Tue, 2017-10-10 05:02
Sam Whitmore
Profile: Ross Andersen, The Atlantic
What do you do when a publication has a monthly print-web audience of 40 million? If you’re in tech PR, you pitch it. When approaching The Atlantic, you’ll need the touch of a gem cutter. The 160-year-old publication doesn’t see vendors as newsmakers.
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Stacey Higginbotham — the Stacey of IoT — is enjoying entrepreneurship. “It’s not as stressful as any of my previous media gigs and it’s really satisfying,” says the former Gigaom and Fortune reporter. 
We developed the following thoughts in this two-part series while preparing to present last month at a subscriber site. Part 1 explores four factors that devastated the journalism business. Part 2 will explore four factors that can help it flourish once again.
When you think of publications that spot trends early, does Fortune come to mind? It certainly should in the case of The Ledger, Fortune’s ongoing look at “Fintech and Blockchain.” We studied the last month’s worth of articles (48 in all) and spotted the following patterns:
Here's another profile of an unpitchable editor. Stop the madness! Right? Well, we learned quite a bit in our conversation with BuzzFeed senior technology reporter Alex Kantrowitz. He’s an inspirational 30-year-old who more than holds his own in one of tech media’s most powerful investigative shops.
The New York Times has been around since 1851. According to SimilarWeb, the NYT gets 400 million unique visits each month from more than 250 countries. Naturally, PR pros want to plug into this prestige and power — which is why many NYT editors often suspect your motives when you approach them.
If you’re focused on pitching Thomson Reuters tech reporters, don’t forget about their boss, global technology editor Jonathan Weber. Yes, his bylines these days are for editing, not for writing. Jon’s weeknight party-going days are long over, so you won’t see him around. So why get to know the guy?
Few contributed content gatekeepers seek compelling submissions more than Ad Age’s Ellis Booker. He spent 36 minutes on the phone with us, explaining how PR pros can get to “yes.” He sent an email beforehand asking if he needed to prep for the call.
Some of these reporters are general tech trend watchers who took a turn at spotchecking the robotics world. Others live and breathe it. In any case, here are our recommendations on whom you might pitch for your AI/factory-floor stories.
Tech edit industry veteran Matt Rosoff is a builder. He helped IDG build a web channel and event around BYOD. He built Business Insider’s west coast presence as well as its enterprise tech reporting team. Since January, Matt has built out CNBC’s tech reporting team.
We asked David Strom to respond to the same questions that TC Currie answered last month. David, a regular contributor to SWMS, was the founding editor-in- chief of CMP’s Network Computing, a previous editor-in- chief with Tom’s Hardware, and currently runs the Inside Security email newsletter.
To understand IT trade journalism today, understand Andy Patrizio. The freelancer works at home and writes for multiple publications. He’s technical at heart and sees “news” in terms of cool tech and its impact on business. Vendors matter less.
