Are you pitching to freelancers yet?
How working with a freelance journalist can improve your coverage
I always recommend to PRs that they should try pitching via freelance journalists. Yes I’m biased - I am a freelance journalist, so of course I would say that. But I genuinely believe working with freelancers can maximise your chances of getting a pitch successfully placed in the national media.
Journalists are either employed directly by a publication (“staff” or “in house” journalists) or work independently and pitch to a variety of different outlets (freelancers).
And, just to confuse things, sometimes freelancers journalists take on shifts where they act as staff journalists for a publication for a few days a week.
If you (or your client) has your heart set on featuring in a prestigious national title, then you might think your best bet would be to pitch directly to the relevant staff journalist at that title.
After all, they’ve got the prestigious job title and a direct line of contact to the editor at that publication. If they like your story, surely it’s got the best chances of getting in if you offer it directly to them…?
So, sometimes this is true. If you’ve got a breaking news story that you’re sending out widely, you need to get it in front of the journalists covering breaking news on that topic - and more often than not these are staff reporters. Or, if you’re offering a fantastic, ground-breaking story as an exclusive, then it’s likely that a staff journalist will be interested.
But there are lots of reasons why this doesn’t always work out - and you’d be better off pitching via a freelance journalist instead.
Here are four reasons why:
1. Staff journalists’ inboxes are insane
I last worked in a staff role before the pandemic (aka before we all started remote working and sending a lot more emails to each other) and even back then I would receive between about 150 and 600 emails per day, depending on whether a big news story was breaking on my patch.
Even taking just 30 seconds per email to open, read and reply x600 would take five hours out of a day. And when you bear in mind that a journalist’s job isn’t actually to read and reply to emails, but to talk to their editors, research stories, carry out interviews and write articles, there simply isn’t enough time in the day to read every one.
What this means is that even if you have a fantastic pitch, it won’t necessarily be spotted amongst the inbox chaos (although you can use the tips I shared here to make your pitch stand out).
If a staff journalist can only deal with the most important of the hundreds of emails they receive every day, they’re significantly more likely to open an email from a freelance journalist whose name they recognise and who they may well have an ongoing relationship with, than yet another one from a PR email address.
Sending your pitch via a freelancer is a way of getting a foot in the door. A good freelancer will understand the kind of stories that staff journalist/editor likes and the best way to approach them.
All of this means your story may have a better chance of being noticed if you pitch it via a freelancer, instead of going direct to the staff journalist.
2. Freelancers can write the story
Staff journalists don't just get lots of emails, they are also incredibly busy keeping on top of their patches and fulfilling demands from their editors, at a time when staff numbers are dropping and resources are more and more stretched.
This means that even if a PR offers a staff journalist a story that they like, they might not realistically have time to write it up properly and pull together all the necessary elements to make it publication-ready (carrying out interviews, finding a case study, sorting out pictures, etc).
In my staff days, I was definitely guilty of saying “yes” to pitches and then just never quite finding the time to write them up.
But when a freelance journalist pitches an idea to a staff journalist/editor, not only are they offering a story but they are also offering to do all of that work. Us freelancers will write up stories and do everything the editor needs to get it ready for publication - which makes it a lot easier for them to say “yes”.*
*As long as they have a budget to pay for this, more on that later!
3. Freelancers are adaptable
There’s often very little you can do if you pitch a story to a staff journalist and they don’t get round to writing it; or they do write it but the editor sits on it for weeks/months; or the publication decides not to run it; or they do run it but really small and they’ve missed the most important part…
Of course, all of these things can and do happen to stories freelancers pitch too - the news media is a wildly unpredictable beast.
But the benefit of being freelance is that if a story doesn’t work out at one publication, we can pick it up, repackage it, and try a different one.
For example, last year I pitched a story to the features section at X publication, then three different sections at Y publication, before it eventually found a home as a big page lead in the news section of the original X publication - it got out there eventually!
This also means that once we’ve placed a story in one publication, we’re free to push it out to lots of other outlets - whether that’s rival publications and/or other types of media like TV and podcasts - which is often not possible for staff journalists who are tied to their “house” publication.
This all means lots more coverage for your story - often without you having to do any extra work.
4. It’s in freelancers’ interests to get your story out there
I’d love to say being a freelance journalist is all about the noble quest to bring the truth to the public - but that fact is that we still need to earn a living.
And that means one of the reasons it works to offer your story to a freelance journalist is that freelancers have a vested interest in seeing their work published - and published well.
Here are a few hard truths about the journalism industry:
A lot of news publications pay freelancers more for “bigger” stories which are prominently featured, than for smaller ones. This means freelancers want your story to get significant coverage in the target publication and will work to try to make this happen.
Too many publications pay pitifully low rates for individual stories - some haven’t updated their rates in the last 40 years. This means freelancers may have an incentive to repackage a story and sell it multiple times to different publications or in different formats.
Some publications still only provide “payment on publication”, where a journalist will be paid only once the story is published, regardless of the time and effort they have spent on it. This means that freelance journalists aren’t just going to let it lie if an editor sits on the story for months - they will be actively trying to find new hooks and reasons why that story needs to run, ASAP!
All of these things means a freelance journalist often wants all the same things you do: for the story to be prominently featured, as soon as possible, and for it to be picked up by multiple publications.
I can only speak for myself here, but I’ve found it also means I’m more realistic with PRs than I used to be when I worked on staff. If something is mildly interesting but I doubt I’m going to find time to dedicate to making it work or I can’t see it being picked up by my editors, then I’ll turn it down - instead of expressing an interest but doing nothing about it.
And if I do say “yes” and work on a pitch, I’ll be dedicated to seeing it through until it gets published - even if that means taking it to five different sections in the process!
But bear in mind…
Not every freelancer works the same way and not every staff journalist works the same way - this post is based on my experience of both roles, but I’m sure there will always be others who disagree.
But when you’re considering whether to pitch via a freelancer it is also worth remembering:
Some publications won’t commission freelancers
Not every publication takes freelance pitches and/or has a budget to pay freelancers for stories. That means you might have your heart set on one publication, but the freelancer might want to pitch to another that pays better.
One way to avoid this is to check out the bylines in your target publication and look up the journalists on social media - if they’re freelance then that publication definitely takes freelance pitches (and as that journalist is a regular contributor, they’re an ideal person to pitch to).
You can offer freelance journalists stories, but you can’t pay them
This is often a subject of debate in the PR/journalism world but I’m of the categoric opinion that you cannot be paid to act on behalf of a client and work as an independent journalist at the same time.
That means that you can offer a freelance journalist a PR story - and let them pitch their version of that story to as many publications as they like. But you can’t control what they write, or who they pitch to - and you can’t pay them to pitch on your behalf (because that’s PR, not journalism).
I know there are some people in the industry who blur these lines but in my opinion, it’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed. Ethics aside, it means you can’t do both jobs well - what if an editor likes the idea but wants to turn it around so the story criticises a client they’re being paid to do PR for? It’s a recipe for disaster.
Ready to pitch to a freelance journalist? Check out these Get Featured guides for advice and inspiration:
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