Liz Nable 0:00
If you're looking for a little ray of sunshine amongst your media and PR pitches and strategies, well, here it is. In fact, it's a steady stream of sunshine brought to you nightly by the world's smiliest journalist and all round lovely human channel seven, Sydney's Grace Fitzgibbon. It's called the bright side, and it's one minute of news television delivered daily at 6:55pm The last item on the rundown in the 6pm news, and it's designed to end your day on a high note and feeling all the warm and fuzzies, which is particularly relevant right now when the news is an absolute hot mess of negative information and fear. The Bright Side was born earlier this year out of necessity, after news executives at Channel Seven noticed a worrying trend, the audience was switching off or changing channels before the bulletin had finished, they needed good news to keep people watching, so they trialed a one minute segment at the end of the show that was purely positive news, only, like those cute baby animal videos you can't stop watching on Instagram or YouTube, but better stories of people being kind, helping each other, small businesses doing well, cute kids and cool, new ideas and lo and behold, ratings recovered. Grace soon found herself hosting the bright side every night. But there's one small problem. She's got a good news story shortage, and she needs your help. Unlike every other episode of this podcast, where I've told you, ad nauseam, as has every journalist I've interviewed, that they're overwhelmed with pictures and it's a battle just to get your emails opened. The Bright Side is different. So this, my friends, is your chance to get your business or your brand featured in a major news bulletin just by sharing your good news. And don't worry, you don't have to be located in Sydney. You can pitch grace your good news stories directly by emailing her. G Fitzgibbon, that's f, i, t, z, G, I, double, B, O, N, at, s, e, v, e, n.com.au, and in the meantime, enjoy listening to this episode of media magnet, and don't forget to tag and message me on socials when your business is featured on the big screen with the bright side
Hello and welcome to media magnet, the podcast for female founders and women owned businesses, startups and side hustlers who want to learn how to grow their business leveraging the media and free. PR, I'm Liz Nabal, and I'm your host, personal publicist. PR, strategist and dedicated hype woman. My goal with this show is to give you a behind the scenes tour of how the media works, to break down the barriers between your business and the big mastheads, so you can see how easy it is to get featured simply by giving journalists what they want at media magnet, you'll also get access to the top journals, editors, writers and PR people in your industry and beyond, sharing their secrets and expertise on the how, why, what and when of pitching and getting featured in the media consistently, I will share with you how to build your reputation as an industry expert so successfully, the media will be knocking down your door. When I first started in small business, 12 years ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. I had spent 15 years as a television news reporter working at several major networks in Australia, and then as a freelancer in the US and around the world. I spent years dividing my time between working long shifts on a news desk and traveling the world, chasing stories it was unpredictable and exciting until it wasn't anymore. I decided I wanted a life where I was in charge of what happened next and where I was working to build my own empire, not someone else's. There was a lot I had to learn about running my own business, but getting media and great free PR was not one of them. I already knew what the media wanted. I knew the secret formula for what made news, and I knew how to leverage those media outlets to build my business, get more exposure and ultimately make more sales. I was featured in every major media outlet in the country, and I never spent a single cent on PR. I took that knowledge for granted until it dawned on me one day that I could teach what I knew to other businesses, let them in on the secret, and they too could build their brands with organic media and PR, let me help you take your brand from Best Kept Secret to household name. This is media magnet, the podcast, and I'm pretty pumped to have you here. You. You.
Hi, Grace. Thanks for coming on media magnet.
Speaker 1 5:10
Hello. Liz, absolute pleasure to be with you. Now, I
Liz Nable 5:14
feel like this is a bit of a different kind of podcast episode. I haven't in three years of the podcast, or two and a half years of the podcast ever really talked to this listener community about good news stories. We've never really focused on that specifically. And when I met you, and I'll go back into that story in a little bit, you were talking about, you know, how you've got this special segment on seven nightly news at six o'clock in Sydney, called the bright side, and you were specifically looking for good news stories, so I thought perfect opportunity to have you on the show. And I'm even I'm super keen to learn more about the sentiment behind this and how we can get some incredible businesses, some media opportunities,
Speaker 1 5:59
absolutely. And I think it's so unique in the fact that it's probably one of the easiest opportunities we've seen in a while to get somebody's name or brand onto the 6pm flagship news. Yeah, absolutely.
