The Complete Guide to Sending Journalists Reaction to Stories

The journalist’s guide to when reaction is welcome – and when it’s already too late.

Journalist Steph Spyro is the founder of Off the Record

Should you send a quote for a piece that’s already been published? When should you send journalists reaction to a news story? Those are the question I want to tackle in today’s edition.

A few sentences landing in my inbox from a charity, campaign group or business boss can sometimes be the most helpful thing in the world. It could give me the intro to a story, a whole new angle or some analysis for readers.

Frankly, sometimes reaction landing in my inbox could actually give me the heads up to a story I may have completely missed. In all those instances, a quote is very much welcome. News is a 24/7 beast with live blogs, newsletters, videos, print articles and online web stories. It’s an animal that constantly needs feeding.

But I will sometimes get reactions that are instantly ignored… and it sometimes has absolutely nothing to do with its content but more its (poor) timing.

You’d be surprised how often I get sent a request asking me to slot a reactionary quote into a story DAYS after an announcement or the release of official statistics (and long after my article on the matter has been published). You won’t be surprised to hear the answer is always no.

So, today I wanted to do a thorough guide on when to send journalists reactions to news stories (and when not to). I give lots of examples to try to help comms pros get into the minds of journalists on what can be a tricky issue to navigate.

Before I get into it, the one thing I would say is make it really obvious what you’re sending a response to. You would hope that based on the quote and person or organisation sending it, we would immediately be able to tell what you’re reacting to but it’s always worth making that crystal clear in the subject line or in the first line of an email. It could look something like this: CEO reacts to Labour’s “perfect storm” announcement on XYZ.

If you’re sending a quote and it is linked to an embargoed announcement, ALWAYS include the embargo time in your email too.

Right, now, onto the fun stuff… When should you send journalists reactions to stories after they’ve been published?