It's Possible to Get Pushed Out of the News

The story was about greyhounds.

And I was super excited that I was covering it. The focus was a greyhound rescue in Springfield, Ohio and who wouldn't want to play with the dogs and write a cute, cuddly story?

Except. While we were at the rescue, the photog and I noticed the wind was picking up and blowing -- hard. We could barely stand up and some point it hit us that we were in the middle of a windstorm.

By the time we got back to the newsroom, the cute, cuddly greyhounds were no longer the highlight of my day. We quickly learned that the winds had reached up to 80 mph and weren't regular winds; they were remnants of 2008's Hurricane Ike and the storm had downed trees, felled power lines and caused up to $1 million in damage. The power was actually knocked out at our sister offices and instead of several local papers, my newspaper had to produce one big newspaper.

Needless to say, the greyhounds took more than a backseat to this news; poor things were completely kicked out of the car.

The story never ran.

If this should ever happen to you, here are a few follow-up tips to make sure that you get your story when things calm down a bit:

• Call the reporter. Give it about a week before you contact the reporter and tell them, "Hey, I know things got a little crazy, but I was wondering if you were still interested in the story."
• Let them know if you have an update. If anything has changed in your story between the last time you spoke to the reporter, make sure they know there is fresh information to include in the story.
• Offer to recap. You don't know what happened to a reporter's notes, photos or recordings between now and the last time you spoke. Be prepared to go over everything as if you're interviewing for the first time.

The moral of the story? If your story has actually gotten the attention of a reporter, gotten the interview and is *this* close to being published or broadcast but it doesn't happen -- due to some fluke of nature or bigger story -- don't be discouraged. There's always another day.

Bridgette Outten is a journalist and media relations 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 to get their programs and efforts in the news. Meanwhile, she blogs on all things journalism.