Headline Folk

(or How To Get Journalists to Love Your Folk Club)

Frustrated by the lack of interest in your folk club by the local press – or other news media for that matter? At the recent Folk21 West Midlands regional meeting, Pete Willow drew on his 30+ years’ experience of writing the folk column for the Coventry Telegraph to offer a 20-point guide on how to increase your chances of positive media coverage. Here’s what he told us…

I’m about to give you 20 hot tips on how to increase your chances of getting good press coverage for your folk club. But before we look at any of them, I would like to share one fundamental piece of advice.

Have pity on the poor press reporter.

You may not feel inclined to, especially if your local newspaper has studiously ignored your emails and avoided publishing any feature articles with screaming headlines or even a 2-liner ‘late news’ item about the amazing guests appearing at your folk club. But journalists, especially regional press reporters are having a tough time.

Circulation of local papers have fallen considerably. In the 1950s, my local publication, the Coventry Evening Telegraph sold 100,000 copies a day. Recent years have seen Coventry Telegraph sales decline by 10-15% a year and it currently only musters a circulation of 18,000. Its parent company Trinity Mirror can no longer afford large newsrooms populated by wannabe John Pilgers, or even external folk music correspondents (my fee was a princely £35 per week!). Meanwhile, those young, overworked, relatively inexperienced hacks remaining in the newsroom have to work harder to fill the same number of column centimetres with scintillating copy that drips with drama and exclusivity. It’s a tough call.

Don’t be tempted into thinking that falling circulations make local newspapers irrelevant. People still read them, especially older people who are more likely to attend your folk club. And local newspapers still try to present themselves as the voice of their community, something that your venue definitely needs to be part of.

Bearing these points in mind, you are in a position to make life easier for your poor, hard-pressed local newshounds. You can achieve this by doing their job for them as much as possible. The less effort needed for the journalist to report on your club, the more likely you are to get coverage.

Which leads me to my first hot tip:

1. Give them a story, not a plug.

Your local newspaper is not a noticeboard for you to pin up your posters. If you simply want to advertise they’ll expect you to pay. It’s of little interest to the local Argus and most readers of its news pages that a singer-songwriter and Joni Mitchell soundalike is your next guest act. They need something more gripping.

2. Give them a hook on which to hang the story.

They might be more interested if your guest is making a one-off appearance at your club after a sell-out tour of Europe (two well-attended gigs in Belgium?). Or that the gig aims to raise cash for a worthy cause within the community. Or that the resident band has been approached to represent Great Britain in Eurovision.

Here’s your chance to be creative without resorting to the current trend of ‘alternative facts’. If there isn’t an obvious hook, dig for ideas. Has your guest released a new CD? Is the club attracting more young floor singers? Has a former floor singer made it big? Has the club sold its 1000^th ticket? What’s biggest, newest, latest about your club? Look for the hook.

Once you have a story, you need to tell it to the journalist. Hence…

3. Press releases are still popular with journalists.

Now that we’ve had the digital revolution, we often hear the claim that the press release is dead. It isn’t. Its format may vary but as long as it tells the story simply and clearly without the need for too much editing – or any at all – journalists will be more likely to use it. Don’t send flyers or posters. Show them you’ve made the effort to talk in their language.

When writing your press release…

4. Leave clever headlines to the experts.

In this case, the experts are the sub-editors and they often take pride in the clever use of puns, alliteration, cliché or other eye-catching rhetorical device to grab their readers’ attention. Your job is to grab the sub-editor’s attention. So keep it very simple – ‘Award-winning folk act to appear in Upper Munchley’, ‘Folk club MC to appear on Big Brother’, or whatever.

5. Tell the story simply

The standard textbook advice in press release writing is to answer the five Ws:

•         What’s happening?

•         Who’s involved?

•         Where?

•         When?

•         Why?

These questions need to be answered in the first couple of sentences. Busy journalists have a short attention span and if you can’t capture their interest from the start, the story will get ‘spiked’ or transferred to the trash. 

Newspaper narrative usually starts with the basic facts so that it is possible to get the main sense of the story from the beginning. As the story progresses it offers more and more detail (background, quotes, and so on) which becomes less and less essential, making it easier for an editor to lop off the last two paragraphs if necessary without having to rewrite the entire item.

The only variation I would suggest from the textbooks is to ensure that the first sentence offers some intrigue, opening up a question that can only be answered by reading further. This is usually achieved by offering a ‘factoid’ statement that needs context for it to make sense. For example:

Melbourne’s celebrated singer, songwriter and poet, Ian Bland can’t get enough of Coventry. 
(OK that’s the Who question. But intrigued – why should a singer from Melbourne be so enamoured with Coventry?)

After flying back to Australia after an extensive tour of local folk venues last winter, Ian was back within six months to perform at the Warwick Folk Festival and plays his final UK gig tonight – at least for this year. 
(That’s the What, When and Why questions dealt with.) 

