Advice from the Media | Robert Whitcomb
>Name: Robert Whitcomb
Title: Vice President and Editorial-Page Editor
Media Outlet: The Providence Journal
Twitter Handle: @arbustwit
Personal Blog: This New England Blog
1) Describe your typical workday in 140 characters or less.
Chronologically: Read news and opinion, meet with people, edit, write for newspaper, do administrative paperwork, put words and art in blog.
2) What’s the best pitch you’ve ever received?
From PR folks for Cape Wind describing the exciting potential benefits of offshore windpower.
3) The greatest words of wisdom an editor ever gave you?
Assume first that everyone you talk with (and you) might be wrong and don’t ramble.
4) If there was one thing you could tell every PR practitioner, what would it be?
Send rigorously factually verified and typographically clean copy that looks outside conventional wisdom.
5) What’s your craziest or most interesting newsroom story?
The placement of a typewriter cover over the head of an editor who died suddenly in the Boston Herald Traveler newsroom; the show went on.
6) What sets your reporting (or page) apart from the competition?
Our pages have literary, scientific and other material normally associated with a national magazine. They might (or might not) be the worldliest commentary pages in New England.
