Earlier this summer we welcomed Erin Ivie as a Senior Communications Counselor to the FCP team. Erin joins us after working for years as a breaking news reporter at the San Jose Mercury News, Oakland Tribune and Contra Costa Times; and consulting at public affairs and public relations firms in San Francisco.
We caught up with Erin to answer a few questions we didn’t quite get around to in her bio. You can also follow her on Twitter @erin_ivie or drop her a line at erin@fcpcommunications.com.
What do you bring that’s new to Full Court Press?
My reporter cap. The FCP team as a whole has strong journalistic instincts, but I bring something new in that I was once a working journalist. We like to throw the ol’ reporter cap back on my head and look at our work through that critical lens — nothing moves off our desks that wouldn’t work for me as a journalist.
What’s the best communications advice you’ve ever received?
“Meet someone exactly where they are.” When I was a reporter, I knew I was never going to get someone to open up to me for a story by rushing them with cold, phoned-in questions and a hasty remark that I’m on deadline. People tell authentic stories when you meet them where they are — that is, when you approach them from a place of their values, their priorities, and what they want to talk about. The same goes for communications — developing messages, working with the media, and writing content. You’re not going to reach an audience by considering only what resonates with you and your goals, or build a working relationship that serves only your best interest. Of course the difficult questions must (and should, and will) be asked, but establishing that trust is paramount to evoking an honest answer. It’s the foundation of authentic and effective communication; and to me, it’s non-negotiable.
A former editor once told me I should be a therapist if journalism didn’t work out, since so many of my interviews evolved into sessions of total catharsis. They’re great until you blow deadline.
Interesting! You think that’s what you’d be going for if you didn’t join FCP?
You know, no. As much as I love connecting with people, I love communications and storytelling too much to exist in a cone of silence. I have to be able to go between “off” and “on the record,” and to interact with audiences as much as individuals.
So FCP’s kind of your dream gig, then.
FCP is a dream job, in a dream career. My dream GIG is to audit businesses who post signs, marquees and advertising materials with misspellings and grammatical errors. My time as a copy editor trained me to hone in on any content mistake in my line of sight with laserlike precision, and I catch around five per day. I’d make a lot of money with that side hustle, and I AM planning a wedding here.
What’s one thing we’d be surprised to learn about you?
I paid my way through college working as a sushi chef.
If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
My affinity for avocados is right up there with my family, my work, and dogs that smile a lot.
So, journalism or communications — you love one more than the other?
I don’t like to look at it as a binary, at least as it relates to my life and career trajectory. Journalists LOVE to say (some more seriously than others) that leaving journalism for PR is a move to “the dark side,” and I don’t buy it. Not in this case. As social impact communicators, we help clients who are doing incredible work but lack either the tools, bandwidth, media experience or comfort-level to speak effectively about just how impactful they are. Bringing to light the good in the world is the opposite of occupying a dark space — the stories that come from our clients’ work give us reason to feel hopeful. Working with journalists to surface these stories allows me to exist at the intersection of these two passions — it’s a hell of a niche, if I do say so myself.