4 tips to make your pitches more useful to reporters

Reporters are working in a very different media environment than they were five years ago, but what they want from PR pros hasn’t really changed.

They want relevant ideas, credible information and access to people who can help them tell a story. It’s equally important to know what they don’t want.

During Ragan’s Public Relations Certificate Course, April Yue, assistant professor of public relations at Boston University, referred to research asking journalists which PR practices they have “zero tolerance” for.

Learn more from Yue and other experts with Ragan Training here.

Four stood out to her. These include irrelevant pitches, glorified advertisements, inaccurate or unsourced information and repeated follow-ups.

Here’s what communicators should do instead.

Before pitching anything, know what the journalist actually covers.

This should be a basic requirement, but Yue said it matters even more as reporters receive tons of pitches daily and AI makes mass outreach easier.

“We still have to do our homework,” Yue said. “We still have to do a lot of research on who we’re talking to.”

Don’t make the reporter figure out why your story belongs in their inbox. Make the connection clear immediately, she said.