Felicity Carter has an interesting article in Meininger's International in which she addresses one reason some bev/al can't get media attention: The product just isn't very good. In that case, she argues, the media is doing the winery, distillery or brewery (or its p.r. agency) a favor, because the resulting story might be disastrous.

I teach public relations as well as producing an industry newsletter for more than 40 years (and that after working as an editor at three major newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal), so let me offer another reason your beverage might not get media attention.

You misunderstand the role of the media. You think it's our job to promote your product. It's not. If we write a story and it helps you increase sales, that's fine and, actually, most of us are happy for you. But it's not our job to boost your sales. If you want to be sure the media will boost your sales, buy an ad.

If you buy an ad, you can be sure it will be favorable. If we write about your product, we have an obligation to tell the truth about your product. If your product is awful, we're going to say so.

An article about you, your company or your product needs to be newsy. It has to be new, with the exception of stories about holidays. And it has to be timely; timeliness is the art and essence of journalism. A press release about an event that occurred a couple of weeks ago is pretty much worthless for a daily or weekly publication, broadcast or podcast.

We also want to tell an interesting story. Public relations people used to understand this. I'm not so sure many of them do any more. I probably get two or more emails a day simply asking for coverage of this or that product – not because it's new to the marketplace, not because it just won an award, not because it's a new flavor, or in a new package, but just because it exists.

The fundamental concept is it's not about you or me – it's about your customer or our reader, and what meets his needs or is of interest to him.

Whether you get into our newsletter, into another publication or blog or on the air may well depend upon who you are; by that I mean how big you are. We are more likely to publish a story about a product with national distribution than a product that's distributed solely in a 50,000-person market. The larger the product in terms of cases, the better.

On the other hand, size isn't quite as important to local media as where you are located. The North Bay Business Journal or the San Francisco Chronicle is more likely to cover a local company than one hundreds or thousands of miles away.

The same, by the way, is true at The Wall Street Journal: larger companies are more likely to be covered than small companies. Why? If they are public companies, a large company will have more shareholders and employees who will be interested in the story than will a smaller firm.

None of this is to say that you shouldn't send news releases. By all means, please do. If you introduce a new product, by all means tell us about it. We'll be happy to report that in many cases. Likewise, be sure to share personnel notices. If your company is celebrating its fifth, tenth, 25th or 50th anniversary, let us know. Anniversary stories can be wonderful to report and wonderful to read.

Just remember: for the media to use your story it must be earned – it must be intrinsically interesting or important. If you want to insure your story is told the way you want it told, when you want it told, buy an ad.