Catch him at the Nursery Tavern in Lord Street, Chapelfields for an evening of lively songs and stories interspersed with his wry sense of observational humour.
(And that’s the Where – with a bit more What.)

With over 30 years’ experience of performing, Ian is known for his relaxed and engaging style and has established himself as a powerful force in the Melbourne music scene… 
(And so on, the item now fills in background to add colour to the story and already comes across as an item that is definitely NEWS rather than a plug.)

Moving on…

6. Give them some interesting quotes.

Quotations add a human touch to the story and if you provide a quote they can help create the impression that the busy journalist has actually taken the trouble to interview someone. 

They can be a bit of a cliché however. In the world of newspaper quotes, everyone is ‘delighted’ to be appearing, visiting the area, welcoming the guest, and so on. The world is a delightful place! Clichés are OK in small doses but they can be too much of a good thing. (See what I did there?)

Now, here’s a practical tip about your press release…

7. Make it easy to copy and paste.

A lot of local press journalism is licensed plagiarism. Busy journalists aren’t going to rewrite your story if they can simply copy it and place it under a headline, often with their own by-line! No-one minds – the story is in the newspaper and the world knows about what’s happening at your club. 

This is less likely to happen if your press release document is an older version of a pdf file containing text that can’t be copied. Don’t take chances. Send them a simple Word document, or – if your press release forms part of an online press kit on your club’s website – make sure that the text can be highlighted.

8. Give them a well-composed photograph

This can make all the difference between a few lines squeezed into page 36 or the leading story in the Entertainments section of the paper. A good eye-catching photograph makes their newspaper look interesting and can also fit in with the design and style of the publication.

These are examples that I like:

Perhaps more of an Arts Centre act than folk club guest, this image of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is wonderfully quirky, intriguing and generally engaging, projecting a lot of character.

This is also full of personality and the composition allows for an interesting page layout; the space to the right of Billy Bragg’s face could be used to superimpose a headline.

Perhaps over-the-top Photoshop, but you can’t fail to notice this image of Lucy Ward with its extravagant use of colour and juxtaposition of unrelated objects (knitting wool, blue hair and a raincloud). It offers a new and lively image of folk music and it even incorporates her name!

Again a practical point…

9. Give them a high resolution photograph.

Low-res images will limit the editor’s options and will appear as postage stamp size at best. Also, avoid monochrome – newspapers prefer colour. And avoid poorly composed amateur smartphone snapshots which only show the backs of audiences or present the artists with clutter behind them and microphones up their noses. 

Remember, this is all about making life easier for busy journalists and photographs that need lots of editing are a waste of your time and theirs.

10. Give them time to work on your story.

Be aware of deadlines. Special feature sections of daily titles usually need copy and photos to be on the newsdesk at least 4-5 days before publication. Weekly publications usually prefer around 10 days notice. If you are not sure of deadlines, phone the newsroom and ask. 

Don’t expect journalists to drop everything to run your story on the day before the event happens. They’ll appreciate you a lot more as a source if you give them an opportunity to work with your material. But beware – copy sent too early risks disappearing to the bottom of the inbox.

Here are some tips on courtesy and successful interaction with journalists…

11. Target your information to a named journalist.

Do some research and find out who is most likely to work on your story. Or again phone and ask for a name. Unsolicited emails to ‘the Editor’ are likely to get shunted around the newsroom with no-one taking ownership of the story.

And if there are rival publications in your area…

12. Offer different angles to different news media.

Sending out identical press releases and photos could be counterproductive if one local newspaper wants to have the edge on the other. If you can’t come up with a different news angle, at least send out a different photo to give each title the opportunity of some level of exclusivity.

13. Give them contact details that actually work.

Press releases must always have contact details and there is nothing more annoying for a newsdesk reporter than trying and failing to make contact with the source of the story. 

Check emails frequently and respond immediately. But preferably, give a phone number and make sure that any return call is answered by you and not your voicemail. News reporters tend to phone first when following up a story as they are working against tight deadlines and looking for instant responses. There’s a risk that journalists waiting for email responses will give up the will to live – or at least to run your story.

And on the theme of exclusivity…

14. Offer them a chance to interview.

Journalists probably won’t take this chance, unless your guest act is very very famous, but at least there’s an opportunity here for them to construct their own story based on their own questions and genuine quotable answers. It is relatively simple to set up a telephone interview with your guest even if they are on tour. If you have booked them through an agent, they should be able to set an interview up for you.

15. Offer incentives.

Newspaper editors would love a free holiday for two in your villa in the Algarve but that’s not the type of incentive I’m talking about. Journalists are more encouraged if your press release is well-written, timely and newsy. They may even be interested in running a competition if you provide the prizes.