Liz Nable 6:12
And so to give everyone a little bit of background, if you follow me on if you follow me on Instagram, Liz, underscore, Nabal, you will see I have talked a little bit about the bright side, because I didn't actually pitch you, which is ironic. So I'll give everyone a little bit of context. I came across you. I met you because my daughter started working at the Pilate studio that I owned, which was my first business that I opened, like 13 years ago, and she was 15 when she first got accredited and started teaching. And I thought that was newsworthy, but I didn't pitch media. I probably shouldn't admit that openly, but I didn't. I posted it on social media, which I guess is the first step in getting some exposure, and then, lo and behold, what I thought might happen was that local media picked it up. Which, which happened both the local newspaper, The Mossman daily, which is syndicated to The Daily Telegraph here in Sydney, picked it up, and then a local, like a local, it's like, it's called Mossman living and there's a whole bunch of them, and they have Facebook groups that go with their publication as well, and it's a really hyper local, local publication, then they picked it up and put it on their social media and talked about it in their weekly newsletter, and then I guess I'll let you tell the rest of the story, because, yeah, I didn't pitch it, which is strange, because I probably
Speaker 1 7:33
should have, for sure, and I'm so glad you made that social media post. It might come a surprise, as a surprise for people that I really struggle to fill five episodes of The Bright Side a week. I turn around five bright sides in four days, and more often than not, when a Sunday rolls around, I'm up on the couch going, Holy smokes, I need three more this week. And so I put the feelers out to all my contacts and my network within seven on a daily basis, going on three bright sides. Short help. Thankfully, we have a wonderful social media team. And the person who heads that, his name is Liam, he's often forwarding me things that he might stumble across on Facebook or Instagram that he thinks might make a good bright side, which I'm so grateful for. And he stumbled across your article on the Mossman daily, flicked it straight through to me and said, Grace, look at this. A young Pilates instructor. Great, bright side. Now I immediately looked at Ruby and thought, beautiful, young girl. Great, great, quirky story. We can get a minute out of that, no worries. And that's when I sent you a message, and you called me straight away. I think what? We were there within two days or something.
Liz Nable 8:44
Yeah, it just was, just happened so quickly, and we again, ashamed to say, zero effort from me, apart from that initial Instagram post. So I guess we should probably give people some context. On the bright side, what is it? When is it in the news? And why is it this new addition to Seven News in Sydney?
Speaker 1 9:03
Absolutely, so we call it the bright side. It's an opportunity to highlight good community stories that make people smile. To me, that is wild, because I've been a journalist for over a decade, and the motto has always been, if it bleeds, it leads. They love negative news because they have always assumed there's an appetite for it. However, the times have changed. I don't know what's been driving it. I think perhaps a combination of just COVID and the doom and gloom that has been in the world in the last sort of five years. But we realized that people were switching off the news, and particularly people weren't hanging around to the back end of the bulletin. It's an hour long 6pm so our bosses were trying to figure out a way to hold on to our audiences, and I think they realized, perhaps. Perhaps there's an appetite for some feel good stuff, and I think maybe that's probably been tried in the past over the years, but they sort of said to me, we want it to be you. You've got a personality for this. Let's get it happening tomorrow. They rang me on a Sunday and they said, let's go. So it's a real shift, because it's been working, and I've realized how much of an appetite there actually is for feel good stuff. Because being on the road as a reporter all the time, it's one of the most common things people say to me in terms of feedback. They say, God, the news is negative, and that's not a I'm not trying to bag out my employer. It's just the state of the world, right? We can't not cover the important events that that are, you know, happening or unfolding. So I guess that's sort of how it started, and then it very quickly gained momentum. And we have an email where people can write in their story suggestions, and I'm often getting feedback from viewers who just sort of email in and say, Thank you so much for bringing this positive news to the end of the news, because we live for it, and that's really rewarding. And sort of feedback I never really had on those, what we would call important or hard hitting news stories, because I think they're just so familiar and they're so used to them or something. So even all the big stories I've covered in my career, I would never I've never gotten so much feedback than what I have doing. The bright side,
Liz Nable 11:26
there's obviously a real, legitimate demand, and you wouldn't still be doing this if it wasn't writing well, so tell us a bit about that.
Speaker 1 11:34
Well, ratings are above my pay grade, but I think it's safe to assume that it must be working, because whoever is counting the numbers is watching.
