A news editor's tips for pitching to publications in 2025 📣
- Emma Nelson
- Feb 4
- 3 min read
What it's like to work as a magazine/news editor and what editors are looking for in pitches 📰
Did I mention that my aunt has a super cool job?
Well, she does. 😊 My aunt, Amy Nelson, is a magazine/news editor who’s been in the news publishing industry for over thirty years. I recently had the opportunity to interview her, and she shed some light on her career path and the pitching process. Today, I’m excited to share what I learned with you!
A little bit about Amy…
Amy received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in journalism. While working on her Master’s at the University of Minnesota, Amy started her career at The Pioneer Press. She enjoyed her job and continued with The Pioneer Press after she graduated. By the time she left the publication in 2017, Amy had worked her way up to the Features Editor position. In this role, she oversaw articles in home and gardening, healthcare, restaurant and dining, movies, live music, and theatre, among others. Amy also served as the press’s Travel Editor, expanding her passion for travel and travel news. She is herself a freelance travel writer who enjoys pitching travel stories to a variety of publications.
In 2017, Amy spent some time working with the performing arts center at the University of Minnesota. She then transitioned to a role at Minnesota Monthly before moving to her current position.
Today, Amy works at PBS’s Next Avenue, a publication aimed at readers ages 50 and over. At Next Avenue, she heads the health, caregiving, and travel channels. The publication is website only, although some news stories do get picked up for the PBS magazine as well. Almost all of Next Avenue’s articles are written by freelancers who pitched the editors, so it’s a fantastic publication to pitch to.
🤔 What does Amy’s job look like?
Amy spends a lot of her time reviewing freelance pitches, since Next Avenue almost exclusively uses freelance pitches for their publication. She and her fellow editors accept about 20-25 pitches every week.
She also spends her hours editing stories that have been accepted, doing research, fact checking, and writing her own pieces.
📚 Amy’s pitching tips for freelancers
I asked Amy whether she had any tips for freelancers looking to pitch their ideas to publications, and she had some solid wisdom to share:
Know the audience you’d be writing for and tailor your pitch to that specific audience. That way, the editor reviewing your pitch can see the value in it. Amy gets a ton of blind pitches from freelancers that obviously didn’t do their homework on her publication and are sending their pitch to many pubs at random. Don’t be that person.
While doing your research, check to see if your idea has been written about in the past year or so. Don’t pitch something that’s been done recently - it’s very unlikely that it will be accepted.
Wherever you’re pitching, find out what pitch/delivery format the editor is looking for. If you can do the hyperlinks, social media, etc. in your article, that’s a huge plus. It leaves less work for the editor to manage.
Get to know the editors at the publications you work with. What do they like/dislike? What are they looking for in a pitch?
Have a general idea of what you want to get paid for your work, then lower those expectations. Rates are typically around 50 cents a word, but this can vary greatly depending on the publication you’re working with.
Stick to the word count! This is true for short pitches, but also for the article you write after your pitch has been accepted. If you don’t shorten it to fit the word count, the editor will have to and you may not like what’s cut.
If you’re stuck, consider chatting with frequent writers at the publication to ask questions about what the editors there are looking for, who the right person to pitch is, etc. There are also writing groups for many different niches, so consider finding a group that matches your interests for support and suggestions on where to pitch your ideas.
Avoid submitting a full, already written story/article. When you do, it’s much harder for the editor to guide you as you write the piece.
If you’d like to pitch Amy at Next Avenue…
Consider pitching a story that’s timely and news-related, rather than evergreen. She gets a lot of evergreen stories already.
Amy also receives many first person, personal essay pitches, so she prefers ideas surrounding a universal topic. This helps avoid articles that are so specific to one person that Next Avenue’s readers can’t relate to them.
Always use their pitch portal, even if you’ve written for Next Avenue before!
Click here to read the Next Avenue pitch guidelines. Be sure to use their pitch portal, linked on the pitch page, to submit your pitch (do not email the editors!).
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