The essential elements of a winning pitch: Pitch Better, Part 2
What should you include in your pitch to catch and keep an editor’s eye? I dissect a successful query.
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Hi storytellers —
In the last issue, we dropped in on intrepid audio storyteller Will Coley and his equally courageous editor, Articles of Interest cohost Avery Trufelman, innocently watching a comedian at a New York club — sans clothes. As I wrote then, “How [this story] went from a little idea in [Will’s] head to where it wound up — the two desperately trying not to allow even their knees to touch now that there’s no denim protecting them — can help us understand the mysteries of story pitching.”
In that issue — Part 1 of my occasional series, “Pitch Better,” Will’s experience illuminated a lot about how to discover and frame a good story idea, the precursor to every decent pitch, ever.
Today, I’ll delve into the mysteries of the pitch itself.
But first, I have to come clean: Writing this series has been a struggle. A while back, audio producer Dennis Funk called the upheavals across the creative industries the media implosion, an on-point label for this cataclysm if there ever were one.
Storytellers are justifiably anxious. One superb journalist I know says she’s “questioning her life choices.” Some days, the weight on my chest is heavy. If the same is true for you, you’re in good company.
Against this backdrop, I’ve been wondering: Is it tone deaf to publish a series on pitching? Do we only need these skills and resources if we’re certain there’s a healthy market right now for what we make?
Well, no. “Learning how to pitch a good idea is timeless,” esteemed story editor Ruxandra Guidi wrote, urging me to continue.
So did others, including podcast producer K.O. Myers, who said, “Having a standout pitch is even more important if inspiration strikes during a downturn. It also gives people tools they can use when things swing up again.”
So here we are. This is Pitch Better, Part 2, in which I offer some basic principles for a great feature or series query.
How a pitch came to be
One sunny spring day in Denver, I found myself on a school playground chatting with a friend. We had a conversation that I would later see as life-changing. My friend, a history teacher, had plans that evening to attend a Black version of the musical Oklahoma!. Our theater discussion led him to tell me about the Tulsa Race Massacre, now known as one of the worst incidents of racial violence in this country.
It was 2019, and I was shocked that I’d never heard of it.
The story would play in my head again and again over the next few months.
Do you know that feeling? I did what I always wind up doing when I can’t shake a story. I researched it. Then I wrote a one-page query to American History Tellers, a Wondery podcast, suggesting that I write a limited series about it. Here’s a breakdown.
(No, I can’t share the actual pitch with you. I’m sorry. I moved, I bought a new computer, and this is why you should always keep your good pitches and every compliment you ever receive about your work.)
A Tulsa statue remembering the massacre. Photo courtesy of the author.
The pitch
I led with a brief paragraph, describing what was then a little-known fact: In the early 1900s, the residents of a Black neighborhood in Tulsa were such successful entrepreneurs, bankers, doctors, lawyers, and the like that the area, called Greenwood, was known as “Black Wall Street” all over the country. I shared a few tantalizing details about the characters who lived there and the thriving community they’d built.
Then I took a left turn, introducing the heart of the story and my series: In 2021, Black Wall Street burned to the ground. Three hundred people were murdered in less than 24 hours. 1200 buildings were destroyed. The perpetrators: the victims’ white neighbors.
Then I introduced yet another, bigger surprise: In 2019, few Americans had ever heard of this massacre, one of the most important events in our 20th-century history.
Finally, I shared an even more shocking truth: Few people in Tulsa, where descendants live, had learned about it. It was still not taught in school, even there.
At this point, it was time to ask for what I wanted. In my “nut graf” — a journalist’s slang for the “why this matters” paragraph — I explained why American History Tellers’ listeners would care about this story now. (It was timely: the 100th commemoration of the incident was less than two years away.)
I then spent a sentence or two explaining how I would approach this series, as a four-part story with a beginning, middle and end.
I closed with my availability. I would have added a sentence about my relevant experience, along with my resume and work samples, but I had one leg up: American History Tellers’ editor was my editor on another Wondery podcast, Business Wars Daily. (Other than sharing an editor, the two podcasts had nothing in common, however. They were wildly different in topic, format, tone, and the skills needed to do the job.)
The outcome
A day or two later, I received a polite rejection letter. No room at the inn, my editor said.