Unknown Speaker 11:47
Sorry, haven't been fired yet.
Speaker 1 11:49
No, I've not been stacked. And like a lot of things in our industry, we do try and test things, and if they don't work, we ask them. But this has now been running since January. We're about to hit 100 Bright Side episodes, which is very exciting, and as far as I'm concerned, it must be having a positive impact on viewership, because it's sticking around and no sign of slowing down. So
Liz Nable 12:15
so tell us a little bit about the kinds of news stories that you're looking for specifically on the bright side, because I, you know, even I was shocked when you were like, I can't feel this, like, I can't keep up. Because I think a lot of people listening to this show would be, like, very shocked to think that you're not getting pitched these ideas. You know, because most of the journalists we talk to on this podcast are like, Oh my God, I've got 4 billion emails in my inbox. I've got more pictures than you can poke a stick at. But this is interesting, because it's the opposite, yes,
Speaker 1 12:47
and I think I'm not sure if it was you. Liz, someone well connected within the PR network said to me recently, I have been so used to being knocked back on positive news stories from mainstream news outlets that I've given up trying over the years, because it's the truth, and I'm happy to admit that that we don't have enough as much room often in the 6pm news for a feel good story, or haven't traditionally, and so I've been guilty of that, you know, getting a pitch and going, Oh, this isn't ever going to make it past the Chief of Staff's desk, but this is a completely unique in the fact that it doesn't need the traditional elements that a traditional news story needs to get up or get across the producer's desk. It just simply has to make people feel good, which can come down to the talent being charismatic, you know. So even if there's not a real angle, if we take Ruby's story, for example, if I was putting that together for a news story, say, in the first break, I'd have to be using my news brain going, okay, how am I going to make this newsworthy? I'm first of all going to have to figure out, is she actually the youngest person in Sydney? Because that could be a lie. I'm going to have to fact check that. Then I'm going to have to figure out, Okay, can I get a second opinion on this? Is there someone who's going to want to say, Oh, she shouldn't be teaching at that age or something like that? And so for the bright side, oh, no worries. I can get I can get away with that. Maybe she's not. Maybe she is. Who cares? She's cute, right? Yeah. So it's a whole different game, and I think, I think that now we've been doing it since January, PR, people and businesses are sort of starting to tweak, you know, oh, we could get that up on the bright side. It's not really a news story, but it would fit on the bright side. So it's gaining a bit of momentum. But I can understand why people the pictures, weren't really flooding in thick and fast to begin with, because perhaps they had been turned back time and time again by the news desk. Yeah, I
Liz Nable 14:46
think we've probably been conditioned over so long that it's negative. News makes news. It's interesting because my journalist brain, I deliberately did that. So basically, to give people context the first in. Instagram post I did about Ruby was just like a video of her teaching with her audio in the background of her shouting at the clients, basically instructing, and then I just put a headline, like a new style headline over the top of that video. That said, Is this Sydney's youngest Pilates instructor? Or meet Sydney's youngest Pilates instructor now, hand on heart, I don't actually know if she's Sydney's youngest, but again, social media doesn't need to be fact checked, which is a whole point, whole like module in my course about why social media is completely different to traditional media, but that's a different conversation. But I knew that it would get eyeballs for my business, because I want to drive leads to my business, and I want people to be you need something to stand out from the typical Pilates studio, Instagram stuff. But I also knew that it would probably get media attention locally, because it was hyper local. She's young, she's a member of the community. We're members of the community. Our business has been around for a long time, and that is exactly what happened. But it's interesting, because as a journalist, I see lots of news stories within that. So obviously, for the bright side, it's a positive news story. You know, she's this young, like, I guess, go getter, who's, you know, doing Pilates, which is not often, Pilates teaches it. You know, it's 30 plus, 25 plus to be Pilates teacher, because the training so intensive. I saw it as you know, one of the news angles I see in it is that, you know, it's this opportunity for young people to get paid a lot of money. So for example, she's getting, let's say she's getting paid 50 bucks a Pilates class. For example, you know, the last job she had was in a cafe, earning $14 an hour. So for me, I was like, this is a really interesting, like, the next story that I would pitch could potentially be like, Is this the new, a new like, way of, you know, this next generation. What are they? Jen, alpha. She's not Gen Alpha. I think she's Gen Z. Anyway, then, like, being able to get paid a premium for having a skill that not many people their age has. Like, that's what I saw in it. Like, that's, you know, the journalist cap on. You see lots of different ways the story could play out. So from there, that Instagram post went to a local news media outlet, which was again, great for us in terms of driving people to to us, and then you guys picked it up sort of organically from there, which is interesting that, you know, I feel like social media really is playing a much bigger role these days in, you know, the news content that you guys require, not just for the bright side, but news. You know, your news coverage across the day. There's so much more hours that are being need to be filled now than they were 20 years ago. So you're looking specifically to things like social media right to to try and generate story ideas, whereas that wouldn't have been the case 10 or 15 years ago.
