THE EVER-CHANGING L.A. TIMES

Once again faced with the decision of which Tribune Company publication or television station to focus on for a blog post, I opted for one of their largest, most widely-read dailies: the venerable Los Angeles Times.  It is in fact the second largest newspaper in circulation in the United States (http://www.answers.com/topic/los-angeles-times), so one would automatically assume their media relations information would be cutting-edge and easily accessible.  I found this to be true, and I was quite impressed with the information that is made readily available.

It took me all of ninety seconds of skimming the Los Angeles Times website to stumble upon the link for their communications department: http://www.latimes.com/about/mediagroup/press/. All of the information presented there is fairly standard and simple to read.  Those interested in submitting press releases are encouraged to directly contact one of a handful of different publications owned by and/or affiliated with the Los Angeles Times, such as The Times Community News (who owns The Pasadena Sun, that upstart publication I wrote of last week) and Hoy, a very popular publication that targets the vast Latino population of the greater Los Angeles area. 

I admire the fact that the Los Angeles Times is promoting all of the publications in their purview, and helping to point a publicist (or someone from a PR agency) in the right direction.     So if a publicist were to, say, wish to submit a press release for a rather small-scale fundraising event happening in the Pasadena area, then they may have more luck (and a better likelihood of coverage), if the press release were submitted to The Times Community News instead of the Los Angeles Times.  Or if perhaps a small church just outside of Downtown Los Angeles with a strong Latino contingent wanted some coverage for an event that they were organizing, perhaps Hoy would be the better option for them and their readers. 

I also think it’s in keeping with the overarching branding theme of the larger publications within The Tribune Company to help out the smaller ones in any which way they can.  From my own recollections of my time at a medium-sized weekly that was a Tribune subsidiary, I can recall the larger daily in the family, The Hartford Courant, assisting us in terms of publicity, advertising leads, training, etc.

There is also a link that lists all of the recent press releases done internally by the Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/about/mediagroup/press/releases/  . From this link one can find a variety of different press releases about events sponsored by the publication, significant changes in senior staffing, or recent expansions in distribution and circulation.

I was perhaps most impressed by the Twitter page exclusive to the communications department of the Los Angeles Times: twitter.com/LATimesFreshInk.  Unlike the main Twitter page for the Los Angeles Times, FreshInk consists of “news, tidbits and spin” directly from those within the communications department at the paper.  And while they aren’t even close to the main Los Angeles Times Twitter page in terms of followers, the Tweets from FreshInk consist of an eclectic mix of different topics (recent Tweets include some thoughts on the “Occupy LA” movement as well as the untimely passing of rapper, Heavy D).  

All in all, I admire the media relations strategies and tactics used by the communications department of the Los Angeles Times.  While it may be odd for some to think of posting all necessary information (contact name, address, email, etc.) on a website as “traditional”, having a simple and basic page on the company’s website is the norm these days.  Still, I think it’s a progressive and wise idea for them to utilize a social networking site like Twitter to give a “voice” of sorts to their communications department.