▲ 1 points

Why aren't tech journalists responding to pitches?

by bozho·11y ago·1 comments·view on hn ↗

I've had several announcements about pet-projects of mine that got to the front page of HackerNews. And although that doesn't mean that the projects were promising, game-changing, or investor-attracting, it at least means they are somewhat noteworthy in the technology world.

My pet projects are not a startup, but nevertheless I pitch them to popular tech news sites, for the sake of the experiment. With absolutely zero response. At some point several people (including here on HN) pointed out that I should not write to the generic, catch-all news@sometechnewssite.com, but I should target individual authors that seem to be interested in similar topics. And so I did; with no response whatsoever, again.

Two concerns:

1. Why do they have a news@ / tips@ emails, if nobody reads that?

2. Are technology people, and especially startup founders at the mercy of tech journalists, trying to get personal connections to them in order to get something published?

While my projects are not my startups, and I've not thrown money at them, I imagine the confusion that a startup may have, when it hits a brick wall when trying to get publicity.

It seems that tech journalists (not all of them, of course) are not quite competent, but are also over-confident (just like any other journalist, actually). And they not only report "news" from the technology field (though many of the big tech sites are not tech tabloids; just look at the front page of Mashable), but they are also often judges of whether a startup is good or bad. And I don't believe they are competent in that either.

On the other hand, does it actually matter? If a piece of technology is really good, it probably won't need TechCrunch coverage to be successful.

Maybe only the readers suffer from the inability of tech journalists to curate interesting content. But on the other hand - that's why we have hacker news.

1 comments

Tech journalists for the most part are journalists first, and interested in tech second. This is why you need to pitch your idea through a PR company, and never "cold call" send it yourself. Journalists do not have the ability to see why something is interesting or different; that is why they are journalists reporting on what others are doing and not devevlopers or doers themselves.

If you want your idea to get noticed, you need to either know a journalist personally and ask a favour, or throw a free drinks launch party, RSVP. Then you will get some results. Failing both of those, you need to hire specialist PR to push your message. They do all the things you cannot do; offer freebies down the road, invitations to parties, access to celebrities in whatever field, scoops, etc.

The other way to generate interest is to avoid the press entirely, and go directly to the public by whatever means is convenient and cost effective. If you've written a new Perl Module, suggesting it to TechCrunch will not get you anywhere, but posting on a relevant forum will. Of course, TechCrunch cant tell what is interesting in advance, wether its a Perl Module or some new consumer device no one has heard of or thought of before.

Then there is the problem of noise. Even if all journalists were capable of understanding the ideas and products that are sent to them, and the way these ideas and products will interact with other parts of the economy six level in, they do not have time to look seriously at everything that is sent to them, and so they must use some form of filter. A convenient one is the PR firm, that packages, and contextualizes the idea for them, so that ideally, they do not even have to do any writing themselves, they just copypasta the press release and photos that are handed to them on a plate. From their point of view, this is ideal. They get their work done for them, they are made to look like they have their finger on the pulse of the hottest ideas, and they don't have to do any writing or research or photography themselves.

This is the reality of not only tech news, but of all news where new products are mentioned. Its not news, its all pure Public Relations, which is all about ego, money, freebies and status. There are notable exceptions of course, and if you find them, you must tailor your approach accordingly.