Can A Reporter Contact You?

I needed to find an expert to comment on a story.
Thanks to the power of the Internet, I found a person who appeared to be knowledgeable, concise and would have no problem getting back to a reporter on deadline.

Except for one thing. Her website had zero contact information. No phone number, no email and I can't remember if she even had one of those forms that go through the site to what I perceived as no man's land. Oh, well. I clicked away to find someone else; I didn't have time to do any deep digging to find out where I could send a smoke signal.

No contact information is a no-no because most reporters want to get you right then. They don't want to complete your contact form to hear from you in 48 hours. They don't want to go to your Facebook page to leave a message on your wall and they probably don't want to @ you on Twitter. They want to call you and get a person for their story or at least be able to reach you via email.

It's always a good idea to have a phone number where reporters who would like your expertise can at least leave a message for you to call them back. (Are you even listed in the phone book? Believe it or not, some newsrooms still have those.) Then you can share about your impeccable research, your amazing product, your wonderful book, etc. because you've established yourself as someone people should hear from.

But all your expert positioning does you no good if the reporter can't get in touch with you.

Bridgette Outten is a journalist and media consultant with The Write Vision Group, Inc. With a background in print media, she has written thousands of articles for newspapers and online publications. At The Write Vision Group, Bridgette consults with nonprofits and small businesses about how their programs and efforts in the news. Meanwhile, she blogs on all things journalism.