Four Ways to Find a Reporter's Email Address

Email addresses are hiding in plain sight.

You conducted your SWOT analysis (https://bit.ly/42tCwZ8) and compared your appearances in news stories to your competitors.

You've identified the local newspaper's business reporters, the journalists at the regional business magazine and the writers at the industry publications that cover your clients’ businesses.

Here are four places to locate a reporter's email address, so you can introduce yourself and your insights to these journalists.

Check the reporter's byline or endline. In a print publication, there may be an email address after the reporter's name or at the end of the article. In an article online, there may be a link to the reporter's email address, which may open a pop-up window for easy correspondence.

Joseph Spector is the Government and Politics Editor for USA TODAY. He can be reached at [email protected] or followed on Twitter: @GannettAlbany

Review the masthead. A print magazine will list all the reporters and editors, with the specific beats or areas they cover. It usually includes their individual email addresses and sometimes their phone numbers. Some publications include the masthead on their websites.

Look up their X (Twitter) account. Journalists may include their email address in their bio, so that tipsters can send them information privately, without broadcasting a source or an idea for a news story to the X/Twitter universe.

Search for a personal website. Some reporters aggregate their published news stories on their own website. There generally is a Contact page, with either a form or an email address.

You can also try contacting reporters via LinkedIn and Facebook, as a last resort. Note that many view this approach as intrusive and not respectful of professional and personal boundaries.

There are several media databases that track reporters and publications: Cision, Meltwater, Muckrack and Propel, to name a few. Public Relations professionals like myself subscribe to these databases; they are far too expensive for occasional use.

Tip

Assemble the names and emails in a database or spreadsheet. Keep track of these details:

* Outlet Name

* First Name (useful for merge mail)

* Last Name

* Email address

* Phone

* Status of latest contact

Contact

Reporters are always looking for new sources, so take the initiative to introduce yourself via email. Contact me at [email protected] , book an appointment here (https://go.oncehub.com/JanetFalk) or call me at 212.677.5770. Let’s start gathering names and emails for your media list.