But here’s most important thing to remember about reporters if you want to get free publicity:

Very often, they’re responsible for coming up with their own story ideas. This is called "enterprising."

This is where you can become reporter’s best friend - and reap a bonanza of free publicity for yourself.

For sake of convenience, I’m going to group newspaper columnists with reporters in this discussion. (This may bother some columnists but I hope they forgive me.)

I’m also going to group print reporters with broadcast reporters. (This will REALLY bother some print reporters, but I hope they also forgive me.)

I’m going to talk about anyone who loosely fits description of "beat" reporter. Anyone who’s responsible for staying-current-with-and-reporting-on a certain topic like technology, business, crime, government, health, travel, consumer affairs, etc.

And let’s not forget real heroes of everyday journalism: general assignment reporters and feature reporters.

While everyone I just mentioned sometimes gets assigned to cover certain stories, very often they find themselves responsible for coming up with their own ideas. This is where your opportunity lies.

No reporter will expect you to act like an insider, but you'll get a lot more respect - and attention - if you can speak language of newsroom.

It’s not like learning Mandarin. In fact, all you need to do is sprinkle your pitch with a couple of catchwords and phrases. For instance:

Newshook - Connecting a story to something that’s already in news makes it more interesting. For instance: a hot topic right now is airline security. A story about a company that’s developing a retinal scan or a handprint identification device would automatically appeal to news decision-makers.

Local Angle - Events happening on a national or even international stage still can have local impact. Most obvious example: when U.S recently began bombing Afghanistan, many local reserve units were called up. That offered a variety of possibilities, including:

Human Interest Stories - We all saw video of destruction at World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Somerset, Pennsylvania. Stories that followed about impact on families who lost loved ones in attacks were human interest stories.

Such stories appeal to everyone because - among other reasons - we all ask ourselves, "What if it were me?"