Connie Guglielmo is the former Editor At Large at CNET
In this episode, we chat with Connie Guglielmo, the former editor at large at CNET, about tech journalism and standout pitches. Based in Silicon Valley, Connie shares what catches her eye, common pitfalls, and practical tips for publicists. Grab your coffee and enjoy sharp insights with a touch of humor!
Follow Connie on her socials below:
Linkedin: Connie Guglielmo
X: @techledes
Bsky: @techledes.bsky.social
Author Page: Connie Guglielmo
Click below to listen to the full conversation and read below for highlights from the interview:
[0:17:42] CG: Look, here's my PR 101 I’ll give you, because I had a short stint as the head of corporate communications for Hewlett Packard, anybody who looks at my bio will know that. It was interesting being on the inside versus the outside. But it was for seven months, and it was on purpose, and that's a different story for a different day. And it gave me a lot of interesting perspective on how executives view reporters and peer.
But peer 101. Every reporter, when they pitch a story internally to their editors, “Hey, I want to write a story about this.” Other than massively raking news, the government has denied TikTok. You have to write the headline on that story because you've done some reporting. A headline is 65 to 70 characters. That's it.
[0:18:43] BB: Characters.
[0:18:43] CG: Characters. That includes spaces. After that, it goes to dot, dot, dot in Google, right? The headline runs out. Now, that's not just how you can't have a longer headline, you can't. But generally speaking, go just do a survey, Google News or wherever you get your news and check out the, I dump them in a document and see how long they are on average. That means that every single character matters. So, words like new, revolutionary, breakthrough. I don't know. They're just a waste of characters, because of course, you're going to think they're revolutionary or breakthrough. And if they're not new, why are they news?
So, write the headline on the story yourself, before you pitch it. Because if you can't write it, and you're expecting the reporter to write it, yes, a reporter might have additional insight or might want to pull on an angle or a thread. But that's your subject line because or it's a first sentence of your pitch, because that's what they have to do. As a reporter and an editor, I used to have to do like 20 different versions of the headline before they would get approved. So, I would say, well, how many versions of the – I guess you write press releases or your pick, right? But think in the way that a reporter thinks. What's the headline on this story? And give it to me in 65 to 75 characters. And if it's not something that you would click on, don't pitch it because you are your own gatekeeper. Like, I think a lot of times people write for some other mythical art. Well, I don't like this story. I think it's boring, but I'm writing it for somebody else.
[0:20:17] BB: You know what? If you're not proud to pitch it, it's a no. That's our rule.
[0:20:21] CG: And if it doesn't make sense or you're – I'm not the audience for this. Well, then don't and get somebody who is because then you don't know what you're talking about and your squandering your characters. So, write that story. I would say when I was doing PR internally, I would tell executives who would say, “Hey, we have this news. We want you to pitch it.” And I'd say, “What is it?” And then they would tell me and I'm like, “Okay, give me the headline for that story. What is your ideal version of the headline on the story?” And they would write, they would say, someone so announces revolutionary, new. Okay, well, revolutionary, new, right? I don't know. Payment service. Well, there's already like a thousand payment services. So, revolutionary, new are wasted words.
So, what is it? Is it free? Is it privacy-protected? Is it a cashback one? What's the competitive advantage that you're going to use instead of revolutionary. Let me tell you, a lot of the executives, that's not their ability. They don't know how to do that. But that's where you add the value out.
[0:21:23] BB: That's why you're here, publicist. Exactly. Exactly. Connie, so many gems in this. I appreciate this.
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[0:14:04] BB: Excellent. Love that. I love that. Great rundown on this, Connie. Appreciate it. Okay. You talked about the relationships. Do you ever want to be in person with folks?
[0:14:16] CG: Yes. I mean, it depends on, I'm based in Silicon Valley. So, people come to Silicon Valley a lot. It's fairly easy for me to meet up with people here. But again, if I'm meeting them for the first time, or I'm building a relationship, then I'm going to talk to them over time. Look, some of the biggest stories and the most important stories that I've written over my career at Bloomberg, Forbes, Mac Week, name it, have come from conversations that I've had with people over time.
