Half of journalists receive more than 50 pitches a week. Reporters at major tech outlets get 200 to 600. According to industry research, 86% of those pitches are deleted on sight because they do not match the journalist's beat. The pitches that get read have very little in common with what most PR guides teach.
This is a complete process guide. It covers how to find the right journalist before you write anything, how to write the subject line and the body, when to send it, how to follow up, and what to do when nobody replies. It works whether you are a founder doing your own PR or a PR manager running outreach for clients.
Reply rates tell the story. Industry data suggests they fell from around 8% in 2018 to under 1% today. The cause is not that journalists got harder to reach. It is that the flood of irrelevant pitches trained them to delete fast. The way to beat that is not a better template. It is relevance.
What is a media pitch?
A media pitch is a short, direct message to a journalist explaining why a specific story is worth covering right now. It is not a press release. It is not a company overview. It is one or two paragraphs that answer the journalist's only real question: why should I care about this, for my readers, today?
Everything else in this guide serves that one question. If your pitch does not answer it in the first two sentences, the rest does not matter.
Step 1: Find the right journalist before you write anything
This is the most important step, and it is the one most people skip. Before you write a word, you need to know exactly who you are pitching and why they specifically would care.
Use a three-layer filter.
Beat match. The journalist needs to cover your space, not your industry. "Tech" is not a beat. "Enterprise security" is a beat. "AI policy" is a beat. Narrow to the people who write about the specific thing you do.
Recency. Has the journalist published on your topic in the last 30 days? Beats shift constantly. A reporter who covered your space last year may have moved on. Recent bylines are the only reliable signal of what someone covers right now. Keeping track of that is exactly what a journalist tracking platform is built to do.
Angle fit. Read their last five articles before you pitch. You are looking for the angle they keep returning to. A reporter who covers AI through a jobs-and-labor lens needs a different pitch than one who covers AI through an infrastructure lens, even though both "cover AI."
Pitching the wrong journalist is worse than not pitching at all. It marks you as someone who did not do their homework, and journalists talk to each other. One lazy pitch can cost you a beat.
This is where a journalist directory earns its place. Instead of guessing, you filter by beat, check recent coverage, and build a shortlist of people who actually write about your space. We covered the full method in how to find the right journalist for your pitch without spamming everyone, and the related discipline of building a media list that actually gets responses.
Step 2: Write the pitch
Once you know who you are pitching, the writing is simple. Four components, in order.
The hook (one sentence). Why this story matters right now. Lead with the development, not your company name.
The story (two to three sentences). What happened, who is involved, and what it means. Write it as a story, not a feature list. The journalist should be able to see the article in their head.
The proof point (one to two sentences). One specific, verifiable data point. A number, a result, a named customer. This is what separates a real story from a marketing claim.
The ask (one sentence). A specific offer. A briefing, an interview, an exclusive look at data, a demo. Make it easy to say yes.
Here is a full example for an AI company, around 120 words.
Subject: Why 40% of our enterprise users turned off AI autocomplete
Hi Priya,
Your piece last week on enterprise AI adoption hitting a trust wall lined up with something we are seeing in our own data. We build developer tooling for regulated industries, and after rolling out AI code suggestions to 2,000 engineers, 40% disabled the feature within a month. Not because it was inaccurate, but because they could not audit why it suggested what it did.
We dug into the why with our security and compliance users and found a pattern that I think is the next chapter of the story you have been writing.
Happy to share the full dataset and walk you through it. Would Thursday work for a 20-minute call?
Notice what that pitch does. It references a specific recent article. It leads with a surprising data point, not a product. It offers something concrete. It is under 130 words.
Step 3: The subject line
The subject line decides whether the pitch gets opened. Most are generic, which is why most go unread.
Good subject lines are specific and could only have been sent about your story. Four formats that work:
Data hook: "Why 40% of our enterprise users turned off AI autocomplete"
Specific question: "Is on-device AI actually private? We tested 12 apps"
News hook: "Reaction to today's EU AI Act vote, from a founder it affects"
Direct angle: "A DeFi protocol that pays users back when it gets hacked"
Four that get deleted:
"Story idea"
"Exciting news from [Company]"
"Press release: [Company] announces new feature"
"Quick question"
One rule decides it. If your subject line could have been sent to any journalist about any story, rewrite it.
