An Interview with Kyle Wagner of The Denver Post

From pink slips to hat tricks, former Rocky reporter turned PR pro Erika Gonzales sheds light on the ever-changing media landscape. This week she interviews Kyle Wagner of The Denver Post.

You’d probably have better luck catching President Obama at his desk than Denver Post Travel Editor Kyle Wagner. As you read this, the dedicated road warrior probably has one hand on the wheel of an RV and the other hand on a video camera.
I caught up with Kyle before she departed on a four-week trip that included at least one houseboat, several national parks and countless hours logging her adventures on the laptop. Here are the highlights of my interview with her:

How do you prefer to receive pitches?

Via email

How far in advance do you work?

A good six months. The (travel) section prints on Tuesday for Sunday, so generally if it’s something that’s going to go in on Sunday I like to have everything the Friday before, for planning purposes.

What’s the best time to reach you?

It varies. I’m hardly ever at my desk. It’s really catch as catch can and that’s why email is really the best. I check it at 6 a.m. I check it at midnight. I’m tweeting, I’m Facebooking, I’m blogging. It’s such a 24-hour day job anymore.

With pitches, I really like to look at it and visualize the information. I literally get about a thousand (pitches) a day.  To try to process that information in a phone call is insane.

What’s the biggest mistake a PR person can make when pitching you?

Just continuing to come at me by calling and saying, “Did you get my press release?” I’m getting stuff internationally. If I go away or if I take a vacation, I come back to 3,000 unanswered emails. I just can’t call people back and say yes I got it, because I would be able to do nothing else.  I need people to understand that if I’m going to use it, I’ll get back to you.

Where do find story ideas?

It’s a mix. I have 12 themed issues a year that are advertising-driven. A ski guide, something on family-friendly travel, where do people go in Colorado – those are things advertising loves to sell. I know those will happen every year. And then, there are hot topics. What are the hot places to travel? California is a big destination and Vegas is a big destination, so I’m always thinking of those places first. Beyond that, internationally what are the hot spots?

I also read every major travel magazine. I look at what are people talking about culturally. I read the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times and I think the Miami Herald has a really great travel section. And, I look at reader feedback. I talk to people on planes. Business travelers tend to be really plugged in. I hear from people who literally do travel three weeks out of the month.

What’s the biggest challenge of your job?

I can’t be everywhere at once and there is so much more information to be processed than we can possibly handle. We’re revamping the Web site (it will launch June 28th) and I’m really excited for that because it will improve the amount of information we can provide. It will help a lot.

Are there travel-related topics you refuse to cover?

It used to be that I didn’t do things that were more business-oriented, but we’re actually changing that and were going to cover more business topics in this section. We’ve restructured the section so I can have staffers who will write for the section.