Speaker 1 17:56
Oh, my job would be next to impossible without social media. And if we talk specifically about the bright side, if I'm flat and I don't have enough for the week, I'll jump on every community page I'm a member of in Sydney, on Facebook, you know your Curability connections, or your Bondi loop or whatever, and I'll just read through it, and I'll go, oh, you know what? Someone lost their engagement ring, and then old mate down the road found it great, right? So, so I use Facebook as a big tool to source stories, and like I mentioned, we do have a social media team, and that's pretty much a huge part of their job is just monitoring social media across Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, to make sure a, we're not missing any news. And B, finding new, new stories within the community, because obviously that's they're our viewers, so we want to speak their language. So
Liz Nable 18:52
when you're trolling, let's say social media or your, you know, whatever, on the web, or your, you know, you get recommended a story or referred a story. What makes a really good story? On the bright side,
Speaker 1 19:03
it just has to be colorful. I need, I mean, for Ruby, for example, because you've got a news brain, you knew I needed a room full of people doing Pilates. It wasn't enough for me to just turn up and have Ruby sitting on a chair talking about her job, I needed to show it first of all, and I needed her to be, you know, looking like a lack of character, which she naturally was, but not everyone is. So some of them are harder than others, and often I don't even know until I turn up if they're going to be good talent or not, but the brighter, the better. For example, I just received a phone call from the education department this morning. They were asking me if I could come along to their annual not sure what they call it, a spectacular, their dance spectacular, yes. And the first thing I said to this woman is, are they in costume? Yeah. She said, No, they're not. They're in plain clothes. And I order it all. Went down 10 points, but I should be able to make it work by filling the vision with some file vision from last year's spectacular. So first of all, it's color. If it looks good, it makes the television. That's probably the first number one point. Second point is that it needs to be a likable character. So you know someone who's owned the fruit and veg store for 60 years, and he's got a great Italian accent and a really quirky character about him, or something like, it sounds silly, but an animal, a really cute animal. I did a great story on a donkey that looked like a goat that looked like a donkey. Its name was donkey, and there wasn't much of an angle to that, but people loved it. On Monday, I did a story about the first ever dog, literally, delivery driver, which was a promotion for Uber Eats, which in news would never get across, because it's too big of a brand. It would look like an ad. But the sheer thought of a beautiful dog, brutal driving a car, was enough for me to go, well, we can sort of bury that Uber angle, and we can just show people the dog that went international. People loved it. Yeah, wow. So it's, it's just going to be visually appealing, and something that you're going to go that really made me feel good. And I think Ruby was like that. Because how often do young people get bad reputations about their work ethic these days as well? Yes, so she was a bit of a point of difference. And maybe that could have been a news angle. If I had to find a hard news angle, we could have gone down the line of, you know, young people getting a bad rap, but look at this girl,
Liz Nable 21:34
yeah, yeah. There's so many different angles. It's interesting, because I have to, I'm just going to recap on what you just said, because this is something that is key. If you're pitching a news story to a TV station, you need to have pictures, so you're not going to physically go out and get the pictures, but you need to have some idea of how the story is going to be told, because it's a visual medium. So if you're pitching to a podcast, luckily, it's easy. You just talk like it's fine, or radio, easy, but you know, magazines or newspapers, obviously there's a still image, but, but even on their on their digital versions. Now, videos, you know, does really well, but, but TV, it's there's some stories that wouldn't even make news if there wasn't good images to go with it, like you just said. So some businesses have really, I say, like Instagramable businesses, like sexy images that are easy to come up with, right? And that might be like what you said, like a school spectacular, or like a beautiful, you know, canola farm, or like something gorgeous is easy to tell stories with pictures. But what about people who have businesses or a story to tell? You know, like, I'm just going to use super boring as an example, like an accountant or like a medical practitioner. Or, can you give us some examples of some ideas that might get people's the brains working about how they might tell that story, if there's not natural pictures to go with it?
