*Excerpted from SPIN Works! The nuts & bolts of good PR: A media guidebook for public interest organizations. By Robert Bray. Copyright 1999 SPIN Project/Independent Media Institute, 77 Federal Street, San Francisco, CA 94107. 415.284-1427, info@spinproject.org.

Knowing who to call and where to go in the newsroom is important information for identifying reporters who might cover your story and responding to media coverage. Of course, each newsroom is different. Some newsrooms are evolving out of the traditional "beat desk" layout and are creating a team approach in which several reporters cover multiple issues.

Get to know who works where in the newsroom. Pick up the phone, call and ask who covers what beat at your local paper. Visit the newsroom or broadcast station when they have public tours. Learn your way around the newsroom and you will become a more effective media activist.

Included here is the layout of a typical newspaper newsroom. It is a fairly streamlined hierarchical arrangement, with the publisher at the top, senior editors right below, followed by reporters and copy editors.

Television stations are similarly organized except an executive news producer will be near the top "editor" position, with associate producers and correspondents below. In television the beats are often less defined-except for key beats, such as "city hall" or the state legislature. One correspondent may cover a number of different stories in one day. Radio newsrooms are usually much smaller, with a news director at the top and individual reporters making up the ranks.

Who to call
When pitching stories or responding to coverage, it is important to remember that your first line of contact is always with the individual reporter.

If a reporter makes a mistake or misquotes you in an article, always speak directly to that reporter -- not his or her editor. Only as a last resort do you escalate. This is disrespectful. Also, you rarely, if ever, will interact with the highest echelons of the media outlet -- the owner, publisher or executive editor -- on day-to-day coverage of your news. Your focus should be on reporters and those editors immediately above them.

By the way, if the headline to an article is way off, do not call the reporter to complain. Headlines are generally not written by the reporters who wrote the articles; they are written by news editors or copy editors. You can let the reporter know your opinion, but acknowledge the fact that someone else wrote it.

Do not call several reporters at one media outlet to pitch the same story. People in the newsroom generally know what others are doing and editors have a grip on the entire operation. Ask your key contact if she or he is interested. If not, ask who else you may call. If you do pitch another reporter at the same media outlet, let each reporter know that the other has been pitched. That way no one is caught by surprise.

Even if the story has potential in different departments -- "Lifestyle," "Business" or "Metro" -- always start with your key reporter contacts. If you do not have key contacts, cold-call a couple of reporters or general assignment editors and ask who would be interested.

Other newsroom figures to remember and possibly call are:

• Photo desk editors. Typically, news editors or reporters will notify photographers but it never hurts to let the person staffing the photo desk know if there is a particularly good photo op.
• Assignment editors. They triage coverage of stories on any given day.
• Ombudsman/woman. This is the liaison between the community and the media, usually at newspapers and magazines, and often acts as the "conscience" of the paper.
• Copy editors. In newspapers and magazines, copy editors often proofread, write headlines and edit stories.
• Fact checkers. Often the bigger media outlets, especially magazines, will have a fact check department that verifies facts and other elements of stories. You may get a call from the fact checkers long after doing an interview, asking you to verify your name or some other pertinent fact. The fact checkers will not read the entire story to you, nor are they asking for your "approval" on the piece. Do not consider this an opportunity to "rewrite" the article for the journalist. Fact checkers are just checking the facts.
• Editorial and advertising departments. These two departments are always separate, usually physically distinguished in another part of the building. However, at some media outlets the lines appear to be blurred as more "news" looks like infomercials for advertisers. If you have a complaint about an editorial, call the editorial page editor. If an advertisement warrants comment or response, call the advertising director.