Richard Windsor, digital editor, Cycling Weekly

How do you prefer to be contacted by PRs?

Preferably by email. I am inundated with press releases on a daily basis and don’t usually have time to respond quickly. But if it’s in my inbox I will come back to it later. I don’t mind occasional phone calls if it’s an exclusive or a really big story, but I don’t like being badgered if I’ve made it clear I’m not interested.

What is the most useful service PRs provide?

Case studies can be vital, particularly for features in newspapers and magazines, so a PR good at providing those is a godsend. A PR who is able to put me in touch with the top people in a company is useful too. Reliability and honesty are also crucial. And I go back time and again to PRs who can get information I need quickly and without fuss.

What wouldn’t you trust a PR to supply?

I’ve been let down in the past by PRs who have promised case studies and they’ve either failed to materialise or fallen through at the last minute because the PR hasn’t done their homework. And I’ve been promised information which then takes days to arrive...I’m cautious about being promised things which they can’t follow through on.

Do you think people who have trained as journalists make good PRs?

For the most part, yes. Journalists generally know how to write good press releases as they are professional wordsmiths and know how to write a release that will pique the interest of a journalist. I do some PR consultancy and I always approach a press release like I approach writing an article: tell it in the same way and you’re pushing at an open door with a journo who is pressed for time and wants as much useful info in the press release as possible. Journalists also have a thorough understanding of the pressures of working in a newsroom or magazine hub and are therefore often easier to deal with when they switch to PR.