Make it simple, stupid: Your digital newsroom needs an upgrade

Lisa Arledge Powell, APR, is the founder and CEO of MediaSource. Matthew Libassi is the public relations and speakers bureau manager for Northwell Health.

We’ve all heard the familiar adage, “keep it simple, stupid,” or KISS. From press releases to pitches, it’s certainly a mantra for PR practitioners to live by. Even in the most complex fields, it’s imperative to maintain simplicity in language, message and call to action.

But even simple can be complicated.

You have that high-resolution photo for that reporter? Great. But they need to click a link, register, wait for the download link, oh shoot! Better check your spam folder. Never mind, just send it to my personal account. Let’s forward that. Shoot, IT blocked it, again…

You get the picture. But that reporter is still waiting for it.

While we all strive for KISS, we can also learn to MISS: “Make it simple, stupid.”

Digital newsrooms are meant to be a one-stop shop for reporters to access everything relevant to a story – to make their job just a little bit easier. Photos, videos, soundbites – it should all be there. And as much as we know a digital newsroom is crucial for an effective PR campaign, how many of us actually do it? Be honest. And if you do, are you really including everything that a modern-day journalist requires?

Think like a producer – curate shots that tell a compelling story from start to finish. Ensure all relevant information, titles, names of places and locations are upfront and clear. Clunky download links and content not primed for specific mediums are all too common. What about social media graphics? Or social-optimized video? Don’t leave room for interpretation, as journalists might get it wrong which will then make your clean-up job a bit complicated.

Listen, we get it. We are busy and uploading a batch of photos to a Google Drive seems good enough, but we’re better than “good enough,” aren’t we? We spend hours, if not days, weeks or months prepping for a campaign, speaking with our experts and leaders, gathering important assets, clearing it with legal was a hurdle in itself. Is good enough, really enough?

We know this works.

We recently achieved a true world-first medical breakthrough. In 2023, researchers at The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, part of Northwell Health, announced the success of a 15-hour brain implant surgery and clinical trial, enabling a man living with paralysis to regain movement and sensation. This pioneering work is ongoing, but we sought to seize media attention and assert our position in the brain-computer-interface race. To effectively tell our story loud and proud, we established an easily accessible multimedia newsroom and implemented a strategic media plan. Through these efforts, we garnered over 1,100 earned media articles, achieved 524 million views across various platforms, and, most importantly, recruited more than 200 interested clinical trial participants, thus advancing scientific research further.

The digital newsroom is just one example of a way to MISS, but so is how we speak to reporters, our pitches that read more like a promotional brochure than an actual news hook, to how we expect journalists to schedule and book interviews with our subject matter experts – please, don’t ask me to click a Calendly link.

Every day, we are under a deluge of musts, needs and demands and so are the reporters we work with every day, if not, even more. So, help yourself, help others and improve your success.

Make it simple. Don’t be stupid.

Lisa and Matthew will be presenting on June 6 during PR Daily Media Relations Conference in the session “Upgrading Static Online Newsrooms to Highly Shareable Content Hubs.”