→ Find a unique story angle that will cut through. Journalists and producers get hundreds of emails every single day. Trust us, we’ve been there. So make your pitch count with something newsy, unique, current, topical, controversial.
→ Know your audience – and what you want to achieve by tailoring a pitch to that audience (i.e. do you want to promote brand awareness, drive sales etc)
→ Why? Why are we pitching to an outlet? It needs to be purposeful and strategic.
→ What assets do you have to help tell your story? TV want striking video (you won’t stand a chance if you don’t have pictures).
→ Print want epic photos that help paint the picture of your story.
→ Helps to have a good relationship with media beforehand. It makes picking up the phone to pitch easier next time.
While they are some high-level tips of the trade, sometimes it takes a bit more elbow grease to get it over the line. For specific outlets, we’ve made it even easier for you.
Keep scrolling down for a more comprehensive breakdown of what’s required for various outlets.
Brekky TV (Today Show, Sunrise):
→ Find a unique story pitch/angle. It needs the quirky/colour factor, or peg to a current issue. Needs good pictures. Brekky TV wants light-hearted, upbeat colour unless it is ‘hard’ news value. It should have national reach, not a localised issue/event – find the hook to attach it to a bigger, national issue.
→ Write and develop the pitch. This can involve chatting to producers to workshop ideas/angles/talent depending on the news cycle and what they are after, when. E.g. a Black Friday Sale pitch is time-sensitive so should be pegged to the actual day. A pitch needs to include: a punchy one-liner about what the story is about, why should people care about, who the talent it, and a link to the vision. You will also need to interview/vet talent to ensure they are fit for live TV and include them in the pitch. See pitch example here.
→ To get a pitch over the line, you need amazing broll that they cut up to use as olay in the segment. It needs to be a couple of minutes in length, and should be time stamped to allow producers to easily cut it up (i.e. 00.00–00:10 Farmer inspection crop; 00:10-00:30 drone footage of crop, 00:30-00:40 farmer in tractor etc). In TV, amazing footage alone can get a segment up over a great story with no accompanying pictures.
→ Pitch it in with the producers – call producers to verbally brief them and email the info.
→ Leading up to the cross/segment, you should have everything squared away with the producer, and brief your talent accordingly so they know what to expect on the day. This briefing doc should include where to meet, who to meet, when to meet, the talking points so they can familiarise themselves with the content, possible questions if given to us in advance, and key grabs.
→ On the day, do a sweep of media to ensure no breaking news will affect the segment.
→ Summarise the morning’s news and headlines into a hot sheet for your talent
→ Have a briefing doc and talking points (TPs) written for your talent – this should include possible questions, talking points about the segment, key grabs, and what to expect on the day.
→ If you’re in studio, meet talent beforehand to chaperone them in and ensure set props are there. If doing over camera, have a practise run for sound/lighting check to ensure they are set up and frames in camera correctly (no stripes, busy prints etc).
→ Live TV can be daunting, so the main thing is to keep talent as calm and as prepared as possible. Anything can happen on brekky TV, so ensure your talent is briefed and prepared and can be agile.
→ Make sure they are across the news of the day in case producers/presenters throw in any rogue questions.
→ Have a briefing/run through the morning of, then take a break for a glass of water, makeup/wardrobe, and chill before showtime.
Landline
→ Find a unique story angle – and how it fits into the broader context of agriculture or life on the land
→ Interview prospective talent/client for the pitch and ensure they are comfortable on camera to help determine key messages/angles/narrative.
→ Write and develop the pitch. It might be pegged to an evolving ag/environmental crisis, a new product launch that could revolutionise the indusrty, innovations, issues etc. It needs to be ‘newsy’ with a human element. Good case studies can be the difference between getting a Landline story up and not getting it up. See example here.
→ Landline likes to shoot its own footage, but can provide some to producers to give them an idea of what the story can look like visually.
→ Stories might be shot over several days/weeks and across multiple locations, so it’s critical to be super organised and ensure talent and producers know who they are meeting, where, when, and questions/talking points to adequately prep talent.
→ On the day, do a sweep of media to ensure no breaking news will affect the segment. This is not as critical for live TV or a hard-news segment, but good for background to maintain currency, esp if it’s an unfolding story.
→ Have a briefing doc and talking points (TPs) written for your talent – this should include possible questions, talking points about the segment, key grabs, and what to expect on the day.
