Start-Up Coverage Presents Challenges

It's enough to be drowning in a sea of press releases and unsolicited phone calls. But business reporters face additional challenges from entrepreneurs pitching story ideas about "the next best thing."

Some public relations Web sites offer advice for entrepreneurs to further their latest business ventures.

"Make sure your story is something that the reporter will agree is important," said Kevin Nunley at BusinessKnowHow.com in "How to Get Free Media Publicity." "Newspapers don't like it if you send in an ad for your business to be used as a news story. � You have to cloak your message in a story that is newsworthy."

But as Sharon Dotson reminds entrepreneurs at About.com in "Getting PR in Your Town: Realities to Remember," "getting media coverage is a gamble."

When an entrepreneur becomes the subject of a news article, it allows a reporter to represent the venture how it actually is.

Getting beyond what PR professionals spoon-feed can be a daunting task for a journalist and the biggest fear of an entrepreneur.

Covering start-ups is "always a hard thing for anyone to cover because just by writing about it, it's giving the business an ad and you don't want to just totally be their mouthpiece," said Brent Hopkins, a business reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News. "It's a really fine line to walk between just giving free advertising and giving readers what they actually want to learn about."

Ben Hammer, a reporter for the Washington Business Journal, suggests keeping a group of sources in the industry who are involved with deal-making to find out about notable business ventures.

He looks into entrepreneurs who present at venture capital fairs because participation includes a rigorous selection process. "If they got through that," Hammer said, "that says something about them."

Though he takes unsolicited calls and e-mails, Hammer said he only writes on about one in 100, and only if he knows someone who can validate the company's merit, such as the fact that it won a contract or something else that makes them stand out.

Two-thirds of new small businesses survive at least two years, and about half survive at least four years, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Hopkins suggests trudging through press releases and wire stories and listening carefully to things that come up in conversation -- whether with business professionals or everyday people. "In terms of weeding out what's good and what's not, I just try to look at things that won't just be interesting to the people in the industry or just to journalists," he said.

In examining a new ventures, reporters must look through a critical lens, even with some cynicism.

"Look for the holes in the business," Hammer said. "Who are the competitors? Is there a unique idea or technology? You need to explore all those different angles, instead of just 'this company is the best thing since sliced bread.'"

But "you don't want to be so hands-off that people can't get into reading the story," Hopkins said. "On most things, whether cheap insurance or sneezeless cats, I try to just take the point of view of the reader and see what they want to know about this and what they will get out of it."

To avoid an advertorial tone to one's business story, Hopkins stressed the importance of contacting as many sources as possible and cited his Feb. 6 story, "Firm tries to engineer sneezeless kitten for allergic cat fans."

"The more people I interviewed the stranger it got, with all kinds of legal twists, and originally I wasn't looking at it from the legal controversy. That just came out from the reporting later on," he said.