Speaker 1 22:59
Yes, so it is the bane of my existence receiving a pitch that would be an amazing newspaper story, but I just cannot get it over the line for television because there's not enough pictures, and that's where PR companies come in, because they know that's what news needs. But I, for example, I received a phone call last week from a high school in Western Sydney, they had an amazing careers day where the students were going to be all gathered in a room, and they were going to be talking about their future careers and doing some workshops. And I thought, Okay, well, that sounds great, but what are the pictures? And the media person kept saying to me, Oh, well, they'll be doing activities. And I'm like, Well, what are the activities? And so it was not activities. It was just a room full of kids. And that's great, but it's ugly for me. So the way that he could have got that over the line is he could have said to them, alright, everyone come dressed in an outfit tomorrow of the career path you want. Come dressed as a nurse, come dressed as a tradie.
Speaker 2 23:59
Or just thinking this. I was like, Joe, yes, yes. Or,
Speaker 1 24:03
why don't we get some stalls made up and we can have, you know, a paramedic stand, and we can get some paramedics in talking to the students. Or why don't we do a makeshift construction site, and we'll all get a hard hat on. And, you know, so for me, it was a, it was a no, because I just visually shooting a room full of people, even though you might think that's a lovely, beautiful story, it's just not going to work for
Liz Nable 24:27
TV. And I'm shocked that a media person wouldn't have thought that this is what I teach inside my course. If you can present a story on a platter to someone like you who's not desperate, I'm not going to say desperate. I'm
Unknown Speaker 24:38
happy to accept desperate.
Liz Nable 24:41
And you're up against the clock, and it's the day that it needs to go to air, or two days in advance, or whatever, and you've gotta wrap it up. You gotta get a cameraman organized, blah, blah, blah, if someone comes to you, bang, here you go. Here's the story, but here's the pictures. It's just a no brainer, right?
Speaker 1 24:55
It's a no brainer, and it's such a relief for me because there. Are some days when I have to really give instructions, you know, like I went out to I'm not sure if I'm being unprofessional by saying this, but I went out to the RSPCA. They pitched me a story about some kids getting a behind the scenes look at a day in the life of an RSPCA employee. That's great, because I'm thinking, we'll get them with the animals. We'll get them patting the dogs, handling the cats. Great. But of course, when we get there, because there's a lot of red tape, and that's to no fault of their own, I understand. They're running a business, and it's animal welfare, they're all behind cages. And so for me, that's the moment when you look at your cameraman and you go, oh shit. What the hell are we going to do to roll this in glitter? And so you really have to get pushy with the people and and say, Come on, we need to get these dogs out. Get the dogs out like
Liz Nable 25:52
you need dogs everywhere. You need cats. You need sounds you need,
Speaker 1 25:56
yeah, yeah. And cuteness, right? And it's sorry, that's my doorbell. It's just not cute when they're behind a cage. It's almost the opposite. So there's problems like that that can be so easily fixed by somebody who has the knowledge and the experience to go, oh, when Grace arrives, she's going to want X, Y,
Liz Nable 26:16
Z, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and to have someone who's got a little bit of that insight to say, Listen, I know you're this is a TV segment. I've got this story. I've thought of the possible pictures. What do you think you know someone who's even you don't need to be an expert in this. You just need to be thinking two steps ahead of the journalist to make their job easy. And then, you know, like I said, it's just a no brainer, particularly when you're looking, actively looking and seeking stories every single day.
Speaker 1 26:41
And on that note, Liz, I'm happy for people to call me and say, What do you think we need to get this up? And I'll tell them point blank, I'll say, Well, we're going to need that kid on a boat, you know, to make this work. And sometimes they can. They either can or they can't. Yeah. So I'm always open to an email or a phone call from someone saying, I've got this great story, but don't know how to get it up. And we can, we can talk about it and find a way, because often there is a way, but it's just, I guess there's a scale on how good it is.
