Relevanceisthewholegame:whatjournalistsactuallywantfromapitch

There is a contradiction at the heart of this year's media research.

Journalists still rely heavily on PR professionals to help them find stories. Cision's 2026 State of the Media Report, based on responses from more than 1,800 journalists, found that 66% use PR-provided material as their main source of story ideas, ahead of social media at 45%.

At the same time, Muck Rack's 2026 State of Journalism report found that half of journalists seldom or never respond to pitches, while 88% delete pitches that fall outside their beat. Both things can be true, and the relationship between journalists and PR is crucial, but that does not mean they need every pitch that falls into their inbox.

Working in PR, I think this is one of the easiest things to lose sight of when you are pitching on behalf of a client. You can spend hours getting excited about a story because you know the client and understand the work behind it. But one thing I've made a conscious effort to remember is that the journalist doesn’t have the same privilege. They open the email without the same context and, quite often, without any particular reason to care.

That means the job of a PR professional is not simply to make a story sound interesting. It’s to work out whether the story is interesting to this particular journalist, for this particular audience, at this particular moment.

That is a much harder question to answer, but it is also where good pitching begins.

Relevance comes before everything else 

When journalists are asked why they reject pitches, the answers are remarkably consistent.

The biggest reason is relevance. Muck Rack found that 82% of journalists delete pitches that are not relevant to their audience or coverage area. Being too promotional comes next at 53%, followed by having no clear news angle at 34%.

A beautifully written pitch sent to the wrong person is still a bad pitch. I have found that one of the most useful parts of pitching is actually the research you do before you begin writing. Looking at a journalist's recent coverage can tell you far more than their job title. Someone might describe themselves as a technology journalist, for example, but perhaps they mainly write about AI regulation, or cybersecurity, or the impact of technology on consumers. It’s important to get a good understanding of the types of things likely to be picked up before you begin.

The same applies to publications. A story that works for a trade title might be completely wrong for a regional newspaper, even if both technically cover the same industry. That is why I think pitching is partly a matchmaking exercise. You are looking for the overlap between three things: what the journalist covers, what their audience cares about and what your client can contribute.

I also like to think of the different elements of a pitch as poker chips. Every useful extra gives you another chip to put on the table and slightly improves your chances of getting a journalist interested. Maybe you have a strong image, or maybe there is a quote that immediately makes the story more interesting. Original data and a spokesperson ready to talk are also usually useful in catching their attention. None of these will rescue a story that is not relevant in the first place, but once the angle is right, they can make it much easier for a journalist to see how the story could work.

It’s never a bad idea to ask yourself the question: If I were this journalist, would I actually want this story?

A pitch is not an advert for your client 

One of the biggest turning points in how I approach pitching was realising that a journalist is rarely interested in a client simply because the client wants to be in the media. This sounds obvious, but it is surprisingly easy to fall into.

Clients will naturally want to talk about their latest achievements and expertise. From their perspective, those things are important. But journalists are looking for a reason to tell a story to their readers that they know will fit their audience, and often aren’t particularly invested in your client unless there is a clear reason for their readers to be.

One of a journalist's main priorities is deciding how newsworthy a story is. The client's announcement is not always the story itself. The stronger angle might be what it reveals about a wider industry trend or new data that challenges what people already think. This is why I think the strongest pitches often involve a bit of translation. You are taking something that matters to your client and translating it into something that matters to the journalist's audience. The difference can be quite subtle. A client might want to talk about launching a new service, but a journalist is more likely to be interested in why demand for that service is growing in the first place.

Give journalists something they can actually use 

The report from Cision is particularly interesting when you look at what journalists themselves say they need from PR. One of the clearest themes is that they want information that helps them actually do their jobs, as oppose to more promotional material about a client.

One journalist asked PR professionals to provide "clear, accurate, and complete information up front", including what is new, and what has the right context. Another said PRs should think carefully about why they are pitching a story in the first place, and make it clear in the pitch why the journalist's audience would want to read it.

In my experience, the strongest research-led stories are often the ones where the findings uncover something unexpected. If the results simply confirm what everyone already assumes, there is less of a reason for a journalist to write about them. A surprising statistic or an interesting finding that challenges the existing narrative gives you a much stronger starting point.

It’s also important to think ahead when communicating with journalists, as they are often on tight deadlines. Assuming that the job is done when the journalist agrees to cover the story is easily done, but if they have to chase for a headshot or quote for example, you have made the process harder than it needed to be.

Need help finding the story journalists will care about? At Branagh PR, we help businesses turn their expertise and ideas into stories that are newsworthy and worth a journalists time. Get in touch with our team to talk about how we can help put your story in front of the right people.