Unfortunately there is often little relationship between the merit of an idea and the amount and quality of press coverage that it attracts. In order to get ideas publicised, the person with the idea has to acquire skills in communicating through the various media, and William Tyson’s book Pitch Perfect: Communicating with Traditional and Social Media for Scholars, Researchers and Academic Leaders is designed to explain what those skills entail.
The book provides a basic description of how the media work and how to develop a media strategy, and it goes on to give advice on a range of different interactions with the media including: presenting your story in writing, contacting the media, presenting new research findings, how to respond when a reporter calls, conducting media interviews, writing opinion articles, delivering speeches and promoting books. A number of useful traditional media contacts in the US, Canada and the UK are listed in appendices.
I was a bit surprised to find that instructions on how to communicate using social media were limited to one chapter (although the chapter on book promotion also referred to social media). In my view the book provides a very useful manual for academics to use in communicating with traditional media, but for a complete overview of how to get ideas publicised academics will need also to consult other resources which deal more extensively with non-traditional media.