Liz Nable 27:14
And I, like, I always say, like, don't give the journalist you're pitching to a job to do. Don't send them a pitch with a 50 page attachment. You're just asking them to make you're just making their life hard. You have to make it as easy as possible, and particularly because you're on a weekly, sorry, you're on a nightly news show that deadlines every day, so you don't have time to be researching to that scale. So if again on a platter, got some ideas for the pitches, you know, got some good talent. You know, thought about those just basic angles of the story. Just makes it so much easier,
Speaker 1 27:50
totally. And I know from the moment I lay eyes on it, from the moment my cameraman and I walk in, we almost can speak with our eyes, you know, because this is going to be really good, or, holy smokes, we're going to have to work for this one.
Liz Nable 28:05
And those are the bad days. Yeah, I know, and it's so again, it's just basic, basic, basic stuff here. And you don't need a PR company to be pitching on your behalf if you've got some of this intel. So I think probably a good, you know, a good point to make here is, is people need to watch the bright side, so that they can get an idea of or even go online. I'm sure you've got the digital version, like you've got the episodes or like an archive on Seven News. Is that right? You can
Speaker 1 28:33
catch up on seven plus, and you can also view them on our SEVEN NEWS Sydney Instagram. They go up every night, almost instantly after they've aired. So you can catch up on them, and also on my personal Instagram as well, because I love sharing them. And so yeah, I encourage everybody to watch them because it is a sort of it is a real shift and a unique piece compared to what the traditional news criteria has
Liz Nable 28:59
been. Yeah, and watching a few of them in advance of pitching yourself again, it means that they're going to have some sort of idea of what you've done in the past, the kind of format, because I'm an imagining, I'm imagining, sorry, that the format is similar to any news format. It's a minute long. You know, there's three or four grabs. You've got a couple of talent, and you've got good pitches, and you're doing a piece to camera at some point in there, is that, right?
Speaker 1 29:23
Yeah, yeah. That's the crux of it. That's all the ingredients, yeah. And just the cherry on top is someone who's a really good talker and a really likable person, yeah,
Liz Nable 29:32
yeah. Don't pitch a good news story and then be flat as attack in the interview. Or, you know, the other thing I used to think when I was a journalist was people would pitch this amazing story to you, but then the talent would minimize the story or lay it down, or not say what you're expecting them to say. Just play it really like low key, and that's not what you want to be doing on a segment like the bright side, right?
Speaker 1 29:53
No, and I have been putting a bit of a strict rule on sort of no politicians, of figuring out. There's enough of that in the news. You for example, I was invited out to one of the local hospitals this week to do a story about a therapy dog that comes and visits all the patients who are sick. And they said, Oh, will you interview the health minister? I said, No, absolutely not. He can go in the other 45 minutes of the news. But this is strictly for people who are doing good things in the community. And that was another example. You know, when we first arrived at the hospital, they took us into this room, and they said, Here you go. And it was just an empty room, four walls and some chairs. And I said, Oh no, we're going to need to be on the ward. We're going to be need to be seeing the dog walk down the hallways. We're going to need to see the dog interacting the staff and and and thankfully, the media person on the on the day was quite accommodating of that. But if he just said no, too much red tape, we would have just left, yeah, because that's just we were sold something different. And so for them the I guess the reward outweigh the risk, and they were happy to forego the Minister to at least get the hospital on the news. And there was an instance where we were walking down the hallway and the dog had a really beautiful moment with a cancer patient who looked notably sick, and she crouched down and gave him a big smooch. And then I saw the media man freak out because she didn't have what he would call approval for media. And I just looked at him and said, make it happen, mate. Because you know what I mean, like, That's the shot. So particularly,
Liz Nable 31:26
that's the shot. Blows your mind that a media person wouldn't know that. But anyway, that's another, oh well, you know,
Speaker 1 31:32
when there's government involved, there are millions of layers of levels of approval, and I understand there's a process, but it does get frustrating on the other side. And thankfully, he did. He did move quickly.
