What Do Reporters Really Want? Sending Perfect Pitches to Land Tier-1 Trades
With journalists busier than ever and under more pressure than they ought to be, it’s important that PR professionals make the best pitches possible.
So instead of adding another guess-based checklist to the pile, we brought working journalists together and asked them to describe how their jobs actually function – how they decide which pitches to open, who they call for comment under deadline pressure, and why otherwise solid ideas still miss.
Those conversations happened across two episodes of Cracking the Comms Code, and what emerged wasn’t etiquette advice. It was operational truth – the parts of reporting life that rarely make it into pitching guidance.
Below are the most revealing insights, drawn directly from the journalists themselves.
American media is shallow. Trade media is not.
One thing many public relations professionals forget is that spray-and-pray didn’t work when journalists were plentiful. Today, it’ll get you blocked, because trade reporters aren’t writing for the general public. Their audiences are looking for, to quote Washington Technology senior staff reporter Ross Wilkers, “something they didn’t already know about their own space.”
Anastassia Gliadkovsk, senior writer at Fierce Healthcare, put it a different way: “We’re not in an era where sending a pitch to a hundred reporters and hoping it sticks is practical anymore.”
Reporters move fast, juggle multiple deadlines, and scan for anything that helps them work more efficiently. Over time, they remember which pitches advance a story and which create extra work. That memory carries forward into being trusted for the former… and blocked with the latter.
If you forget that, your pitch is toast. Reframing headlines or offering general commentary does not move an industry forward. Trades reward deep dives into niche issues that make an impact.
Reliability wins the day
Ideas matter, but execution matters more – especially when big news breaks.
Barnini Chakraborty, senior investigations reporter at the Washington Examiner, made the stakes clear: “Someone can bring strong ideas and interesting sources, but if they can’t deliver when it matters, they stop being reliable.”
The same issue arises when trying to fake personalization. Quin Hillier, a columnist for Louisiana newspapers, warned: “When something is clearly pretending to be personal but isn’t, that’s when it becomes counterproductive. After a few of those, I block the sender.”
You have to be especially on point for cold pitches, fitting the stories reporters are actively working on or adding something new to a core beat.
Kerra Bolton, an independent journalist working with GoBankingRates, explained it plainly: “When I ask specific questions, the most helpful responses answer only what I asked – nothing extra.”
Additional framing, alternate angles, or scheduling steps slow things down. In fast-turnaround environments, that friction often costs the opportunity – and even a genuinely relevant pitch may never reach the inbox again. Because media relationships are built on real stories that matter
Trade reporters see trends before the mainstream
One of the quieter but more revealing moments came from how reporters described their role relative to national media.
Joanna Fantozzi, senior editor at Nation’s Restaurant News, pointed to restaurant trends coverage at The New York Times as being a year or more behind she and her industry colleagues. “In B2B, we tend to understand trends and implications ahead of larger mainstream outlets.”
What this means for PR professionals is that you need to be ahead of the game. Trade media is looking not for what’s already happened – but for what’s coming next. Do it long enough, and your clients and principals may become the next source for national dailies thanks to the trades.
What most pitching advice gets wrong
These conversations made one thing clear: pitching doesn’t fail because tactics are bad. It fails because people misunderstand how reporters actually work.
Reporters don’t evaluate pitches in isolation. Over time, they form short, practical lists of people who make their jobs easier. These are PR pros who understand the audience, deliver when they commit, and know when to take a no and move on. Those lists are small, and they’re built quietly, story by story.
Once you’re on that list, you’re no longer just another email in the inbox. Your pitch gets read differently, your timing gets more leeway, and your ideas get more consideration.
That dynamic rarely shows up in pitching advice. But it’s how tier-1 trade coverage actually gets decided.
Check out the conversations in the links below.
