Even the best media relationships won’t save a bad pitch. You must be selective with your PR pitches.
In this final part of our three-part series, Rockford Gray Managing Partner Jennifer Miller and Senior Advisor Alton Dillard II share how to pitch stories amid the changing media landscape.
(If you missed the earlier installments, start with Why Media Relations is Harder than Ever and How to Build Reporter Relationships that Last.)
If you want your story to stand out, you need to rethink how you package it.
Do’s and Don’ts
- Don’t send a 1,200-word pitch and hope the reporter will wade through it.
- Don’t rely on charts,
- Don’t do data dumps
- Don’t use talking points
- Don’t pitch hypothetical ideas
- Don’t pitch a story you will not be a part of.
Do’s
- Be brief
- Lead with a human component
- Think visually
- Be relevant
Make brevity a discipline, not an afterthought
Reporters don’t have time for “War and Peace-length” anything: not releases, not advisories, not backgrounders masquerading as pitches. If you can paraphrase your pitch in a text, that’s about the right length to capture the reporter’s attention.
A few PR pitch guidelines:
- Start with the hook: In the first 2–3 sentences, answer: What is this about, why now, and why should this outlet care?
- Keep advisories focused on the 5 Ws and the 1H: Who, what, when, where, why, and how visuals will work if it’s TV.
- Every good story has conflict: Conflict drives the story. The narrative of any good story is about the various players managing or overcoming a problem or struggle. Embed conflict and how you are helping to resolve, mitigate or manage that conflict.
- Use supporting docs sparingly: If you have deeper reports, white papers or data, link to them. Don’t paste them into the body of the pitch.
- Don’t forget the “so what?” So, what does this story mean to the reporter, their readers, viewers, or listeners? Why does this story matter? If you can’t answer this question quickly and clearly, you don’t have a story to pitch.
As communicators, we know that we need to always be considerate of our audience. In this case, do not think of this as dumbing down your story. You’re simply making it possible for a reporter to process your story idea in the 20 seconds they have to read it.
Lead with the human face, not the fact sheet
Most issues you’re pitching are inherently complex—public policy, health, environment, education, and so on. Complexity matters, but it can’t carry the story. “Start every pitch from this assumption: the reporter you’re emailing is overworked, under-resourced and short on time. Now, what does your subject line look like?” says Dillard.
Ask yourself:
- Who is directly affected by this issue that we can credibly put forward?
- Who can explain the stakes in plain language?
- Who can sit down for an interview and make a viewer or reader feel something?
Subject matter experts (SMEs) are still critical. They give context, depth, and credibility. But pairing them with people who have lived the issue is what turns your pitch from “informational” into “unmissable.”
Think visually—especially for TV
Television is a visual medium. So is social media, which now drives a lot of traffic to traditional outlets. If your story can’t be seen, then it is much harder to sell.
Help reporters imagine what the piece will look like:
- Flag strong visuals in your pitch
- Share links to your own YouTube or video libraries if you have them.
- Offer B-roll or still photography when live visuals are hard to capture.
- Reporters don’t want a pretty picture; they want to see and hear the work being done.
You’re not doing the reporter’s job for them, but by helping to identify the visuals and sound in a story, you are removing the time-consuming setup that gets in the way of getting the story told.
Be relevant. Use timing and “trend-jacking” wisely
In a compressed news environment, reporters are often looking for smart, relevant angles on whatever is already in the news cycle. Is everyone talking about tariffs? Pitch a story related to tariffs. Is it the first warm day of spring? Pitch a related story.
“Your reputation is on the line with every pitch you send,” says Dillard. “Sometimes protecting that reputation means telling your own leaders ‘no.’”
Timing also matters for evergreen content. If you have a human-interest piece that isn’t driven by breaking news, consider tying it to thematic months (e.g., Black History Month, Mental Health Awareness Month, Women’s History Month) or key annual events in your space.
Know when to say “No.”
One of the least glamorous but most important roles a professional communicator plays is being willing to say, “No, that’s not a story,” to their boss.
Visionary leaders and boards are often full of ideas. Some of them are excellent. Some of them are not media-ready or not appropriate for the current environment. If you pitch every idea that crosses your desk, you burn capital—with reporters and with your own reputation.
Your job isn’t just to generate media opportunities. It’s to curate those opportunities so when reporters see your name pop up on their phone, they assume you have something worth their time.