How to Pitch Jacob Weindling

1) What’s the best way to pitch you?

Email, I have a series of folders specifically for pitches and it makes everything easy to organize. If you’ve got something quick and easy you can reach out to me on Twitter, but I’d still want a fully fleshed out pitch via e-mail before approving it.

2) What’s the best time to pitch you?

Really whenever. I try to respond to all emails within 24-48 hours of when I get them so it’s more about your schedule than mine.

3) What kind of stories interest you?

Mainly political stories in nature. Positive or negative. Highlighting government waste or a program that saves lives, etc…doesn’t matter so long as it’s interesting and fits into the current moment or teaches me something new. Politics is an incredibly broad topic so you’d be surprised as to what could fit into that bucket.

4) What tips would you give someone pitching you?

If you can’t pitch me your basic idea in 3 sentences or less, you don’t have a thesis.

5) What will you never write about?

Highlighting a company just for the sake of highlighting it. There is an entire army of PR people who seem to think that journalists are just another mouthpiece for them, and if you’re not giving me something interesting to bring my readers, you’re not doing your job--you’re just asking me to do yours for you.

6) What’s the best pitch you ever got?

A story about the nature of whistleblowing from a bank whistleblower.

7) Do you prefer to receive news in a press release or a different format?

I’d prefer I get a summation of why the press release is important, but press releases are helpful to just establish the background behind a story. A press release + a few sentences explaining it is ideal.

8) How do you feel about embargoes?

I don’t mind them. I understand that working with PR people entails adhering to a business’s timeline. Just so long as we have established a symbiotic relationship where I get something interesting to write about in exchange for some exposure for that business and my embargo is not being used as leverage against other publications, embargo away.

9) What are some of the biggest mistakes that people make when pitching you?

Numbers 1 through 100 are pitching me about their business and not why I should care about that business. I’m not an investor. I don’t care if you’re making money. Tell me WHY you’re making money and WHY my readers should care about it. At least four out of every five pitches looks exactly like the pitches I would send to investors when I was trying to start my own business. Pitching to journalists is nothing like pitching to investors. We’re here to tell a story, not your story.

10) What’s the biggest misconception/s that you think people have about the media?

That we are a monolith. “The media” encompasses institutions like the New York Times all the way down to Paste somewhere in the middle and a litany of podcasts from media members somewhere near the bottom of this gigantic catchall. Attitudes and priorities vary not just from publication to publication, but within different sections in each publication. Do some research on who you’re pitching to so you can tailor your pitch to fit their coverage.