Step 4: How pitching AI journalists differs from pitching tech journalists
This is where most generic advice falls apart. The sub-beat changes everything about what the journalist wants.
AI journalists at WIRED, MIT Technology Review, and Bloomberg's AI team want technical substance. Research findings, model behavior, safety and policy implications. They are skeptical of hype and respond to specifics. A vague "AI-powered" claim gets you deleted. See AI journalists for who covers what.
Tech journalists at The Verge, Ars Technica, and TechCrunch want the user story. How does this change what people actually do? What is the market context, the business model, the founder angle? They care about the human and commercial story more than the underlying research. We go deep on this in how to pitch tech journalists. Browse tech journalists by beat.
Crypto journalists at CoinDesk, The Block, and Decrypt want on-chain proof, protocol mechanics, and team credibility. They have seen every kind of token pitch and can spot a thin one instantly. Specifics about how the protocol actually works matter more than the narrative. See crypto journalists.
The same story, pitched to all three groups identically, will land with none of them.
Step 5: Timing
When you send matters more than people expect.
Send Tuesday through Thursday, between 8 and 10am in the recipient's timezone. Monday inboxes are buried. Friday pitches get lost over the weekend.
Pitch before you publish. If your news is going live, give journalists five to seven days of lead time with an embargo. A story they can break is worth more than a story already on your blog.
Follow the news cycle. When a competitor or a major player makes news in your space, that is the moment to pitch an adjacent angle. Journalists are already writing about the topic, so you are offering a second source, not a cold start.
The reason cold, untimed blasts stopped working is the same reason cold email PR pitching is dead: volume without relevance trains the recipient to ignore you.
Step 6: The follow-up rule
Follow up once, three to five business days after the first pitch, and add one new piece of information. A new data point, a new development, a new angle.
"Just following up" is not a follow-up. It is noise, and it confirms you have nothing new to say.
Two touches maximum. After that, move on. A journalist who did not respond to a relevant, well-timed pitch twice is not going to respond to a third. Save the relationship for your next real story.
The pitch checklist
Before you hit send, run through this:
[ ] Read the journalist's last three articles
[ ] Story is relevant to their current beat, not just their outlet
[ ] Pitch is under 250 words
[ ] Subject line works on its own, out of context
[ ] One specific, verifiable proof point included
[ ] The ask is specific
[ ] Embargo respected if the news is not yet public
[ ] Exclusive vs multiple-pitch decision made deliberately
Frequently asked questions
How long should a pitch to a journalist be?
Under 250 words, ideally closer to 150. Journalists scan pitches in seconds. The shorter and more specific your pitch, the more likely it gets read in full. If you need more space, you are probably explaining your company instead of the story.
How do I find the right journalist to pitch?
Filter by three things: beat match, recency, and angle fit. The journalist should cover your specific space, have published on it in the last 30 days, and write from an angle your story fits. A journalist directory filtered by beat makes this far faster than manual searching.
Should I pitch the same story to multiple journalists?
Yes, but never identically, and never to competing reporters at the same outlet. Personalize each pitch to the journalist's angle. If you are offering an exclusive, pitch one journalist first and wait for a yes or no before moving on.
How do I follow up without being annoying?
Follow up once, three to five business days later, with one new piece of information. Never send "just checking in." Two touches maximum, then move on. Relevance and restraint protect the relationship for your next story.
What's the best time to pitch a journalist?
Tuesday through Thursday, 8 to 10am in the journalist's timezone. Avoid Mondays and Fridays. If your news has a date, pitch five to seven days ahead with an embargo so the journalist has time to work the story.
How is pitching AI journalists different from pitching tech journalists?
AI journalists want technical substance, research, and policy implications. Tech journalists want the user story, market context, and founder angle. Crypto journalists want on-chain proof and protocol mechanics. The same story needs a different framing for each.
Start finding journalists to pitch
The hardest part of pitching is not the writing. It is finding the right person and timing it well. Glyph tracks 1,000+ journalists across AI, crypto, cybersecurity, and tech, filterable by beat and recent coverage. Free, no contract.
Browse the journalist directory or sign up free. If you are still deciding on tooling, start with PR software for startups.
