Annalee Armstrong is a senior editor from Fierce Biotech. Annalee manages a team of reporters in the UK and US that cover daily and long-form news about the biotech industry.
During the episode, Annalee talks about pitches and timeliness, circling back with sources about talking with new clients, the biotech and pharma industry’s reliance on embargos, and more.
Follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Click below to listen to the full conversation and read below for highlights from the interview:
[00:03:52] AA: Yes. When I first started in business journalism, I was absolutely obsessed with
clearing my email out to zero. Then as I got into it, I realized that was absolutely a fool's errand.
I just couldn't keep up, and it was stressing me out to try to like clear out my inbox at the end of
the day. So I embraced it. Now, it's a mess. I have 342 unread emails right now, and I'm okay
with it.
[00:04:15] BB: You're just okay with it. Okay. So do you have a process, though, in like
reviewing pitches? Break it down for us on the amount that our PR pitches, versus maybe
freelancer pitches, versus your boss telling you something. What is the makeup in there?
[00:04:33] AA: It's mostly pitches. There's, of course, some junk in there. I will have some
correspondence with my freelancers. But, yes, it's a lot of stuff to go through. I just – I have to
be very quick. That's why I think it's really important to get me with the subject line because I
have to know if I need to cover something right away.
[00:04:53] BB: Okay. Then do you, for publicist pitches, file them, tuck them away somewhere,
do anything? Tell us more.
[00:05:03] AA: I've heard that a lot of people have their emails kind of auto-delete. I don't have
that. I have this like endless archive just in my inbox, which is probably terrible. I have all of
these nice folders where things are supposed to go, but I never do it. It's chaos.
[00:05:17] BB: Oh, you're an abandoned folder person or aspirational folder. Okay, okay. I love
it. Oh, okay. So then do you ever look up, though, previous pitches where you're like, “I saw
something four months ago that was about that, hmm.”?
[00:05:33] AA: Yes, absolutely. I do that all the time. I was doing it right before I got on this
because we're coming up on a new conference that we cover every year in January. So I was
like, “Okay, who pitched us last year? We need to look. I want to see the quality of the pitches,
who we were talking to, and that kind of thing now.”
[00:05:46] BB: Now, that's a new insight. So for something over a year ago, you were looking
and referencing who was pitching us for that event. Okay. This is good to know. Then what do
you do about that? Do you then hit them up and say, “Hey, you coming to this conference
again? Or what are you doing?”
[00:06:02] AA: Yes. We'll circle back on people, especially who we know have clients that we
want to talk to. We'll make sure that we reach out to them ahead of time and if maybe they didn't
have what we were looking for. Maybe they have new clients this year. We always – we know
that things change, so we want to make sure that if there's anybody new that we get to talk to
them first.
[00:06:22] BB: Fascinating. Okay. I would imagine, too, but you checked my assumption that
there are a limited number of publicists that have the clients that are of interest for you all. Is
that true would you say?
[00:06:36] AA: Yes, absolutely. Biotech is a little bit of a small world.
[00:06:40] BB: Great niche, yes.
[00:06:40] AA: There's quite a few of them. You'd be surprised, I guess, and I have really good
relationships with a lot of them. I know that when they email me, they're probably pitching me
something good. If it isn't for me, I will typically still click on their emails because I recognize
them, and we have that relationship.
Click below to sign up for OnePitch and use these insights in your next pitch!
[00:12:49] AA: Yes, for sure. So like I had never covered an industry that relied so much on
embargos as pharma and healthcare does. It's absolutely wild.
[00:12:58] BB: I would imagine. Yes.
[00:13:00] AA: I can tell you right now, my afternoon is writing two embargos. That's the pace of
it.
[00:13:05] BB: Why? Is that because it's an FDA thing? Is it like why, the regulation?
[00:13:12] AA: I have no idea. It's always been this way since I've been doing it. It just seems to
be how the trade pubs and the industry just started interacting. I have to ask maybe some
people who've been doing this for 10, 15 years and get a better answer. But it was a shock to
me that there's so much new shared ahead of time.
[00:13:30] BB: Yes, interesting. My bet would be on regulatory reasons but –
[00:13:34] AA: It's not all – well, yes, they always like to release things before or after the
market. They're pretty particular about that kind of stuff, so yes. I don't know. It's strange, and it's
good and bad. We love having a head start. It allows us to plan. I can make sure I've got the
right people on it. We're not scrambling to push something aside for it. But they're rarely
exclusives, and we know that.
But I think what bothers me the most is when a PR firm or a company doesn't respect my time
or understand the ask. I recently got an offer. I was doing some late work. It was like 7pm, and I
got two embargos come in. One of them, they said, “We have something coming. We don't
know what the embargo time is yet, but here it is.” So I'm thinking like am I supposed to wait up
all night for this? What's – so I get things like that.
Or we'll get a lot, like sending me at like 4pm on a Friday. They'll say, “Okay. Well, we'll send
you the press release on Saturday or Sunday.” I'm like, “What is your expectation for when I'm
going to get this done? Because, first of all, you're asking me to write this thing. Then I have to
get an editor to edit it. And then I have to be online available for questions in case the editor has
questions.” So we're talking multiple people, multiple hours of weekend work.