Of course, a CD by your resident band, a couple of free tickets for the club and, perhaps, a bottle of wine with a Christmas card may be gratefully received as a token of your good faith in the powers of journalism.

One good incentive is to …

16. Keep the stories flowing.

Journalists who see you as a regular and reliable source of news are more likely to work with you. Once you are on their radar and in their contacts book, they may well offer further chances of media exposure, for example by inviting you to comment on a wider folk-related story. So be ready to offer quotable opinions on the rise and fall of local pubs, craft breweries or the nefarious practice of morris dancers blacking up.

17. Offer background information.

This again relates to exclusivity. If your friendly journalist is willing to put the time in, he or she could build a story around your press release by adding further information about your guest act or venue. Offering background information, often in the form of easy-to-digest factoid bullet points, increases the chance of making the story interesting and original without the need of too much effort in research.

18. Do not divert them to a rubbish website.

Here are some characteristics of websites that do more harm than good in establishing rapport with your reporter:

• The background information on the guest band is full of esoteric claptrap about how they used their music to ‘find themselves’ and achieve a transcendent connection with their inner spirits. Stick to the basic facts: names of band members, what they play and the release date of the latest CD - stuff like that.
• The photographs cannot be downloaded
• The information is out of date
• The site is difficult to navigate
• The press release is only available as a downloadable pdf document or (even worse) a jpg scan. Yes I have seen press releases in this format and I can vouch that they are utterly useless for the journalist.

19. Make friends with journalists.

This goes back to the point about Christmas cards and wine but generally first-name terms are always good. Journalists are more likely to take notice if they can put a face to your name or, at least, recognise your voice on the phone. Once they know you are a normal human being and not a stereotypical pot-bellied, beer-swilling, finger-in-ear folkie (yes journalists are prone to stereotypes), they are more likely to interact happily with you.

And when they are looking for a good story, they become a friend in need.

Of course friends like to be appreciated, so every now and then, so…

20. Thank them for running the story.

Even if they only gave you a short paragraph and spelt your name wrong, grit your teeth and say the magic word.

To conclude, the essence of successful media relations is a combination of

•           An appeal to news value
•           Offering something new
•           Making life easy for journalists
•           Creating or spotting the opportunity for a good story.

If you were simply an advertiser, paying for space in the paper, you may have better control of how the information is presented but at the end of the day, readers will know it is just an ad. To be more credible, you have to take the risk and trust the journalist to run a story based on the information you supply.

The better the information – and the easier it is for the journalist to process – the more chance you have that he or she will love you and write an excellent story about your club.

It’s a win-win-win situation: the journalist has a good story, your club has more visibility in your community and the reputation of folk music generally is a little bit more enhanced.

OCD - Three letters that spell success for your folk club

Pete Willow reflects on the skills and attitudes behind the effective organisation of folk clubs and offers a useful survival test for your venue.

Never mind the fountain of youth or the meaning of life. The big quest for Folk21 and its affiliates is the secret of a successful folk club.

Often the topic of regional away-days, festival workshops and internet forum discussions, suggestions range from clever marketing and a high quality host act to decent beer and a good car park. But underpinning all of these is a mental attitude – I would go as far as to say a condition – possessed by organisers determined to make their clubs work.

I’m talking about OCD.

Yes - Organisers’ Control and Domination, a phenomenon I have often witnessed during a lifetime of enjoying folk music at small venues. OCD is characterised by acts of planning and management to the last zealous detail.

Giveaway indicators of OCD include admission tables laden with neatly stacked flyers, cleanly printed and laminated notices and attended by efficiently busy admin-receptionists offering membership cards, loyalty cards, raffle tickets and copies of the club newsletter. Chairs in the club room are aligned with utmost precision and instrument cases are stacked neatly in the anteroom.

Please do not read this article as a criticism of OCD. When the world outside is seething in chaos and insanity, it’s reassuring to know that the folk club can be a welcoming sanctuary of orderliness where everything can be relied on to be in its right place.

Yes it may result in a ritualistic format with the same floor singers each week singing the same songs and comperes telling the same jokes. But folk clubs driven by OCD are arguably the ones that survive and even flourish.

Does your folk club display symptoms of management by OCD?

Does it depend on meticulous organisation to offer a safe and predictable experience for its visitors and members? Here’s a simple test to establish – with mathematical exactitude – the position of your club on the scale of systematic supervision. Tot up your score for each answer to find out.

After all, it’s good to know these things.

