Horus 3 min read
Newsjacking: how to know when you have something to add
A big story breaks, and someone on the team asks: “Should we put our CEO forward?” Before drafting a quote, work out what the reporter could learn from them.
A generic executive quote usually gives a reporter another email to sort. A measurement, a firsthand explanation, or access to someone affected can help them advance the story.
Ask what the next story needs
Suppose a major cloud provider has an outage. The first reports establish what failed and who was affected. Follow-up stories might examine recovery, dependencies, customer losses, or whether a backup plan worked.
An infrastructure company could contribute evidence about failover behavior. A customer could describe the operational impact. A vendor selling an unrelated tool probably has little to add.
Read the coverage before deciding which of those conversations you belong in. Check what reporters have already established so you do not send them yesterday's explanation.
Use three questions to decide
Do we know something useful? Identify the fact, experience, or analysis you can contribute. “Our CEO is available to comment” is an offer of time, not evidence of relevance.
Can we support it now? Confirm the source of the data, the limits of the claim, and whether the spokesperson is available. An unapproved chart does not help a reporter on deadline.
Does it fit this reporter's next question? Look at their current article and recent coverage. A technical explanation may suit one reporter; business impact may suit another.
If any answer is weak, keep monitoring or develop the idea for a later piece.
Turn coverage into a short brief
In Horus, use Watcher to investigate the event and related coverage. Pulse can help surface relevant client and topic news in the daily briefing, but a weekday briefing is not a breaking-news alert service.
Ask a connected agent to summarize what the stored stories establish, identify unanswered questions, and show the links and publication times. Then compare those gaps with what your team can prove.
David Linthicum · InfoWorld. His July 3 column on cloud outages examines how failures spread beyond one provider. Offer measured recovery times and the dependencies that prevented failover.
Make the contribution specific. His June 12 analysis points to configuration errors and control-plane complexity. A test showing why a backup failed would add more than a general warning to “use multiple clouds.”
Write a brief with four lines: what happened, what remains unclear, what we can contribute, and who needs that information. Mark uncertain details before anyone drafts a pitch.
Make the offer easy to assess
Lead with the contribution. For example: “We measured recovery times across three failover configurations. Our engineer can explain which dependency delayed recovery and share the test conditions.”
That example works only if you have the measurements and access. Do not force a connection because the story is attracting attention. Sensitive events also call for judgment about whether commercial commentary belongs at all.
If the only connection is that your company operates in the same industry, you probably don't have a pitch yet.
Once the angle holds up, use the reporter research checklist to decide whom to approach.