Liz Nable 31:43
He knew what to do. Yes, tell me a little bit about because, you what I loved about this segment that you did with us and with Ruby was obviously, you know, it's on that on that night's news. But then there's the, you know, the digital engagement that that story gets as well, which is pretty incredible, because it obviously sits on seven news for however long, for the duration of however long the story the show is in existence, I would imagine, and you can get really great organic traffic back to your site, but then also on the social media side as well. What are some of the stories that's off the top of your head that have had like that you then reshared on social media that have gone nuts or get lots of engagement, or who do do? Well,
Speaker 1 32:27
really funny, because my cameraman and I talk about this all the time, the ones we think are going to go massive often don't. And then the ones we don't love that much, or we don't expect to do that, well, that pop off sometimes, and so it's hard to keep up, but they do get shared almost instantly onto all of our platforms, that being Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and naturally, we get hundreds of 1000s of views on those because we do have a big Following, but I quite enjoy, you know, sometimes filtering through the comments of people, just, you know, tagging their friends, sharing it with people, telling me that this made their day. Sometimes I have people write into the email saying, you know, that was my favorite one. So I guess I don't monitor the numbers of the social media. I mean, if I wanted to, I could find out, because obviously we have people that do that, but they definitely do have quite a big reach. And often it's not that day, maybe it'll be a week or a month later, somebody will send it to me and say, Oh, I just watched this, and I loved it. So I guess that's one of the challenges that we have, is getting people to watch the 6pm News Live on on a traditional television but that's 2025 for you, and that's the way that the market's moving.
Liz Nable 33:46
So can you explain a little bit about the sentiment behind what makes news in the context of the bright side, obviously good news stories or happy news stories, because even sort of five years ago or 10 years ago, this sort of content wouldn't have made use, would it?
Speaker 1 34:04
In my experience? No, perhaps, maybe on morning breakfast television, yes. 6pm news, you get your more hard flagship kind of news, you know, and there's a reason for that. Obviously, want to be a trusted news source, and we want to be accurate. And the place people turn to for the news of the day. So traditionally, no, because we only do have that 60 minute bulletin, and 99% of the time that 60 minute minute bulletin is already a minute over by the time we hit lunchtime. So you're begging the producers for an extra 10 seconds in your story that you think's the best story of the day, but they're not giving it to you because they're going to fit in sport. They're going to fit in got to fit in web, and they got to fit in the whole shebang. So traditionally, the hard hitting news stories, which are normally not the good news stories, unfortunately, were pushed to shut were pushed aside because there wasn't an appetite for it. However, that's not to say they didn't exist. Least, I just think there was never this consistency. I haven't seen this in my time the five nights a week of a nice one minute 10 of good news story was something that was probably only reserved to breakfast television before. Now they do a similar model in Melbourne with Channel Seven, but it's only 40 seconds. It's just what we call a voice over, not a full package. So I'm actually really impressed with the idea. I can't take any credit for it because it didn't come up with it myself, and probably because I thought it would never get up if I did. But thankfully, our news director at the time was quite young and energetic and had come from breakfast television, so perhaps he saw the value in that, and it's, it's worked for him. I'll give myself credit, because someone had to get it up off
Liz Nable 35:47
the ground. Very bubbly. You've got a good, good news story kind of personality, I
Speaker 1 35:51
think, yeah, and I do like that. And I will say it's been a huge sort of refresh for me, because I have done 11 years of the doom and gloom. So it's nice for me to be telling people's stories. And when I first started, I used to think, Oh, God, I feel like such a terrible person because I'm meeting all these people doing these amazing things, these charity things that they do. And then I thought, well, you know, I am playing a role, because I am giving them minute 10 on the news that that maybe get them some more sponsorship or some more traffic to their website, or, you know, some some things they might need some donations or whatnot. So I like to think I'm doing my bit where I can you.
Liz Nable 36:25
Are you? Are you're doing your bit? Um, so tell me, before we go where? Tell me, how can people pitch you like, what do you prefer to email? And can you share your email? And I'll obviously put it in the show notes as well. But normally I'm telling people to be super strategic and not to overwhelm the journalist. But I think in your case, you're looking for stories right now. So how can they
Speaker 1 36:45
get to you? Great, they can send me an email. We have a specific inbox for the bright side. It's called Bright Side, Sydney at 7s, e, v n.com, dot, a, U. I find the best way to get my attention is to write high grace, because then I think I know you already. I get a lot of pictures from PR or businesses where it's a generic email they've sent to 65,000 other people, and I can tell from the first word. But if you write, Hi, Grace, how are you? Hope you've been well, I go, Oh sugar, because I got a bit of a bleeding heart. So I go, Oh sugar, I might know this person. Oh yeah. Liz, we've worked together before. I better read this. So that's a little hot tip for you, if you want to take advantage of my bleeding heart tip and
Liz Nable 37:25
the fact that you've just disclosed to us that you have a bleeding heart, which is unusual for journalists, is two hot tips in one. Yes,
Speaker 1 37:31
yes, I have a bit of a sucker. They always do say that to me, some of the girls in the newsroom, oh, you've got a bleeding heart, don't
Liz Nable 37:36
you? Oh, no, I love that. Okay, so to email the sorry, say the email again.
