perspectives

At CNBC, dozens of pitches flooded my inbox every week.

 

I ignored 95% of them.

Because, mostly, they were subjects CNBC would never cover. To be brutally honest, some of them were downright ridiculous in the context of financial news programming.

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I’m sure almost all of these were sent under the “spray and pray” mentality – thinking if you throw enough at the wall, something will stick.

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It doesn't. In fact, it does the exact opposite.

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Inside the CNBC "Deleted" Folder

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Look at a small sample of actual subject lines sent to my CNBC inbox during a single week:

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• Do Mattress Protectors Actually Prevent Infection at Home?

• Expert tips to keep springtime allergies under control in New York

• Why You're Really Tired / Segment Idea

• Scientists reveal a new class of molten planet

• World’s Largest Blind Taste Test of Dairy-Free Milks

• Today is World Engineering Day!

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Anyone who has watched even a few hours of business television should know these stories would land anywhere other than the email trash box.

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The hidden risk of "spray and pray" isn't just a low response rate. It actively destroys your sender credibility.

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The Unspoken Cost: The Blacklist

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When PR teams treat newsroom inboxes like bulk distribution lists, journalists notice. After receiving two or three irrelevant blasts, they recognize the sender's name and start forwarding every future email directly to trash.

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You become the boy who cried wolf, and if you ever subsequently have a great pitch, it may never get seen.

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During my time in television newsrooms, I saw entire agencies get blocked because multiple representatives sent slightly tweaked versions of the same pitch minutes apart. That isn't media outreach; it’s spam.

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And when an agency burns its domain reputation, its best clients pay the price because their legitimate, high-value stories never get opened.

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What the Top 5% Do Differently

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The communicators who landed coverage on CNBC operated on a completely different model:

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• They Know Who They're Talking To

       Sending a medical story to a crypto reporter wastes everyone's time. The best PR professionals watch broadcasts and read articles, know the beats and tailor every angle to the specific outlet and journalist.

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• They Protect Their Sender Reputation

       Top communicators pitch less often, but with far higher precision. They take time to build a trust relationship. Because they only reach out when they have a story that genuinely fits, journalists open their emails immediately.

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• They Think Like a Journalist

        Before pitching, they pressure-test the narrative: Why this? Why now? Why does this audience care? They cut out corporate fluff and offer data, interviews and visual elements a producer needs to greenlight a segment.

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Bringing the Newsroom Lens to Your Strategy

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Most communications teams and PR firms don't have a former network news producer on staff to evaluate pitches before they go out.

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That's why I created my Media Reality Workshops.

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I pull back the curtain on how newsroom decisions are made, deconstruct and reframe your pitches through a veteran producer’s lens and help you align outreach with how journalists evaluate stories and prioritize coverage.

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Ready to stop getting filtered into the trash box?

Get in touch to refine your narrative before your next pitch cycle.