I was sad, of course, but not surprised. Even then, a story about white violence toward Black Americans was a political one. I was skeptical about the network’s willingness to go there. I’ve also built a pretty thick skin over the years. Rejection goes with the territory. Moreover, my sadness soon became relief: I wouldn’t have to spend months researching such a painful story. Maybe it was for the best.
But that was not to be.
Six months later, my editor sent me a very different email. Would I consider writing the series after all? Could I write a complex gut-wrenching, four-part series in only six weeks?
They had a hole to fill. I was all too willing to fill it.
I tell you this whole story so that I can now go back and dissect the process for you. (If you listen to Sound Judgment, the podcast, you know I love a good dissection.) Hopefully, peering under the covers at the pitch’s structure will help you create a structure for your own pitches. (Caveat: Many outlets issue their own pitch guidelines, which may be quite different from the structure I use. Match your pitch to your outlet.)
The lede: Surprise me.
To me, the best feature ledes are those that place the reader smack in the middle of the action, if possible, or the setting, if not. The editor or executive producer is your first audience member. Take them somewhere. Immerse them. Make them curious.
There should always be a “left turn,” something the reader or listener doesn’t see coming. In the first sentence, I could have plunged directly into the essence of the story — the violence. However, by inviting my editor into the unusual community that would ultimately be lost, my introduction of the massacre became more surprising and far more poignant. Now we’re talking about humans, not numbers.
Documentary producer Katie Colaneri of New Hampshire Public Radio has a much more evocative phrase for the surprises I’m looking for. She calls these essential story elements “holy shit moments.” Holy shit moments generate word of mouth. As Katie says, we tell our friends, “Oh my God, you’re never going to believe this.” (Listen to our Sound Judgment interview, “How to pitch a documentary and the unusual origin of a This American Life Story.”)
Remember that, once I moved beyond the surprise, I briefly explained the substance of my four-part series. This answers the simple question: What’s the story? Editors need both flash and substance. What are you planning to do? What’s this product look like?
Conflict, characters, and stakes
What is true for every story is also true for a pitch: There’s no story without tension, and there’s no tension without understanding what’s at stake for people we care about. A good novelist or film director introduces sympathetic characters and then complicates their lives. Characters want something that matters, face an obstacle to getting it, overcome that obstacle and then face another, bigger one, again and again until the story resolves. The elevating stakes maintain the audience’s curiosity throughout.
Speaking of characters, I mentioned a few when I first described Black Wall Street. For a different podcast, I may have wanted to follow a single person, and perhaps a small supporting cast, on a journey. Neglecting to identify at least one compelling character is one of the most common reasons why pitches fail. News reporters, especially those who produced spot news and three-minute features for public radio (waves hand wildly) often miss this step. Include in your pitch the people at the heart of your story, along with your access to those sources.
Themes and central questions
Maybe the story isn’t what you first think it is. Maybe there’s something more – a bigger obstacle, an underlying theme (Black history hidden on purpose), something that makes a single story universal.
In my pitch, perhaps the tale of the Tulsa Race Massacre alone would have been sufficient for the producers of a history podcast to greenlight it. But I took my own curiosity seriously. I was both stunned by the story itself and appalled by how well-kept a secret it had been for almost a century.
After my American History Tellers series was released, thousands of journalists worldwide covered the massacre. Much of that coverage told the shocking story itself. They investigated what happened, why, and what we still don’t know (investigations of mass graves continue now).
Only a fraction asked the question that for me became a crucial theme: How could such an explosive secret have been kept for almost one hundred years? How could such an event simply disappear from our collective memories? And what did that say about the politics of what we are allowed to know and not know?
If you can identify a theme and pose it as your central question, it will give more power and heft to your pitch. (But don’t turn yourself in knots to contrive one. Sometimes a good tale is just that.)
A word about the importance of the “why your audience will care” graf: In my case, it was simple, in part because I pitched an obvious outlet for the story. By definition, American History Tellers listeners are history buffs, so an important but little-known event in American history would be an automatic draw, if told well enough.
But it might not have been enough at the wrong time. Timeliness is often the first test of relevance. The editor is always asking, “Why should my audience care now?”
Don’t bother sending a pitch without identifying relevance. If you’re having trouble clarifying why your story matters, workshop your pitch with a friend or colleague. Examine it through these lenses:
Have you chosen the right outlet?
