As a journalist, I’m pitched constantly. I’d say that 20 percent of the pitches I get are good and perhaps 5 percent are excellent. How would I know? Lots of journalism experience and lots of PR experience.
Interestingly, whether a pitch gets a response or not can boil down to a few words.
“If you’re interested in X let me know.” I don’t need to respond, then, with your permission. If the close had been different, I probably would have said, “You should try pitching X instead.” Likely, this person will follow up and ask if I got their pitch. Yup.
The same close is often posed as a question: “Are you interested?” This is an easy one to answer most of the time because the answers are binary (yes or no). These are so easy to say “no” to without explanation.
I guess my issue with all of this is the PR person doesn’t understand why they’re getting no response or curt responses, neither of which feel good. I understand. I spent a lot of years as a PR pro and PR exec, and I know how frustrating pitching can be. OTOH, when you’re sorting through a pile of pitches, we can and will choose the path of least resistance whenever possible.
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