Newsjacking: How to Inject your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage

Copyright © 2012 by David Meerman Scott. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

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ISBN 978-1-118-25230-7 (eMobi)

ISBN 978-1-118-25231-4 (ePub)

The Rules Have Changed

The eyes of the U.S. national news media were focused on America's heartland on the afternoon of August 13, 2011. They were drawn by Iowa's Ames Straw Poll, the first chance for Republican presidential contenders to test voter sentiment.

Meanwhile, a thousand miles east in South Carolina, another story was unfolding—one that quickly overshadowed the Straw Poll. Texas Governor Rick Perry officially announced that he, too, was running for the Republican nomination.

Rick Perry newsjacked the Iowa Straw Poll.

Eight candidates had barnstormed Iowa for weeks, spending buckets of money and time on a state with few electoral votes just because this was the first opportunity in the marathon of primaries to post a score. The media, eager to spot a Republican frontrunner in the 2012 U.S. presidential race, turned out in force.

In the end, it hardly mattered that Michele Bachmann came in first with 28.6 percent or that Ron Paul was runner-up. Who was in the TV news spotlight that night? Rick Perry. Who were all the online news sites and bloggers talking