Attracting Faith-Based Media

Unless you listen to it, watch it or read it, you might not be aware that there are whole networks and publications created for those devoted to a particular religion. For example, many cities have their own edition of The Jewish Journal, and you may have seen Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network.

You don't necessarily need to be pitching a story having to do with the Torah or churches to be featured on this kind of specific media, but you do have to explain to the reporter or producer why your angle fits his or her audience.

In my experience scheduling guests for Christian radio and TV networks, we were looking for parenting, education, health and topical (meaning current events) guests in addition to ministry guests. So you may be missing valuable publicity by not pursuing these outlets.

However, note that producers have a discerning ear. I would not, could not schedule guests who used profanity or coarse language. So cut out of your everyday conversation commonly-heard phrases such as: "Oh my God" or "Good Lord"--these are offensive to the faith-based media.

Once, I felt an author's topic would be helpful and interesting to our audience, but he laced his conversation with the phrases mentioned above. I asked if I could give him advice, and he was gracious about wanting it. I told him those phrases would have our phone lines lit up with negative calls--and he was flabbergasted. He was not aware that he was using those terms.

We ended up having him as in-studio guest, and he concentrated on his content and chose his words carefully. The phone lines did light up--because the listeners wanted a copy of his book.