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Controversial Tea Party politician Christine O'Donnell has a new book out and GateHouse Media's Dover Post wrote a feature story recently about what she penned.
“Troublemaker: Let's Do What It Takes to Make America Great Again," looks at her famous 2010 campaign run. It hit bookstores last week.
The Dover Post's feature story on the book coming out was something most media in the area or state would have done. O'Donnell, even a year after she failed to get her elected, is still really big news, especially in Delaware. But what makes the paper's online post noteworthy is their multimedia work.
The paper was able to track down an audio clip from the book and has it featured on their website, along with the story.
Reporter Antonio Prado told me how they did it:
"I sent an email out to anyone who would listen to let them know I was trying to get a hold of Christine O'Donnell for her new book. That included the media liaison for ChristinePAC and Esther Bochner, a senior publicist from Macmillan Audio. I had her email within one of the Christine O'Donnell emails I had archived in the event she popped up again in the news; this month her book was coming out.
While Matt Moran, her chief P.R. man got me an interview with O'Donnell, Bochner wrote back and asked if I was interested in a clip from the audio version of the book. I responded within a moment of her email and had it in my lap in the next minute."
Audio can be an outstanding related element to stories and the the O'Donnell story is a good example of when to do it. While the paper could offer in the text of their story a few graphs from her book, the audio, which gives readers the ability to hear it straight from O'Donnell, is quite engaging. Sure, it's a plug for her book, but it's great content and a nice way of delivering that content.
If you can track down audio clips for book reviews or book features, do it. While the popularity of audio and podcasts has somewhat fallen out of favor in recent years, I love it when newspapers offer audio for things like 911 calls, nice slideshows and important speeches (as long it's not a 40-minute speech.)
Just as video provides emotion in a way that printed words can't, audio has the same potential.
Check out story ideas, interesting ways to use Web tools and any way journalists are reaching out to readers.
