We want a pitcher...not a belly itcher!

Okay so this blog post has nothing to do with baseball other than it is being written during baseball season and it's about pitching. Pitching news stories that is.



There may have been a time when there were so many reporters working at the various media outlets that getting them to cover your story was like, well, shooting fish in a barrel. Not the case since I've been working in communications. With so many cut backs in news departments across the country, most reporters are expected to produce multiple stories every day in multiple formats (think tv and web or radio and web or print and web). Reporters simply don't have the time to research stories from idea through to three minute feature anymore. In fact, 90 seconds is the maximum story you can expect on tv news broadcasts and 20 seconds is exceptional for radio.


That's why professional business communicators (like me) are so important to helping getting an organization's stories into the mainstream news. And that's where putting together a solid pitch comes in. It has nothing to do with throwing a baseball, but you are lobbing a story idea across the home plate to the reporter. It's important that your pitch is well developed and provides the reporter with not only the gist of the story, but statistics or any other back up research to support your claim, a list of potential interview subjects that you have confirmed are available and for television especially, a list of visuals that will support the story being pitched.


If it feels like you're doing the reporter's job - yes, in many ways you are. But if you don't do it, they won't likely cover your story unless it is a bad news story. Good news stories need you to do the legwork so that the reporter can come in, get the goods, get out and get it published.


Pitching your story starts with building a relationship with the right journalists in your community. Once that relationship is established, the journalist is more likely to receive your pitches with enthusiasm rather than skepticism. I find the best way to start making a pitch, once I've got the story already developed and researched, is to call the journalist and tell them you have an idea, give the gist and promise to follow up with a more detailed email. That detailed email is what your journalist is going to use when he or she pitches the idea at their news meeting, so you want it to be very appealing and very well developed.


Sometimes there is just too much other news happening on the day you pitch your story so you'll be shelved. Don't give up! Ask the journalist if there was interest and if the next day or later in the week would work better for them. You'll know if interest isn't there. Remember though - if you pitch a story to one journalist, you can't be pitching it to all and sundry hoping it sticks with someone. That's burning your contacts. However, if there is no interest from your original contact you are free to move on to your next contact to pitch the story. Just always remember that different media have different audiences so make sure what you're pitching is appropriate to that journalist's audience.


Warm up, windmill, spit ball, slider, knuckleball - whatever pitching terminology you go for - get out there and start pitching and quit belly itching (where in the world did we come up with that chant when we were kids?)