5 Tips for Handling Right of Reply Requests from Journalists

What reporters really want from press officers when responding to media enquiries and right of reply requests.

Journalist Steph Spyro is the founder of Off the Record

Press officers are some of my favourite people.

Sure, we butt heads sometimes but they’re doing their job and I’m doing mine.

A weeks-long saga with one particular press office (when it comes to right of replies) has, unusually, crept under my skin.

So, in the spirit of keeping my blood pressure down, this edition is dedicated to the five things I think press officers might find helpful, particularly when dealing with right of reply requests from reporters.

1. Avoid asking journaists about prominence in newspapers or on websites. I get asked this surprisingly often by press officers but I think it’s a fairly fruitless inquiry. I could tell you at 1pm that the story I’m working on is going to be splashed across the front of tomorrow’s newspaper. Then something else could happen at 6pm and suddenly it’s been bumped down the running order and is, at best, the biggest story on page 10. Newsrooms are fluid places. What looks like a huge story at lunchtime can be completely eclipsed by something else a few hours later.

   Sometimes I’m told that busy press offices will dedicate more time to responding to stories they know are going to be more prominent. I understand why you might want to prioritise your resources but asking a journalist to predict exactly where their story will end up is not a particularly reliable way of doing it. I think that prominence shouldn’t be the deciding factor in whether a journalist gets a useful response.

2. Don’t make me chase you to tell me you’re not going to respond. If you’ve chosen not to give a reply, just let the journalist know. I approached a well-known firm for a right of reply last week. A spokesman called me soon after saying they would not be responding. I made it clear that it would mean I’m writing “XXX declined to comment” and he had no problem with that so it is what we printed. I appreciated the directness.