you give a reporter an exclusive that they are legitimately interested in want it makes them feel valued and it also helps them raise their profile and so they are much more likely to come to you for

stuff in the future and to love you and and want to have a relationship with you so it is worth doing but go into with your eyes open typically with me I tend to do a lot of exclusive with Reuters because we just get syndicated very heavily so I get more bites of the cherry that way um the other thing is I think about like which media compete directly with each other in which dome so for example when Nick joined both ritas and CSO online took it as an exclusive now it wasn't the biggest story I'm sorry Nick but it wasn't the biggest story in the world and so they didn't feel too affronted by

that idea and so I could do a double exclusive but it also worked because neither of those reporters considers themselves directly competing with the other so you you have to go into it being very sort of smart and savvy the big thing with exclusives is if you offer an exclusive you have to follow through with it you really you have to honor it you can't like say to somebody they haven't exclusive and then go to and say somebody else that will burn a relationship completely yeah totally the cost of doing business yeah the reality is that you if you got a name check that's a result if you got an in check and it was accurate to what you said

that's a good result and so yeah it's all good I mean you have to think about like coverage is a momentum game one piece of coverage who cares generally I mean like if you think about the billions and billions and billions of words written every single day one piece of coverage is not going to make any difference to anybody so it's about kind of keeping the name check going over and over and over again and so the more times that happens the better and you might get like just a one line and a piece tomorrow but then because of the relationship that you kept going the six months down the road it could be a piece

that's dominated by you it's all good

yeah yeah and and we've done that to like Todd my Todd my went to New Jersey and spent a day filming with NBC for a three minute segment full day we were thought was great we were like taurus was amazing something else all right you've been amazing thanks ever so [Applause]