The first time I might talk to someone, and it's just like a get-to-know-you conversation, then another time it might be about a pitch, and then a third time it could be just a topic. Sometimes these conversations are just on background. People just want to gauge where they feel comfortable talking and they want to know that they can trust me as a reporter. So, I am looking to build relationships, not just the one-off hit, if that makes sense.
So, to have that in-person meeting, okay, what's the purpose of the meeting? Is it to have like a deep dive conversation?
[0:15:18] BB: Starting off with that.
[0:15:19] CG: Yes, and if it's a product demo, product demos are totally valid, but now we can do those over Meet, or Zoom, or whatever, pick your poison. So, there's only so many hours in the day for all of us, and so it's trying to be efficient about that.
[0:21:30] BB: We do have a quick rapid-fire question list here. So, let's get in here and we can kind of wrap this up. Okay. Video or phone interview?
[0:21:39] CG: Video.
[0:21:41] BB: Bullet points or paragraphs in a pitch?
[0:21:43] CG: Bullet points.
[0:21:44] BB: Short or long pitches? I’m sure that’s short.
[0:21:46] CG: Short.
[0:21:47] BB: Short. Images attached or Dropbox zip file?
[0:21:52] CG: Nothing attached. It’ll be pulled up on the spam filter, and then chances are you won’t even get the email. The images and attachments come later after you’ve built a rapport.
[0:22:04] BB: By the way, do those get then filtered through okay, the spam filter? Like once there's a back –
[0:22:09] CG: I mean, I have to remember to go to my junk file and spam. I think the last time I checked, like three months had gone by. Because like you said, you're getting pitches every day. So, if you don't want to get caught in spam or any of those kind of filters, do not send an attachment until you're asked. Because then I'm looking for it, right? Hey, I'll send you the press release or I'll send you the link with all the media or I'll send you the Dropbox thing and then I'm like, “Hey, I didn't get it. Oh, maybe it went to spam.”
[0:22:40] BB: Then you look, okay, yes, that's good to know. Email or a DM of some sort for a pitch?
[0:22:46] CG: I mean, email is fine. DM is if it's like, “Hey, I have, I don't know, who's high profile –”
[0:22:54] BB: Yes, someone's super high-profile, you're like –
[0:22:56] CG: “I can get them on the phone with you in 15 minutes. Do you want to talk?” Then, sure.
[0:23:01] BB: Yes, that's a hot list.
[0:23:03] CG: Or if you know me well, you'll know to text me because you'll have my text.
[0:23:07] BB: Okay. This is good. One follow-up or multiple?
[0:23:10] CG: One follow-up.
[0:23:12] BB: One and done. Yes. I think we covered this. Direct or creative subject lines? Sixty-five characters. I think we got that down.
[0:23:18] CG: I would say compelling subject lines.
[0:23:21] BB: Compelling subject lines.
[0:23:23] CG: And if they have the words scoop, exclusive, that's going to be a trigger. New, revolutionary, breakthrough are going to be junk mail.
[0:23:32] BB: Oh, I’m going to write that soft note. New, revolutionary, boom, junk. Okay.
[0:23:37] CG: If it's not new, why are you sending it? Nobody's going to say old software.
[0:23:43] BB: You have an old pitch? Oh, okay, yes. Press release or media kit?
[0:23:47] CG: Neither one at the start. I need just the pitch and then I will get more information. I mean, you should have probably a backgrounder. I call them a one-page backgrounder, maybe an FAQ if it's a complicated topic. But yes, I don't know beyond that. I mean, those serve different purposes than reporters generally need unless they're working on a long-term feature story and are collecting a ton of information.
[0:24:08] BB: - We already kind of covered this. What time do you usually read pitches? You just got to get to zero at the end of the day. So, I assume it's all the time?
[0:24:14] CG: Pretty much, I mean, I have meetings and I have things to do during the day, but first thing in the morning, I'm in California, so that's specific time. I go and do a fast scan, clean out my inbox first thing, get down to whatever I need to do, and then I will periodically check-in.
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