# Media Pr Outreach > Use this skill when doing media and PR outreach - first contact with a reporter, a news pitch, a contributed-byline pitch, or a fast reactive pitch on breaking news. Produces a short, anchored pitch that leads with the reporter's beat and closes on a concrete give-plus-ask, plus a follow-up plan. Reach for it when the ask is "pitch this reporter", "get us press coverage", "draft a media or PR pitch", "respond to this story", or "build our journalist list". - Skill: `swan-gtm/media-pr-outreach` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 3 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add swan-gtm/media-pr-outreach` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/swan-gtm/media-pr-outreach/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: swan-gtm (https://skillmd.com/u/swan-gtm) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/swan-gtm/media-pr-outreach --- Applies to any media or PR outreach to a journalist for coverage. Produces a short pitch anchored to the reporter's recent work, weighted toward their readers, and closed on a specific give and one clear ask. Most cold pitches to reporters fail the same three ways: they lead with the company, they are not anchored to anything the reporter actually wrote, and they open with "happy to be a source" and give no reason to reply. This skill fixes all three, then routes the draft through a review gate before it sends. ## The four pitch types Pick the type before drafting - each has a different structure and length, detailed in `references/pitch-types.md`. - **First contact** - get on the reporter's radar before there is news. No pitch, no ask beyond "useful to be a resource". - **News pitch** - a specific announcement worth their readers' attention. - **Byline pitch** - a contributed article from an exec, backed by a real existing point of view. - **Reactive pitch** - a story just broke on the beat and there is a fast, specific expert take to offer. Speed is the whole point. ## The play 1. **Qualify the reporter against a recent, on-beat byline.** Find a specific piece they published recently that the company can genuinely comment on, and confirm it is actually recent at the source - a contact list goes stale, and a byline from last quarter is not an anchor. Record the anchor's title, date, and link. No live anchor means the reporter is not ready for first contact or a pitch yet. (A reactive pitch is the exception: its anchor is the story that just broke, so speed replaces the byline check.) 2. **Pick the type and draft to its structure.** Use the matching structure from `references/pitch-types.md`. Keep it short - first contact under five sentences, a news pitch under 150 words, a reactive pitch under 100. 3. **Lead with their readers, not the company.** Open on the news value or the beat. One line of company relevance, not three. The anchor rule, the them:us ratio, and the give-plus-ask close - the three levers that decide reply rate - are worked through with examples in `references/anchor-ratio-and-close.md`. 4. **Run the copy pass.** Strip AI tells, then add enough plain human voice that it reads as one person emailing another, not a template. No jargon, no "circling back", no press-release voice. 5. **Clear the review gate.** Before it sends, one independent read confirms: anchored (to the reporter's recent byline, or for a reactive pitch to the breaking story), passes the them:us ratio, closes on a real give-plus-ask (first contact excepted - it makes no ask), and reads clean. One revision round. 6. **Human approves, then send, log, and follow up once.** A person reviews and approves the final email and sends it from the right inbox - nothing goes out automatically. Log the reporter, outlet, date, type, and anchor. Follow up once after five to seven business days, one sentence, no pressure. Log every response, including a decline - a "not now" is a relationship. ## What good looks like - **What the best operator notices first:** the anchor is doing more work than the pitch. A reporter decides whether to keep reading based on whether the first line proves you actually read their work. A specific, recent, correctly-attributed anchor earns the next sentence; a generic "I love your coverage of ad tech" gets deleted. Get the anchor right and the rest is easy. - **The common mistake:** leading with the company and its product, and closing with "would love to be a source" - a ratio of mostly-us and an ask with no give. The mediocre pitch is also a mass send: the same paragraph to five reporters, which every reporter can smell. One reporter per outlet per story, every pitch specific to that person. - **How you know it's ready:** count sentences about their readers versus about the company - three to one, minimum. The close names a concrete give (a specific quote, a data point, an exclusive angle, a ready draft) and one low-effort ask (first contact excepted - it makes no ask, it just offers to be a resource). And it would read, to the reporter, like an email from a person who knows their beat. ## Rules - MUST anchor first contact, news pitches, and byline pitches to a specific, verified-recent article the reporter published, with a link. A reactive pitch is the exception: it anchors to the breaking story it responds to, not the reporter's own byline. - MUST keep the them:us sentence ratio at three-to-one or better. - MUST close a news, byline, or reactive pitch on a concrete give-plus-ask, and never open or close a pitch with "happy to be a source". First contact is the deliberate exception: it makes no ask and only offers to be a resource later. - MUST hold to one reporter per outlet per story. - NEVER send a mass or templated pitch, and NEVER send the press release as the pitch - the release is supporting material. - NEVER follow up more than once on the same pitch.