Q. What is the single most challenging part of your job this year so far and why? A. I think the most challenging part of my work this year is striking a good balance between important investigative news with what the public can relate to. Oftentimes, investigations can be tedious, and it’s difficult to keep a viewer engaged through data (which is important to get through) … it’s difficult to strike a balance between delivering good and necessary information and making the content relatable to an average viewer. Q. How, and in what manner, are PR professionals most helpful to you? A. PR professionals can be very helpful when finding characters for stories. Sometimes you have a data-heavy story that has good information but you need a character to wrap the story around. Q. For many years, the portrayal of an investigative journalist’s work was a years-long investigation of a major corporation that included chasing someone, doors closing, and then airing on film as a feature television show. Today, investigative stories seem part of newscasts and about relatable local victims. What kind of stories do you find yourself working on now—very long investigations, or shorter research and on-the-street projects? Please give us an example. A. We work on stories that follow two tracks: longterm investigative, which might require data collection; we might need to wait for a big interview to come through. And then there’s short term investigative: These are stories that have an investigative edge but don’t necessarily require a deep data dive. For example, Q. Some PR folks have a healthy respect and fear of being contacted by an investigative journalist. Our goal is to gain positive attention for our businesses and clients, and we understand investigative journalists endeavor for a fuller portrayal. What might we do to make both our jobs easier? A. I think be honest and level with the journalist. Most of us just want to tell the whole story and we do that best when all parties are honest about what they know. Q. From where or how do you get most of your leads? Has that changed over the years? A. I get most of my tips from viewers who contact me directly. They’ve seen my work over the years and see me as trusted journalist, so they feel they can share ideas with me. We also look at current events/incidents and we look for interesting angles to pursue apart from the main story. Now I get a lot of tips from Facebook or Twitter. Q. Please share the types of things you would like to hear about from PR people, and how we may contact you. A. Interesting legal cases that could change laws or the way things are done. We love interesting storiesabout unique people who are in unique positions. And if there are major events, like the crane collapse in Tribeca that killed a pedestrian, we would love pitches on interesting side bars or related stories. Ellen Christie is the marketing director at Pegalis & Erickson, LLC, and a freelance public relations consultant. She can be reached at christie.ellena@gmail.com
I worked on a story for about a month about subway stations that had only one exit, which violated national fire safety codes, yet was able to turn a story about a man who was wrongfully detained at Rikers for 5 years, in about a week’s time.
and @ellenpr