“Pitch with my readers, not me, in mind.”
That’s advice from one of the best journalists in the business.
PR folks got a windfall recently when Wall Street Journal reporter James Rundle served up a 500-word post on LinkedIn that gives some wise pitching guidelines.
“I write for an audience, and that’s the lens I view the story through,” Rundle says.
He gives us a good reminder that reporters also have to pitch stories themselves—to their bosses.
To do that, he says, he needs “clear, structured facts that give me what I need to make a decision about whether or not to pitch it to my editor.”
Before you pitch Rundle, he advises that you familiarize yourself with his beat. “My stories always have a corporate nexus somewhere.”
Although much of the advice focuses squarely on his beat, the cybersecurity business, Rundle’s post offers some valuable tips that apply to pitching in general.
For him, a good pitch starts with actual news. Something he hasn’t heard before, or that nobody else has.
And it should be grounded in credible data, “not a survey of a few dozen clients that draws wild conclusions about the state of the industry.”
For Rundle, the best sources are subject matter experts, people with firsthand experience of the topic.
In the end, good pitching isn’t about persuading a journalist to care about your client. It’s about helping them serve theirs.
“I’m really not trying to do the smug journalist thing,” he says. “Just saving us all some time.”
For more specific info about how a Wall Street Journal reporter operates, here’s the post.
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