A current events podcast would have dismissed my pitch outright.
Have you framed the story for the audience your editor serves?
Well, maybe a current events podcast would have rejected it. But perhaps, if I’d pitched a story on the survivors who would soon seek reparations (going all the way to the Supreme Court), it would have been a great fit for a current affairs show.In what way is your story timely?
If that’s not obvious, look for connections with trends, events, and even social media holidays on the horizon. It’s cheesy, but editors still love Women’s History Month and National Chocolate Day.Has the outlet covered your topic before?
How is what you’re pitching different from their coverage? Have you even researched what they’ve done? (I hope so.)Is your query noteworthy?
Does it address something happening in the zeitgeist? Is it connected to a trend that keeps surfacing in group chats with your friends? What are people talking about? (If you focus on current affairs, history, or politics, are you sharing stories about the impacts on people’s daily lives?)If it’s personal, in what way is it also universal?
In the podcast What Happened in Alabama, journalist Lee Hawkins investigates the history of his Black family, leading him to an unexpected understanding of how slavery shaped the behaviors of his parents and generations of his ancestors. His personal story is universal: We all sometimes question our parents’ actions; every family has tensions. But he also wanted to inspire listeners to investigate their own family histories; he interviewed Holocaust survivors, for instance.
Why you — and the unfortunate reality of networking
Pitching is all about trust. When any editor says yes to a pitch from a stranger, they’re making a leap of faith. They’re taking on a lot of work. Higher-ups scrutinize their decisions. Audiences are fickle; it’s an editor’s job to satisfy them. That’s why you need to share your relevant experience and other credentials, such as pertinent education.
(If you’re just starting out, don’t hide that fact — but explain your personal interest in your pitch, along with lived experience, hobbies or studies that bolster your case.)
Unfortunately, the way most humans actually form trust is when a “credible messenger” introduces us. It’s a way of saying: “This stranger is safe. They won’t harm you.” That’s what networking does for you and why the subject line: “Jane Doe recommended I get in touch” is so helpful. This is so obvious I’m cringing as I write it, but look for someone who can connect you to the editor or the outlet.
(*I have to mention that networking creates its own harms, especially for marginalized storytellers. Moreover, networking is its own beast. If there’s enough interest, I’ll cover it in a separate issue. Email me or say so in the comments, please.)
Finally, editors need to believe that you have the bandwidth to complete your draft and respond to revisions. State your availability. Storytellers who miss deadlines make for an editor’s sleepless nights.
One last thing: I pitched my series on paper. But when you’re pitching most audio outlets, editors will want to hear some tape. How much and in what format (clips or a formal sizzle reel) are case-dependent.
Be flexible
Remember the outcome? Initially, my pitch was rejected. Only when my editor needed a series in a hurry did she accept it. When you’re nursing a rejection, this is a good reminder that there’s a whole host of things happening in an editor’s work life that affect a pitch’s success and failure.
If you’ve read this far, remember I mentioned that the playground conversation was life changing? It was. Here’s a TEDx talk I gave about how this series affected my personally and how it transformed the way I look at storytelling.
Keep reading Sound Judgment for Pitch Better, Part 3, in which I’ll share a list of audio outlets that take story pitches, along with other resources for finding open calls and other opportunities.
That’s it for today. Sound Judgment Kudos and Learn from the Best return in the next issue.
In the meantime, share your pitches and pitch questions with me! Help me formulate the next pieces in this Pitch Better series. Also, sign up for the Sound Judgment workshop waitlist to be the first to learn about new classes. Consider upgrading your subscription for access to the archives, discounts on training — including one a hands-on pitching workshop — and a forthcoming free ask-me-anything session for paying subscribers!
*Lead photo courtesy of 𝓴𝓘𝓡𝓚 𝕝𝔸𝕀 on Unsplash.
As always, it is a joy to be with you.
Elaine
Epilogue
“This is an honorable profession… The work that we do is valuable. People depend on us, even people who distrust us. They still depend on us in ways that they may not have even grappled with yet.”
— Dr. Jelani Cobb, Dean of the Columbia Journalism School, on journalism in a time of crisis at the Reuters Memorial Lecture, March 10, 2025
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