By George S. McQuade III
West Coast Bureau Chief
EPPS Panel on New York Media
West Coast Bureau Chief
EPPS Panel on New York Media
West Coast Editor Michael Fleeman, People.com said, “Whether we like it or not, reporters are being dragged into new media, some kicking and screaming about it. You have to know how to do it, and you have to file under deadline.”
“We have a designated Twitter person, and when you see
our newly redesigned website in January, you’re going to
see something interesting with Twitter,” said West Coast
Editor Michael Fleeman, People.com.
Fleeman has been with People.com for three years,
which is one of the leading entertainment sites Online.
Before that he was with AP for 13 years.
Staff Editor Natalie Abrams, TVGuide.com
said they don’t have full time twitter people,
but each individual use new media to drive
more traffic to TVGuide.com’s websites.
Abrams also said deadlines are important.
“The East Coast picks up all morning and
we (LA bureau) come in at night, so deadlines
for TV shows, interviews with actors and
producers that air on Thursday should be
up on the home page Wednesday night, so
everything is fresh the next morning,”
she said.
New York Times Reporter Edward Wyatt, Los Angeles 
Wyatt covers the television business in LA. He joined the Times in New York World Trade Center Manhattan Manhattan Iowa Kansas
Wyatt covers the television business in LA. He joined the Times in Wyatt said his two pet peeves from entertainment publicist who pitch him include: “getting asked ‘who have you been talking to, which is none of your business when I am trying to just do a story” and when publicist lies to their client, “because what will happen is one day I’ll meet your client at a cocktail party and they will say ‘why didn’t you talk to us to promote this new show of mine?’ This actually happened. I said, “Because I asked your publicist, and he said, “you couldn’t talk for X and Y reasons, and I was there on the set, and you walk right past me three or four times. Just don’t do that (lie).”
(pictured) Andrew Hampp,Ad Age Mag Michael Fleeman, People.com)
Los Angeles Reporter Andrew Hampp for Advertising Age echoed other complaints of panelists on publicists’ followup calls on a pitch. “Please don’t pitch me after you received a big NO from another editor above me,” he said. “We are still a work in progress, and started our website three years ago. We have separate website and magazine editors and then we share editing staff. It’s about 99 percent original content on the website. There’s not much overlap between the magazine and website. The site is shorter, faster and more newsie, breazier and a younger user,” he said. Hampp said the print version deadline for Ad Age magazine is Thursday or early Friday, and the AdAge.com has a daily and weekly newsletter so there is much to choose from through the week. He says deadlines are many at AdAge.com
Hampp’s pet peeves of PR Pros is
that second followup phone call he
receives after the press release has
been received.
“I think my biggest pet peeve is just the coordination on events,” said TVGuide.com’s Natalie Abrams. “ I’ll get three separate emails a network publicist, a studio publicist, a show publicist or a personal publicist for the actor, and it is all on the same thing, making it hard to decide who to respond to, so coordination on that end would be good,” she said. Abrams also agreed with Wyatt about lying, “if you don’t want it out there that your client is going to be killed off of a show, or that your show has been cancelled, we can embargoed it, just be honest with us.”
