The Little Things

Recently, Alzheimer's Australia published figures predicting the growth of dementia in Australia over the next 40 years. This was a big launch for us and heaps of media releases were sent out.

For the metro media outlets, the contacts list was already in place, but we also wanted to send them out to country towns as well. And so it became my task to find the newspapers in the country towns, tailor the media release for the specific town and send it out.

Ringing up and talking to a journalist or editor asking if they are interested in running a story wasn't that difficult; it was finding out who to call that was hard. Having a contacts guide, even an outdate one, is immensely useful. Not having a guide, or where the guide is lacking, requires intense seaching and can be incredibly tedious. A big paper like The West may have a website, but The Middle-of-Nowhere Times usually doesn’t.


This week, we wanted to send a 'thank you' email to the papers than ran a story. Our boss, Margaret, said it was important to show appreciation for their efforts and to be nice, a sentiment I fully agree with.

This may seem like stating the obvious, but as a journalist I can tell like any person we do appreciate positive feedback. It's the little things in life that are important; small courtesies like this are easily neglected, which is a pity.

Personally, I think the importance of these small gestures is too often overlooked. A (good) journalist is going to be wary if you ply them with free stuff, but a simple genuine please and thank-you can go a long way.