Industry Insights: Red Flags -- And What We Can Learn From Them

Happy Saturday!

True story: Journalists can get hundreds (or thousands, during gift guide time!) of emails in a single day - and often it comes up in conversations where people will wonder how on earth we sort through them all.

Well, there’s a lot of answers to that — but a big part of the equation is eliminating all those red flags we see along the way.

I’ve discovered over time there’s a whole lot of flags to watch out for — people who do not understand how pitching or freelance journalism works. Those who do understand we cannot just “decide” to write about anything, but we need to be able to find true story value (and value to the reader) in anything we pitch to our editors.

As a journalist, it’s my job to always find that interesting angle, the hook, the value. Is it timely? Is it relevant? Is it, ultimately, interesting, and of value to my audience? Is it a fit for my audience? If it’s not any of those things, it’s a sign that that pitch is a red flag — someone didn’t do their research and is just blindly casting a wide net.

Is there a frantic nature or desperation to their pitch? Are they telling you how to do your job, or not know how your job works? Are they pitching via DM or text message after you specifically asked them not to do so? Are they treating journalists like a marketing team or influencers or bloggers and honestly don’t seem to understand the difference? Are they asking you to add to/update stories that are already wrapped and published. “Just squeeze it in!”

There’s that and so much more — check out today’s Insights edition below <3