Dealing with Grumpy Editors: How to Pitch Your Story to the Media

by Dan Kaufman

Take it from a former grumpy newspaper and magazine editor who’s seen it most pitches to the media just don’t work.Regardless of whether they’re called media releases, press releases, news statements or announcements, most journalists and editors who receive these pitches call them something else – and it’s not a word fit for polite society.The problem is most organisations – from small businesses and PR firms right through to large corporations – all handle their PR the same way. They write press releases the same way. And almost all of these releases end up being deleted.And don’t get us started on the many mistakes people make when they actually call editors up to pitch or follow up a story.Written by an editor with over 25 years of experience (across almost every subject from travel and entertainment to health, science and technology), this helpful and down-to-earth guide doesn't pull punches when it comes to what does – and doesn't – work when sending press releases and story pitches to the media.Topics what makes editors and journalists tickwhat editors are looking for in a pitchwhat drives editors nutshow to write a great press releasewhat information editors and journos need from PRhow to approach an editorwhat should be on a PR's and client's websitehow to handle media requestsinterviews (and how to give good quotes)PR damage control tipswhat stops a story from making it into an editor's publication – and how you can fix that.

89 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 13, 2011

About the author

Dan Kaufman spent most of his career at The Sydney Morning Herald, where he edited almost every section at one time or another, from Travel to Health and Science.

He also wrote for almost every section, including essays and literary articles for Spectrum, in addition to being the bar reviewer until the paper came to its senses and realised it was paying him to get liquored up.

His short stories and poems have been published in a variety of journals. He was longlisted for the Great Australian Yarn award, shortlisted for the Lord Mayor’s Creative Awards in Melbourne, and published his first novel, Drowning in the Shallows, in 2020, during the same month that the pandemic hit. He is still in therapy.

His second novel, Humidity, has just come out (June 2024) – it’s a coming-of-age literary Aussie noir about a young male nude model in a small country town who falls in love for the first time – with the ambitious and ruthless young woman rapidly taking over the local drug and gun-running trade.