Unknown Speaker 37:42
It's bright side
Liz Nable 37:43
Sydney, one word, one word, and then at 7s, e, v, n.com, dot, a, U, okay, awesome. Um, and I'll pop that in the show notes as well. And I really hope from this podcast you get a flurry of good news story ideas.
Speaker 1 37:57
I and I should say Liz, I should clarify at the moment, I can only do Sydney based bright sides or maybe Hunter Valley Wollongong, but I can't do interstate. We just don't have a budget or room for that yet. But the other point I will give is because I'm so time poor, and I'm turning these around on the day for the day, please don't contact me with a bright side that's happening in three months time, because I don't care. I need to know the the week before, even you know three days before, or I'll forget. And I'm not that great at admin, so
Liz Nable 38:28
journalists are like goldfish, particularly if we're on a daily line. So we need to know, like, a couple of days in advance is, yeah, yes, um, so what? Let's just talk that you bring up a good point, because there's obviously people listening to this podcast from around Australia, and there's some overseas listeners as well. If someone has a good news story, but they can't pitch you directly, obviously, because Sydney's only so big, what would you have any advice for how they might pitch elsewhere?
Speaker 1 38:53
It's not completely out of the question. I had a really beautiful story come through about a a couple celebrating their 75th wedding anniversary, and it was so great. But then I realized they were in Perth, and I ended up loving it so much that I organized for our Perth cameraman to go and shoot it, and we organized the bright side, front by distance, and went, it went off. It was really beautiful. I was lucky to have a good experience cameraman who knew what he was doing. So that was great. So it's not out of the question. If it's really good and we can make it work, we will. But I think in other markets, it's always just good to have an in isn't it, to know someone at one of the networks, even if you can get to them and say, Do you think this would work for breakfast? Who do you know there? Yeah, I don't. I don't always have the answers, but I do. I do mean it when I say I have a bleeding heart. I always try to help. And I do have a lot of friends in a lot of the other states who I've worked with over the years who I might go, You know what? I'll ring my friend Jackie, and I'll give her this story. And Jackie's probably equally as desperate for a story that day, so she might do it. Yeah,
Liz Nable 39:55
awesome. And I should say as well, you're going to be a guest expert. Inside the next round of the media masters Academy course. So we can absolutely, like, double down on this inside the course and talk about pitching news stories in general. Sorry, pitching good news stories in general. And perhaps how people can get beyond, you know, obviously pitch the bright side as their priority, but beyond that and start to get those good news story angles down pat when they're pitching around Australia and overseas as well,
Speaker 1 40:23
absolutely. And we can talk about, you know, things like the best time of day to send those emails, the best subject lines, the things that I look for, because often I don't get past the fourth word of an email. So I can talk about what, what can help you get over the line in whatever network or whatever newsroom it is in the country that's going to make you stand out from the 65,000 stand out from the 65,000 other pictures that came through
Liz Nable 40:44
that day. Yeah, awesome. Oh, thank you, Grace. It's such a pleasure to talk to you, and we're excited to have you inside the course.
Speaker 1 40:50
Yes, thank you, Liz, and thank you to Ruby for coming on the bright side, I will tell
Unknown Speaker 40:55
her thank you.
Liz Nable 40:59
This episode of media magnet was brought to you by my signature group coaching program, the media masters Academy. The media masters Academy is a live, online, six week course taught by me and designed to teach you how to become your own publicist and give you exclusive access to pitch the country's top journalists and editors. Doors open just three times a year. Check it out at Liz nabal.com along with a ton of free resources to help you get started taking your business from Best Kept Secret to household name right now. If you love this episode of media magnet, please share it with your business buddies or on social media and tag me at at at Liz underscore Nabal, and if there's a specific guest you want to hear from on the show, or a topic or question you want to know more about, please tell me, so I can Make sure the show stays dedicated, especially for you. You
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