When you think Axios, you think “smart brevity.” When you picture Business Insider, you see those 30-word headlines and lengthy decks that finish the story before the reader even starts it. Quartz has its own comprehension hack, though only paid QZ subscribers get to see it.
The "culture" beat started out as "how tech impacts culture" but with the quadrafecta of Covid-19, recession, BLM and now the election, culture has come to mean pretty much "life in general." Here's a short list of a dozen culture reporters mostly from Tier 1, with links and contact info.
With the election now only days away, publications have settled into their methods and strategies: how will they cover the election's final days, and its tumultuous aftermath? We ask editors and they weigh in. We'll be adding to this piece in the coming days.
Here at SWMS we see lots of unsuccessful pitches and unplaced contributions. Unclear writing is usually to blame. Clarity counts. Clarity is not brevity. Clarity is what lets readers understand you the first time — with no rereading. Writing tools measure clarity. We’ve been experimenting with them. Some results below.
[SWMS contributor Kally Lavoie writes:] As we outlined in an earlier article in our recent SWMS deep-dive, pitching DEI thought leadership is “high-risk, high-reward” for both clients and the PR teams that represent them. It can be tempting to stick one’s head in the sand and shy away from sensitive pitching topics, but there are many benefits of speaking out on DEI topics...
Climate change and environment have entire publications dedicated to them -- Bloomberg Green, CleanTechnica, others -- but nearly all of Tier 1 has at least one beat reporter dedicated to one or both. Here's a list of 18 of them.
After 19 years at Fortune, Adam Lashinsky left this month to become EIC of the most powerful business community few ever heard of. For that alone, perhaps it’s time to learn about World 50 and its newly merged partner organization, G100.
Here's a retake of a piece we published earlier this year. What exactly do readers want and need? Most PR pros see the world in terms of companies, technologies, stories and beats. There's another way to look at things, and it might shake loose new opportunity.
Ebony Magazine was founded in 1945, the year World War II ended. Essence Magazine was founded in 1968, the year Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Today, Medium publishes a pair of Black-focused titles for this generation.
Medium has a pair of new publications, probably just as difficult to pitch as other Medium pubs, yet still worth evaluating. Both are spinouts from OneZero. Future Human was built for “readers who want to understand more about the science carrying us into tomorrow.” Debugger is for “readers who are hungry for thoughtful stories about gadgets.”
[SWMS contributor Kally Lavoie writes:] This year has shown us that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) stories are rapidly changing and will continue to do so well into 2021. While we can’t predict what will happen with the November election, we’ve pulled together some advice on story shaping on how DEI will evolve into 2021.
It often helps to study examples of story types you're seeking for yourself. Here’s an ongoing glossary of story types in the DEI space that might help shape your strategy.