1. Which of these is the closest to your club’s approach to managing floor singers?

            a) All your floor singers are booked in advance, sometimes weeks ahead of the actual night. If approached by a floor singer you think would not entertain the audience, you lie through your teeth and claim that all the slots are already full. (3 points)

            b) On arrival, each floor singer has to sign up for a 10-minute performance slot on a form that is displayed at the door. It’s first-come, first-served and heaven help any floor singer who isn’t ready at their selected time or whose performance runs over time. (2 points)

           c) You keep your fingers crossed that enough floor singers show up to pad out the evening because your resident act only knows three numbers and your guest is contracted to perform a maximum of two 30-minute sets. (1 point)

2. Which of these is the closest to your club’s approach to time management?

           a) The MC steps on stage at 8pm on the dot, your guest act is given precise start and finish times, your interval runs for exactly 20 minutes and you are so determined to keep to the schedule that you have timer switches pre-set to operate the room lights and interval music, no matter what is happening on the stage. (3 points)

           b) The MC stands and hovers by the side of the stage to intimidate long-winded floor acts to finish their song and get off. You consider resorting to a long stick with a hook to grab acts that over-run (or otherwise cause the audience to lose its will to live). (2 points)

          c) You adopt a laid-back approach, allowing all floor singers who show up a chance to perform, even if it results in the guest act’s final set being reduced to a 10-minute performance to a half-empty room because people have to be up early for work the following morning. (minus 5 points!)

3. Which of these is more typical of your club’s overall operational policy?

     a) You have a detailed written constitution, agreed by a committee, published on the website and summarised in small print on the back of your flyers and business cards, setting out:

                     i.   your rules on booking guests, and organising floor singers;

                     ii.  your club’s mission and vision statements;

                     iii. your definition of ‘folk music’ with prohibitions on the use of electric guitars, 5-string banjos (4-string banjos are permitted), keyboards (unless battery operated), drum kits and mouth-operated bagpipes;

                     iv. your sanctions and penalties against anyone contravening such club regulations as entering the room in the middle of someone’s song, moving the furniture to create more leg-room, refusing to buy a raffle ticket or farting during the unaccompanied performance of a Child ballad. (5-15 points depending on the number of clauses and sub-clauses in the policy document)

            b) Your operational policy is based on rule-of-thumb expediency in which decisions are made on the hoof to deal with emerging situations, ranging from floor singers not bothering to tune their instruments until they are called on stage, to old-school guest acts, who were famous in the 60s, cracking sexist jokes. (2 points)

            c) You have an entirely laissez-faire policy in which allowable ‘folk’ music performances include Gilbert & Sullivan songs, Gilbert O’Sullivan songs, Black Sabbath hits, interminably long-winded, allegorical to the point of incomprehensible, self-penned songs, or past Eurovision entries now so old that they could be regarded as traditional. (nul points)

4. Which of these is the closest to your club’s approach to booking guests?

            a) Every now and again, you pick up the phone, ring round your contacts and see if anyone is available to appear over the next few weeks. (1 point)

            b) You visit folk festivals and other folk clubs and make a list of acts who you think will go down well. (2 points. Increase to 5 points if you decide to keep the list on file and carry on rebooking all the guests you had last year)

            c) You keep diaries for the next three years with every date fully booked in advance apart from the occasional singers night which will probably become another guest night anyway if someone famous happens to have a free date in their national tour schedule and is willing to perform for the jug collection, a chance to crash out on your sofa and a bowl of cornflakes. (3 points. More if the sofa opens up to bed with clean sheets and a perfectly plumped pillow)

And finally

5. Who is actually in charge of your folk club?

            a) You are and your word is law. If you have to have a committee, you insist on the right to veto any decision it may make. You may be a benevolent dictator but you are a dictator nevertheless. (3 points – or more if you are particularly OCD anyway)

            b) A Committee. This is elected periodically, according to the rules set out in your constitution. The Committee includes a Treasurer who manages the club’s own bank account and issues a quarterly report on the size of the club’s overdraft. Club members form a panel of wannabe Simon Cowells who adopt a points system to determine who should be booked as guests and agree rules on booking criteria, e.g. all artists must have proved popular with the audience for at least two floor spots or have been given a glowing review in Folk Roots. (Also 3 points)

            c) The audience. You are a committed democrat, an ageing hippy, an anarchist or a closet Thatcherite – whatever, the free market reigns. (0 – 5 points, depending on how much you secretly admire Margaret Thatcher. 10 points if you actually ask your audience to participate in secret ballots to determine the price of raffle tickets).

So how did you score?

15 points or more: OCD rules and your folk club is your own fiefdom. It stands an excellent chance of surviving for the next three years or when your last regular audience member pops his/her clogs, whichever comes sooner.

10-15 points: you try to stay on top of things. You may have great plans but find yourself having to repress your inner Genghis Khan to make space for your outer Jeremy Corbyn.

0-10 points: you may have moments of lucid assertiveness but more often than not you find yourself sitting at the door of your folk club with no idea of who is going to show up or what is going to happen. Either that or you’re just too nice.

Anything less than zero: there is no trace of OCD at your folk club whatsoever. Its guiding principle is in fact SNAFU.