I just really want to stress to people to just be aware of what you're asking. I know that news
breaks all the time. I put in extra or late hours all the time. I was up – I was working till nine last
night because I had some stuff to finish up. But I just need people to understand I have a life
outside of my job, so it's – that can be really tough.
[00:15:06] BB: I hope that part of the show is about Illuminating to people that journalists are
people, just like publicists are people. Like we all got a job. We're trying to do the job. We're
trying to survive the job.
[00:15:18] AA: One really good example is I once had somebody ask me. There was some
breaking news happening, and they asked me if I could interview at 6pm. I said, “No, my son
takes a bath at that time, and it's pure chaos in my house.” I'll never forget this response. They
said, “We're all parents. We understand,” But then they offered no alternatives. So I'm always
going to pick my kids because he's not going to remember the breaking news I covered when
he grows up. But he might remember me singing the Octonaut song with him in the bath, and
that's where I want to be, so.
[00:17:18] BB: Oh, okay. Annalee, I think we are ready now for the questions, the Q&A portion
here, the fast fire, if you will.
[00:17:24] AA: Okay, let’s do it.
[00:17:25] BB: So we just covered video and phone interview. So phone it is. How about bullet
points or paragraphs?
[00:17:32] AA: Bullets.
[00:17:33] BB: Bullets. Is there a why to that?
[00:17:35] AA: I just need to know the information right up top. I love it when people have more
detail later in the email. I will always circle back to that in the writing process. So write as much
as you want but give me the highlights at the top.
[00:17:46] BB: Highlights at the top. All right. So then that probably answers short or long
pitches.
[00:17:51] AA: Yes. Well, I guess it's kind of both short. Then feel free to write as long as you
want, but make sure the top is very important.
[00:17:56] BB: Put it up at the top.
[00:17:57] AA: I kind of like that idea of like, yes, here's the three takeaway bullets at the top.
Then scroll further if you want to have all the juicy details. I would imagine for your space, like
there's lots of lexicon of drugs and all the things that need to be detailed. So I could see that.
[00:18:12] AA: Yes. I actually – I have an example of one that I had a couple days ago. It said,
this is going to not mean much to most people but, “FDA accepts NDA resubmission for
Takeda’s investigational TAK-721 for EoE.” That's a whole lot of jargon, but it actually tells me
like a lot. So resubmission, that tells me that there was drama the first time they tried to submit
the drug. So I'm going to go back, dig in my archives, and find what happened to this.
Then investigational, that tells me that it's not approved. So it's likely for my team and not the
pharma team. So like there's all these little industry jargon things that might not make sense
when you're pitching to maybe NBC or some of the bigger pubs. But, for me, this is great. I love
that.
[00:18:55] BB: Okay. This is good. Images attached or Dropbox zip file?
[00:19:00] AA: Attached is fine.
[00:19:01] BB: Email or Twitter DM or XDM or whatever we're calling it now?
[00:19:05] AA: Email is the number one best way to get me.
[00:19:08] BB: One follow-up or multiple?
[00:19:10] AA: I don't mind one. Sometimes, it really truly does get lost in the haze of my
deadline.
[00:19:15] BB: Direct or creative subject lines?
[00:19:17] AA: I like direct.
[00:19:18] BB: Press release or media kit?
[00:19:19] AA: Press release.
[00:19:21] BB: Press release. A reason for that, why is that?
[00:19:23] AA: I like to, again, just kind of have all of the information right in front of me, and I'll
search for more if I need it.
[00:19:29] BB: Okay. So put it right there. Okay. You already answered this but just to
emphasize perhaps. You don't have a particular time you read pitches. Is it all the time?
[00:19:39] AA: It’s not all the time. Well, it kind of is. I'd be lying if I said it was. Like I said, I do a
very early pass, so it doesn't really matter if you send me something late at night. But –
[00:19:51] BB: Because it’ll be batched and then reviewed the morning, right?
[00:19:53] AA: Exactly, yes. I really, really do review as much as I possibly can. I go back and
go to the previous day wherever I left off. So after my deadline, usually, around 11:30 to noon,
that's when I really dig into my inbox and check for everything. So that's a really good time to
pitch me.
[00:20:11] BB: Okay. That's a good insight. Okay. Remember, it's ET time, DC. Yes. Okay. Then
are there any types of sources you particularly look for?
[00:20:22] AA: Yes. We love analysts. Sometimes, they don't like going on the record, but they
always have really incredible insights. I love lawyers. I really love –
[00:20:30] BB: Analysts and lawyers, look at this.
[00:20:33] AA: I know, right? We really love talking to people from like venture capital firms,
people who are kind of outside of a company but within the universe still. I always love talking to
women CEOs. I always tell PRs like it's hard for me to turn that down. I always want to find out
their story in the industry. So, yes, those are the type of people I like to talk to.
________
For more great 1:1 conversations with journalists from top-tier outlets, subscribe to the Coffee with a Journalist podcast to get the latest episode drops. Also, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter for other updates on our newest PR tips, tools, and best practices.
Fill out the form below to subscribe to Coffee with a Journalist and receive weekly emails highlighting reporters, journalists, and editors and their individual pitching preferences.