Written from the receiving end of the pitch. What gets opened, what gets deleted, and how to give a reporter a story they can say yes to today.
We run a newsroom. Pitches land in it every day, and most of them are gone in under five seconds. This is not written from the agency side of that transaction. It is written from the desk, about what actually gets a story assigned.
Almost every deleted pitch fails one of three tests, and the reporter applied them before finishing your first sentence.
It was about you, not about the reader. "Company X announces Y" is a fact about your company. A story is about what changes for the people who read that outlet. If you cannot say who cares and why in one line, the reporter cannot either, and they do not have time to work it out for you.
It had no reason to run this week. News is time-bound. A product that has existed for six months, a hire made last quarter, a partnership with no date attached: none of these compete with what is happening today. Give the reporter a peg or accept that you are pitching a feature, which is a much slower and much harder conversation.
It went to the wrong person. Sending a fintech story to the reporter who covers consumer retail because they are at a big outlet is the most common mistake we see. It also tells the reporter you did not read their work, which ends the relationship before it starts.
Strip away the tactics and a reporter needs four things to say yes.
A claim that is new. Not new to you. New to their readers. First, largest, only, reversed, contradicts what everyone assumed. If the claim is not new, the story is a feature at best.
Proof they can check. Numbers with a source. A document. A customer who will talk. A dataset. Reporters are trained to distrust adjectives, and "leading" and "innovative" cost you credibility with every use.
A person who will speak plainly. Founders who answer the question asked, in sentences a reader would use, get quoted. Founders who recite messaging get paraphrased or cut. Media training should teach people to be more themselves, not less.
A clean handoff. Everything the reporter needs in one place: the facts, the spokesperson's availability, the images, the embargo terms if any. Every follow-up email you force them to send is a reason to move on to the next story.
Keep it short enough to read on a phone without scrolling. Subject line is the story, not the company name. First sentence is the claim. Second is why now. Third is the proof. Then offer the interview and stop. If you need more than that, the story is not clear enough yet.
Send it to one reporter at a time at each outlet, and mean it. Mass pitches are visible and are treated accordingly.
An exclusive gives one outlet the story first, in exchange for a bigger, more considered piece. It works when the story is strong enough that the outlet will invest in it, and it works once. Offer the same exclusive to two outlets and you will never get either of them on the phone again.
An embargo shares the story with several reporters ahead of time, with an agreed publication moment. It works for announcements where breadth matters more than depth, like a funding round. It requires trust, which means it works with reporters who already know you.
Neither replaces having a story. They are ways of distributing one.
The story running is the middle of the process, not the end. Push it through your own channels the same day. Put it in front of your customers, your investors, and your team. Thank the reporter briefly and privately, and do not ask them to change anything unless it is factually wrong. Then start building the next one, because the outlets that covered you once are the easiest to get to cover you twice.
Whether you do this yourself or bring in a firm, the standard is the same: would a busy editor assign this story today, on the merits, with what you have given them? Everything else is noise.
We built our media relations practice on the fact that we sit on both sides of this. We know what the inbox looks like because it is our inbox too.
Gokhshtein PR is a full-service firm: earned media, thought leadership, launches, crisis, and investor communications for founders, brands, and leaders in any sector — one senior team, inside a daily newsroom.