Get Featured in Times Herald-Record

Being local does not make Times Herald-Record easy to get into. A community newsroom has limited reporters and limited hours, so stories about businesses, practices and organizations often wait behind news that has to run today. With a guaranteed placement, the outlet is confirmed first, you approve every word, and the article publishes on recordonline.com inside the window written into your scope, usually one to two weeks. It is a real article on the site that you can put in a proposal, a deck or a profile.

What Times Herald-Record covers

What does a local news publication cover? Whatever matters to the people nearby. For Times Herald-Record, that means news for readers in New York: the kind of reporting on local government, business, schools, roads, real estate, events, sports and community life that larger outlets leave alone. A story earns its place by being relevant to the area, not by being big. Its reporting is published at recordonline.com.

Local reporting treats a community as a set of people and places with names. In that setting, an opening, an expansion, an award, a new hire, a charity drive or a new service is news, provided it is told with facts. Owners, professionals, nonprofits, event organizers and creative people with a local tie are all familiar subjects of this kind of coverage.

Who reads Times Herald-Record

The readership of a local news publication is concentrated where the publication is. For Times Herald-Record, that is a community in New York. Its readers include longtime residents, families, local employers and employees, community leaders and neighbors who follow local affairs. They read with attention because the news concerns places they know and people they may have met.

Local coverage carries a kind of weight that advertising does not. When neighbors read about a business, a practice or a cause in their community’s news publication, the name becomes familiar and easier to choose. For companies entering the market from elsewhere, it is a way to introduce themselves to the area in a setting locals already read.

What local coverage in New York does for you

For most companies, the people who matter most are within driving distance. A feature in Times Herald-Record speaks to that group directly, because its readers have a stake in what happens in New York. Coverage there can support word of mouth, give your sales conversations a local reference, and show up when someone in New York looks for information about you or your company.

Those who ask for coverage in New York are often professionals whose work depends on reputation in a defined area, such as attorneys, physicians, financial advisers, builders and agents. Event organizers, schools and hospitality venues are common as well, along with national brands that are launching a new location in New York.

Out-of-area companies and longtime locals face the same test: is there a reason for people in this community to care? For a newcomer, it may be jobs, a new location or a service not offered nearby. For an established name, it may be growth, history or community work. Either way, specifics carry the story.

The angles below are where we begin. One clear angle, backed by real details about your work in the community, makes a better local story than a list of everything you offer.

What weakens a pitch

• Nothing new. A local story needs a reason to run now, such as a date, a change, an event or a recent result.
• Missing details. Without a location, a description of what you do and a clear timeline, a feature reads as generic and local readers move on.
• Claims that cannot be supported. Local readers know the area and will notice exaggeration, and we only write what is accurate.
• A story with no people in it. Community news is about neighbors, so a feature needs an owner, a team or a client perspective.