Why pitching is a competition
And how to make sure your pitch gets a podium position
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Coming up with a perfectly good story idea and pitching it well is, frustratingly, often no longer enough to get the results you want.
As a journalist, I constantly get pitched stories which have nothing wrong with them. They are decent ideas and the pitch has been well-executed. But the brutal truth is that in the current media climate, a “good” pitch still might not cut through.
What you need, is a competitive one.
This became really clear to me recently, when I was doing a pitch feedback session with a brand. I had to break it to the team that I couldn’t see their pitch getting any national coverage, but not because it was a bad idea or poorly pitched. It just wasn’t competitive enough to make it to the top of the pile, among all the other stories in that sector put out on a daily basis.
In health news (which is my field - but the same scenario applies in every other specialism), for example, every day specialist health journalists at mainstream news outlets will select roughly between two and five stories to pitch to their editors, which will ultimately usually end up as one to three stories featuring in the publication.
In order to choose what to pitch to their editors, these journalists will have to choose which they think are the strongest stories out of everything that comes across their desk that day.
Roughly in order of priority, that includes stories from:
Live breaking news, e.g. a celebrity health announcement, an outbreak of infectious disease, an inquest verdict…
Government announcements, political speeches, policy updates
Publication of official statistics and reports, including public inquiries
Publication of academic research and/or live reports from academic conferences
The journalist’s own original reporting, e.g. interviews or investigations
Stories they are pitched by members of the public, e.g. tip-offs that something is happening in a specific hospital, personal stories
Stories they are pitched by PR and comms teams
It means that, before a journalist even gets round to looking through the PR pitches they have received that day (and, as we know, the busiest editors can get 1,000 emails a day), they may have already found five decent stories from any of these other sources.
So if you want your PR pitch to grab attention, it can’t just be good - it needs to be competitive enough to knock one of those other stories out of the top spots.
This sounds like an insurmountable challenge but, if you’re armed with the right strategies, it is possible! As a freelance journalist, my pitches are also competing against all these other sources - so I know that pitched story ideas can, and do, cut through and get used.
Here’s how I tailor my pitches to make sure they’re competitive enough to get national coverage - and you can too:
1. Recognise the competition
The stories that land in journalists’ inboxes every day are often very same-y. As a health journalist, the bulk of releases I receive are about new academic research, NHS statistical updates, government policy announcements, healthcare union updates, information about awareness days and experts offering to explain common conditions.
The ones that stand out, are the ones which offer something different - or tell me something extraordinary. And being aware of what you’re competing against can help you pitch something which ticks those boxes.
For example, say you’re pitching a survey-based story raising awareness about a health condition. That survey is essentially a data story. But the journalist already has multiple other data stories to choose from (e.g. new academic research and official statistics) so your story realistically only has a chance of making the cut if it is significantly stronger than all the other data-based stories in the inbox that morning.
Your survey can’t just be good. It has to out-compete all those other number-based stories that journalist is receiving. And it’s really difficult to do that if you’re offering something similar. Surveys are rarely more scientifically robust than academic research or official statistics, so usually they automatically get placed lower down the priority list than other types of data story.
You can get around this by making your survey data high enough quality to compete against all those other data stories (e.g. do it in collaboration with an academic institution; interview 10,000+ people…).
Or you can make your survey only part of your pitch - and offer something different…
2. Find and fill a gap
As a freelance journalist, I know I can’t compete with the breaking news cycle.
The specialist journalists who work in my field have a strong grasp on all the latest developments in major news stories on the topic. They get advance embargoed copies of research and government announcements. They strategically plan coverage of big reports and events. They have the resources and contacts to be able to react instantly to breaking news.
So I accept that there is absolutely no point in me trying to compete with them on any of this.
Instead, I focus on filling the gaps - and this is where PR pitches can excel too.
Staff journalists dealing with the constant churn of the daily news cycle rarely have time to deep-dive into issues - but they still need strong exclusive stories. And this is a gap which both freelance journalists and PR professionals can exploit target for coverage.
You could:
Offer new angles on a hot topic based on your analysis of official statistics
Provide an emotive and/or original case study to give a first-person perspective on a breaking news story
Carry out your own Freedom of Information request to unearth new data
Fact-check a new report or government policy
And, by all means, include your survey data as part of this - but focus on offering something which the journalist is unlikely to have the time or resources to do themselves.
3. Make it easy
The brutal reality of today’s media climate is that it is often true an average news story sent in a pitch with everything the journalist needs, is more likely to get coverage than a stronger news story which will be a lot of work for the journalist to get publication-ready.
Most journalists are incredibly time-poor. They are also under constant pressure to produce publication-ready content. So, in my experience, they are more likely to be open to a pitch which provides the whole package, not just an idea. That means including everything they will need to get the story publication-ready.
This might be:
The full report and/or any relevant data the journalist will need to write the story
Any relevant pictures (of the case study, product shots, infographic, etc)
Contact details of experts you have already lined up for interview
Video and/or offer an opportunity to film (for social media), where relevant
Details of any potential for promoting the story via socials (e.g. if the case study has a decent following, state if they’re happy to do a collab post to share it)
You don’t necessarily have to send over all of these materials with your initial pitch (you can read more here about formatting a pitch email), but it is always worth making clear to the journalist that you have all of these things ready to go and are available to help them do whatever is needed to get the story across the line to publication.
Want to write a competitive pitch that stands out in a journalist’s inbox? Check out these posts from the Get Featured archive for inspiration:
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