Ask yourself, why?

Before you send your next pitch, stop and ask yourself these three questions: Why this? Why us? Why now?

I’ve been using this framework for years – I first picked it up at university during a talk by the then-editor of Reader’s Digest – and it’s become the fastest, most reliable way I know of to work out whether a story actually holds up. I used it again this week during a panel discussion with a room full of female entrepreneurs asking how to get journalists and editors to pay attention. One PR professional in the audience liked it enough that she ran a mentoring workshop around it later that day.

I’ll break it down…

Why this? This is fairly self-explanatory. What is the story? What makes it interesting, surprising or worth a reader’s time? It’s the angle; its reason for being. If you can’t answer it in a sentence or two, you don’t have a story but a vague aspiration.

Why us? This is a woefully underrated point. Have you thought about who you’re pitching to? It’s a question the editor is asking: why should we run this? Why does this story belong in this publication, for this audience, at this moment in their coverage? A pitch that could be sent to any outlet, and probably was, reads exactly like that. Show you know what the publication cares about, what its readers expect and why this story fits – and where.

And this works both ways – why you? Why your client? Is it a company CEO that’s saying something any company CEO can say, or do they have something unique to share? The latter always trumps the former.

Why now? This is the question most underestimated of all (by many an editor, too). Timing isn’t a nice-to-have – it’s a core part of editorial decision-making. Journalists and editors work inside a constant current of news, debate and cultural conversation. Your pitch benefits from a strong hook to a recent development, an emerging trend or a moment that’s already on the news agenda, lifting it from an average story into a must-run. It can be an old subject, but does it have a fresh angle? It might simply be a new report, a news hook, a timely discussion your client is genuinely part of.

The answers to these questions don’t need to be complicated, but you’ll be surprised by how many pitches don’t survive the test. If you can confidently answer all three, however, you will find your stories are getting coverage more than most.