Tonight, I’m participating in a tweet chat for small business owners. One question related to utilizing HARO (Help A Reporter Out) to generate coverage. I’ve used HARO for several years – I was somewhere in the neighborhood of the 2,000th subscriber. I think Peter is now up to more than 100,000! It’s a great resource to connect expert sources with reporters working on stories. And it’s free.
In the chat tonight, I pointed out that I thought a good pitch included solid information, two or three points speaking to the query itself and a legit source. Someone asked for an example. Here ’tis. In this case, the client did not have a working website at the time, so that’s not included in the pitch. In most cases, I would include a website link if it’s a useful resource for the reporter.
Hi, Shira. For your consideration: Joshua Rotenberg, M.D., is a board certified neurologist specializing in sleep disorders. In private practice in San Antonio, Texas, Rotenberg is medical director for Academy Diagnostics LLC Sleep Center and a fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. He spent ten years in the U.S. Air Force studying the impact of sleep disorders on military personnel in high-demand occupations, such as pilots and astronauts. According to Rotenberg, “curing sleep disorders will have the greatest effect of any public-health measure in terms of adding productive years to life.”
Each year, sleep disorders, sleep deprivation, and sleepiness add an estimated $15.9 billion to the national health care bill, according to the National Center of Sleep Disorders Research.
According to Rotenberg, among the detrimental effects of not sleeping enough are:
* difficulties in performing tasks
* impaired moral reasoning and judgment
* increased traffic accidents
Depending on the cause of the sleep deprivation, there can be additional effects, including an increased risk for heart attack and stroke, attentional lapses, reduced short-term memory capacity, impaired judgment and the occurrence of “microsleeps.”
Quick fact: We sleep on average 90 minutes less than we did before the invention of the lightbulb!
Rotenberg would be happy to answer any of your questions. I can either set something up by phone or email, if you are interested.
Have a great day and good luck with your story.
Filed Under : 
Apr.30,2010
Tags : public relations
