PR Manager Interview Questions

Journalist relationships are built through usefulness, not through pitching. When I start in a new role, I spend the first few weeks doing nothing but listening: reading the journalists who cover our space, understanding what angles they pursue, what they have already written, and what their editors care about. From there I make contact with something genuinely useful to them, not a pitch but a data point, an introduction, an expert they have been looking for, or a heads-up on a story that is developing. I track these interactions carefully: what I sent, what they responded to, when we last spoke. The relationship only has value if the journalist trusts that I will not waste their time. That means I only pitch when I have something that fits their beat and their publication, and I never pitch to everyone on a list without tailoring. I also make myself available when they need something quickly, because a fast response to a journalist on deadline builds more goodwill than any number of proactive pitches.

Newsworthiness is about whether a story creates value for a journalist's audience, not whether it creates value for our organisation. The test I apply is: would a reader who has no prior knowledge of or interest in our company care about this? If not, it is not news. The factors that make a story newsworthy in our category are usually timeliness, a strong data point that challenges a conventional assumption, a clear human story, a controversy or tension, or a genuine first. I also distinguish between trade press and general media: trade journalists serve a specialist readership with a high appetite for sector-specific information; general media need a much stronger hook and a broader relevance. The mistake many PR teams make is pitching internally generated content, such as product launches and hiring announcements, as if they are news for a general audience. Most of these belong in trade press or owned channels. I spend time with leadership helping them understand which stories have genuine news value and why.

A media campaign starts with a clear objective: are we building awareness of the brand, launching something specific, changing a narrative, or positioning an executive as a thought leader? The objective determines the story angles, the journalist targets, and the timing. I build a campaign plan that maps each angle to the right publication type, the right journalist, and the right format: whether that is an exclusive, a press release, a contributed article, or a briefing. Timing is critical. I look for a news moment or a calendar hook to attach the story to, because journalists are more likely to cover a story that connects to something already on their agenda. I sequence the outreach carefully: exclusives go first to give the journalist time to develop the story, then the wider pitch goes out once the exclusive has run. Throughout the campaign I track coverage volume, quality, and message pull-through, not just whether we were mentioned but whether the key messages appeared in the coverage.

I have moved away from coverage volume as the primary metric because it rewards activity rather than impact. The metrics I now use are built around three questions. First, did we reach the right audience? This means tracking the publications and journalists we landed in and assessing whether their readership matches our target audience. Second, did the coverage carry our key messages? I review every piece of coverage for message pull-through and track whether the narrative we are trying to build is appearing in the press. Third, did the coverage produce a downstream effect? This might be direct traffic from a placement, an increase in branded search volume, an increase in inbound enquiries, or a measurable shift in share of voice. I report on all three layers rather than just the count of press mentions. I also track sentiment, because neutral or negative coverage at high volume is worse than no coverage.

A product recall notice was picked up by a journalist before we had issued our own statement, and a story ran with incomplete and inaccurate information. Within the first hour, we had two additional journalists requesting comment and the story was starting to circulate on social media. My first priority was to ensure a single spokesperson was briefed and available, and that no one else in the company spoke to media. I drafted a short statement that acknowledged the issue, corrected the inaccuracies, and explained the steps we were taking. I called the original journalist directly before publishing it, both to offer the correction and to give them the chance to update the story with accurate information. Most journalists will take a correction if it is offered constructively and early. The corrected story ran within four hours of the original. We then issued a proactive update to customers through our own channels. The story ran for one news cycle rather than the three or four it could have run for if we had delayed. The lesson was that speed and transparency in the first hour determine the trajectory of a crisis.

I was tasked with generating coverage for a professional services firm that had no launches, no announcements, and no data to offer. The client's brief was essentially to get their name in the press. I pushed back on the brief and proposed a different approach: rather than pitching the firm, we would find a question in the sector that journalists were already asking and position the firm's partners as the most informed people to answer it. We spent two weeks conducting a short quantitative survey among 200 HR directors on a topic actively being debated in the HR press. The data gave us a genuine story with proprietary numbers, and the partners provided commentary that added analytical depth. The story was picked up by three tier-one trade publications and a national business supplement. The firm appeared in coverage as a source of insight rather than as a promotional subject. The approach taught me that creating your own news, by generating data or commissioning research, is often more effective than trying to make an inherently un-newsworthy company interesting.

A senior executive wanted to send a press release announcing that we had been shortlisted for an industry award. I had to explain, diplomatically, that shortlist announcements are generally not picked up by the press because they are self-promotional and provide no value to a journalist's reader. The executive was frustrated because they had seen a competitor make a similar announcement. I acknowledged their competitive instinct but explained the distinction between what a competitor does and what actually generates coverage, and offered an alternative: if we won, we would have a genuine news moment. I proposed using the shortlist in our owned channels in the meantime, where it would have genuine credibility and reach. I also prepared a draft release for the win scenario so it was ready to go the moment results were announced. The executive agreed. We won, the release went out within two hours, and we secured three trade placements that week. Managing the expectation before the result meant the win landed as news rather than as the announcement we had been building to for months.

Most press releases fail because they are written for the company issuing them rather than for the journalist receiving them. A press release that gets read starts with a headline that tells the whole story in one sentence, without jargon. The first paragraph answers the who, what, when, where, and why in plain English: a journalist should be able to understand the story from the first paragraph alone. The second paragraph provides supporting context. The quote comes third and should add genuine perspective, not just repeat the facts or say something generic. I write quotes that a real person might actually say. Supporting data and background come in descending order of importance so the journalist can cut from the bottom without losing the key information. I keep press releases to a single page wherever possible. The distribution list is never a spray: I select recipients based on beat and publication relevance for each specific story, because a press release sent to irrelevant journalists damages future credibility with those contacts.

Executive profiling works when the executive has something genuinely interesting to say and the discipline to stay on message. The first step is understanding what the executive's perspective actually is and where it diverges from received opinion in the sector. If their view is not distinctive, a profile will not generate much coverage. I work with executives to identify two or three positions they hold that are either counter-intuitive or specific enough to be quotable. From there, I find the formats and publications where those positions have the most relevance. Long-form interviews work well for trade press. Contributed articles allow the executive to make an argument without a journalist shaping the framing. Speaker slots at industry events create coverage opportunities without direct pitching. I also prepare executives thoroughly for media interactions: briefing documents, practice sessions for broadcast media, and clear guidance on what not to say. The single biggest risk in executive profiling is an unscripted comment that creates a problem bigger than the coverage it was trying to generate.

Coverage monitoring has two layers: tracking what is being said and understanding what it means for the organisation's reputation. For tracking I use media monitoring tools, Google Alerts for key terms and individuals, and social listening for real-time signals. I set up monitoring for the brand, key executives, main competitors, and the sector topics we care about. But raw monitoring is not insight: I review full coverage weekly to assess sentiment, message pull-through, and share of voice against competitors. I maintain a share-of-voice tracker updated monthly, comparing our coverage volume and quality against two or three key competitors in each publication tier. For reputation specifically, I track whether coverage in tier-one media is positive, neutral, or negative, and I flag any patterns that suggest a narrative is developing that we have not addressed. The most valuable thing a PR manager can do for a leadership team is identify the narrative forming around the organisation and give enough warning to shape it before it sets.