TV news segments
Newspapers (The Aus, AFR, DT, SMH, AAP etc)
→ Pitch with purpose – target a specific journalist/outlet with a specific angle/story/talent that will resonate with them. E.g. the same story needs to have multiple tailored pitches with a targeted angle – tech, finance, ag etc.
→ Find a unique story pitch/angle to that specific journalist and outlet, pending news cycle of the time.
→ Write and develop the pitch. This can involve chatting to a journo to workshop ideas/angles/talent depending on the news cycle and what they are after. A pitch needs to include: a punchy top-level one-liner about what the story is about, why should people care about, who the talent is. Print needs pictures also. Many news outlets like to take their own, but always provide contributed pics to give them a feel and flavour of the subject. Papers don’t like pics that have run elsewhere, so they need fresh, new ones.
→ Get a sense from the journo what questions they want to ask the talent, the angle of the story, key themes/messages etc
→ Develop talking points for the talent based on questions, key grabs, messages/takeaways/call to action etc. Have a briefing/practise run before the interview to ensure they are across the format of an interview and familiar with the content and key messages to get across.
→ Pitch with purpose – target a specific journalist/outlet with a specific angle/story/talent that will resonate with them. E.g. a hard-news pols story about a major ag announcement to a press gallery journo isn’t the same pitch for a feel-good news story going to Ch10 Daniel Doody etc.
→ Find a unique story pitch/angle. It needs the hard-news factor or a quirky/colour factor, or peg to a current issue. Needs good pictures. TVs will usually only run a story if it is an exclusive.
→ Write and develop the pitch. This can involve chatting to producer/journo to workshop ideas/angles/talent depending on the news cycle and what they are after, when. E.g. a Black Friday Sale pitch is time-sensitive so should be pegged to the actual day. A pitch needs to include: a punchy one-liner about what the story is about, why should people care about, who the talent it, and a link to the vision. You will also need to interview/vet talent to ensure they are fit for live TV and include them in the pitch.
→ To get a pitch over the line, you need amazing broll that they cut up to use as olay in the segment. It needs to be a couple of minutes in length, and should be time stamped to allow producers to easily cut it up (i.e. 00.00–00:10 Farmer inspection crop; 00:10-00:30 drone footage of crop, 00:30-00:40 farmer in tractor etc). In TV, amazing footage alone can get a segment up over a great story with no accompanying pictures.
→ TV news stories can either be a live interview cross, but mostly are pre-recorded interviews. Make sure talent is prepped, briefed and across the content/angle of the story. It is always good to chat with journalist ahead of the interview to get a sense of what they will ask.
→ Develop short, sharp, punchy TPs. I think it’s always best to have three key grabs – make them count and think that if there’s only one grab from the talent in the segment, make it this one. Then after the the three key grabs, have bulletpoints extra info. A news segment is only ever 90 secs long, so bank on getting at least one grab in. These grabs shouldn’t be basic info they can get elsewhere – they need to be tailored to the talent and offer extra ‘colour’ or stance than what the basic facts are. I consider them the ‘gee-whiz’ punchy lines!
→ The beauty of a pre-rec news story is that you can clarify with the journo a particular message/grabs if the talent is not comfortable.
→ If in person, the talent should be square to camera, but eyeline off to the interviewee, never down the barrel. If it’s just a camo and not a journo, you should be the eyeline to the side shoulder of the camo.
→ If a video interview, make sure talent is centre frame, somewhere quiet, camera at eye level, not wearing busy print/stripes.
→ Have a briefing/practise run-through beforehand to ensure they understand the format and to familiarise them with the content and format of an interview.
Radio/podcasts (commercial and community)
→ Pitch with purpose – target a specific journalist/outlet with a specific angle/story/talent that will resonate with them and their audience.
→ Producers need snappy soundbytes, so pitch should be no longer than a few pars long – they prefer bullet points and can build it out from there.
→ You can’t pitch radio or podcast without talent, otherwise it likely won’t make the bulletin
→ For pre-recorded radio grabs, make TPs short, snappy, punchy and catchy. They cut sound bites to run as news grab in the hourly bulletins, so not big slabs of text. Time is of the essence. The fewer the words, the better, so make them count.
→ Talent should always be briefed and prepped before an interview. If it’s a longer-form podcast, questions can usually be provided ahead of time to develop talking points.
→ For news grabs, they’re much tighter.
→ Make sure talent is in a quiet place – don’t use headphones for a radio interview, always phone to ear in a quiet place away from wind.
→ Always have a practise run/prep before talent is interviewed, so make sure TPs are concise and to the point.
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