Know your continent for pitching success

In a recent post, I talked about the importance of familiarizing yourself with a journalist before your pitch and how blogs can can offer that opportunity. But, simply researching a journalist through their blog is not enough, especially since a blog is often their personal opinion and anything they write for the dead-tree edition has to get through an editor. You have to add the editor and the publication to your research list.

But if you're planning a big event with multiple targets, your research needs to focus on an even more macro level than the publication: the continent. That's the conclusion I reached after reading a very interesting piece from Edelman's Mark Grundy.

Mark led global outreach for the announcement of Masdar, a $15bn dollar “zero-carbon, waste-free, car-free” city in Abu Dhabi, UAE. He saw great disparity in coverage between the U.S. and the rest of the world, despite devoting equal resources (archived release). According to Mark, the news got top-tier coverage all over the world, but little in the U.S.

It's interesting that someone would openly discuss a pitch that didn't achieve the desired results as a public learning opportunity, but that's apparently what Mark is doing. And I take my hat off to him for it. The piece is listed as Part 1 and he is promising to follow it up with his opinion on why this disparity exists. I'll be paying attention.