Pitching

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A handy guide for pitching your articles to editors

pitching articles

Find your angle

What to include in a pitch?

How to find out who to pitch to?

Why pitching is important

contents

+ examples

Whether you work in-house or freelance, selling your ideas to an editor is where it all begins. It can be disheartening to keep pitching ideas out and shopping them around various publications, but the extra couple of minutes to tweak it for a publication and link it to why they should be comissioning it RIGHT NOW. Don't be tempted to cut corners!

There's no point in coming up with great ideas and pitching them badly

Why pitches are important

how to find out who to pitch to

If all else fails, find a phone number for the switchboard and give them a call and ask for the contact details for the relevant person to pitch to. You don't need to ask to speak to them (an email works best first before a follow-up call)

Next, you should search LinkedIn and social media, but be aware, this information may not be accurate. Inviting them to connect or following them is a good idea at this stage but you should be aiming to get an email address for a professional pitch rather than DMing it.

The publication's website should be your first port of call. Look on the website for a ‘want to write for us?’ page. Some will even have more information on specifically what they are looking for in pitches like the Cosmo example in the button below:

The only time you should be pitching to an info@ address is if a media outlet specifically says that's where it wants to receive pitches. Other than that, you should do your research to find out the correct person for your pitch. Look in the physical copy for the masthead and see if there's a relevant editor for the section, or a commissioning editor for larger publications.

Getting the pitch to the right person is equally as important as the content

pitch example pt1

Dear Laura,My name is Sarah Gillespie and I am a freelance journalist with an interest in counterculture and social issues. Please find below a pitch for a general feature which I believe would be a great fit for The Telegraph. Cannabis oil products are booming – but does the science stack up? This in-depth health/lifestyle feature of 600 words will explore the huge growth in popularity of products containing cannabidiol (CBD) – the non-psychoactive element of cannabis, and which is now available in everything from ice-cream to hummus. New figures show that an estimated 1.3 million UK consumers spend a total of £300m a year on CBD products – yet there is comparatively little scientific research to prove whether it’s truly effective at treating the ailments that its advocates claim. Is it more than just a wellness trend?

To : Laura Donnelly, Health Editor, The TelegraphSubject: Cannabis oil feature pitch

pitch example pt2

My sources include a major study by the Centre for Medicinal Cannabis into the contents of products on sale in the UK; research recently published by Great Ormond Street hospital into the use of CBD to treat epilepsy, along with evidence from a number of other clinical trials worldwide. Alternatively, I'd also like to explore the friction between the UK and Scottish Government's stance on the decriminalisation of drugs and how this has unfolded this year in a feature. I'd like to explore this in an opinion piece which conveys my support of personalised possession decriminalisation using secondary research sources from several drug charities. I really enjoyed your recent article on the emergence of the market for legal of psychedelic fungi, so feel these articles would compliment that coverage. If you’d be interested in commissioning one of these features then please get in touch. My contact details are below. Yours sincerely, Sarah Gillespie Freelance Journalist Tel: 07890 123456 Email: sarah.gillespie@email.com

Find your angle

By August 2023, was it possible to find a new angle on Barbie content? For Thom Hartmann, yes. Read 'Did Barbie Speed Up the Collapse of Trump’s Macho-Based Hate Movement?' below:

With many features that are commissioned having links to the news cycle, finding a unique angle on a story helps your work stand out. Also, thanks to the internet being a massive content archive, there's likely already loads of articles already out there covering the same ground. Think about what you can bring to the topic that's new? This could be: Exclusive information A source speaking on the record for the first time Widening the story to a bigger context, or... Focusing in on one aspect of the story and investigating that in more detail. But some of the above can be very difficult for a student or early career journalist. Consider thinking about what unique perspective you might be able to draw from in your own personal life, but not without reading the article below from Journo Resources about freelance journalism's problem with 'trauma porn':

Your angle is a key part of any pitch if you want to sell your idea

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