{"id":1313,"date":"2007-05-16T09:04:38","date_gmt":"2007-05-16T16:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/?p=1313"},"modified":"2007-05-16T09:04:38","modified_gmt":"2007-05-16T16:04:38","slug":"pitches-that-worked-the-economist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/16\/pitches-that-worked-the-economist\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitches That Worked: The Economist"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m in a featured article on MediaBistro<\/i><\/a> today — that’s a journalism industry site. The piece is meant as a helpful guide for struggling freelancers (like me), as to how to get published in big, brand-name magazines. <\/p>\n

Unfortunately, MediaBistro<\/i> puts their good stuff behind a paywall ($49\/year), so even I can’t get access to this article. I didn’t even know the piece was running today until a Columbia classmate emailed me a copy and asked about it.<\/p>\n

Here’s the opening graf:
\n<\/p>\n

Pitches That Worked: The Economist<\/p>\n

An emailed introduction and an innovative idea helped position this contributor as a writer his editor can count on<\/p>\n

By Rebecca L. Fox \u00e2\u20ac\u201c May 16, 2007<\/p>\n

It’s a hazard for any freelancer: the query email that seems to land in a black hole. Writer Cyrus Farivar wanted in to The Economist, so after his introductory email got devoured by the editor’s spam filter, he didn’t settle for radio silence. A follow-up introduction made it past the virtual gatekeeper, and his pitches got his stories into this respected magazine. Our breakdown of his introductory note and a subsequent, story-landing query walks you through what about his approach worked, so you can enjoy similar success. <\/p>\n

What the Writer Did<\/p>\n

*Cyrus Farivar:* “If I’m trying to write for a publication I’ve never written before, and it’s somewhere like The Economist and they don’t know me, I try to figure out, who do I know who works there, or who’s written for them? I try to establish a rapport (via email) if I can, and see what they’re looking for.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/i><\/p>\n

The article goes on, and includes my initial exchange with my editor Tom Standage at The Economist<\/i>, de-constructs it, and then includes my pitch for this specific pitch (it was for the exergaming<\/a> story). Then there’s a series of paragraphs from Tom as to why he liked me and why he liked this pitch specifically, and finally it de-constructs the entire pitch, line-by-line.<\/p>\n

Thanks, MediaBistro<\/i>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m in a featured article on MediaBistro today — that’s a journalism industry site. The piece is meant as a helpful guide for struggling freelancers (like me), as to how to get published in big, brand-name magazines. Unfortunately, MediaBistro puts their good stuff behind a paywall ($49\/year), so even I can’t get access to this article. I didn’t even know the piece was running today until a Columbia classmate emailed me a copy and asked about it. Here’s the opening…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-journalism","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4uks-lb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}