Pitching newspapers

- You have your eye on a specific newspaper, perhaps it's the New York Times or the LA Times, and you would love to get featured, but how do you get noticed by their reporters? When it comes to newspapers, reporters are often given specific beats. This means each reporter is responsible for sourcing, researching and reporting content for a specific topic. For example, politics, business, or health. From the newspaper's point of view, it's great because these reporters will develop relationships with sources who can potentially share exclusive stories relevant to their focus. So how does this help you? So let's say your company is tech focused. Your first step is to find out which reporter specifically covers tech. You can find which reporter covers this by logging onto the newspaper's website and searching for the tech section. If you see the same name on several tech articles, chances are that's the reporter's beat. Click on their name, and sometimes you'll find more information in their bio. Make sure to only send tech stories to tech reporters and business stories to business reporters unless you can find a unique angle to make it relevant to another beat. This will make the person feel like you're following their work, and that it's a more personal interaction versus just a email blast. This is important because if the reporter starts noticing your name and associating you with irrelevant pitches, they might start ignoring your emails, or worst yet, throwing you into spam. Many traditional newspapers also have reporters who are focused on current events. If your company has a particular timely event, a grand opening, or something that's of interest to the community right now, you can expand your pitch to these current event reporters. They'll likely have titles like general assignment reporters or city editors. Now expecting to get covered by the New York Times is a difficult task, so don't feel discouraged if they don't respond. You can actually secure newspaper coverage locally as well, so perhaps reaching out to regional papers, it'll give you a better shot, and chances are, they're structured the exact same way as bigger publications. Again, newspapers, they often divide their people into specific focus areas so make sure you target those reporters that cover the industry that you're in.