Jabari Young, senior writer and editor at Forbes, specializing in the editorial lead of ForbesBLK.
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Elisabeth Sherman is this week's guest on the show, and she's an associate editor at Parents whose expertise focuses on family, parenting, internet culture, food and drink, and entertainment.
During the episode, Elisabeth walks us through what she recommends PRos do before pitching her, the nuances of pitching a product versus expert commentary, how she keeps her inbox organized in her new role, and more.
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Click below to listen to the full conversation and read below for highlights from the interview:
Get to know Elisabeth and Parents' Coverage
[00:00:39] BB: Welcome, everyone. This is Coffee with a Journalist. I'm Beck Bamberger, and we do this little fun show because we all publicists are trying to know how to better work with our media and journalist friends. Maybe sometimes not friends, let's call them colleagues. But how we can make our working relationship better is what we want to do. And with us today, coming all the way from Jersey, is Elisabeth Sherman. She is the associate editor at Parents.com.
[00:01:08] BB: I bet you have a lot of parental knowledge to infuse in us. Elisabeth, so excited to have you here. Hi.
[00:01:16] ES: Thank you. Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:19] BB: Yes. Exciting. Now, you were previously freelancing and you've also been an adjunct instructor at Columbia. No big deal. You've done a couple of things. So first off, perhaps I know it's fresh in the job that you just got to Parents.com. Associate editor. Congrats.
[00:01:37] BB: How would you describe, though, for everyone who's of course, listening, what Parents.com covers?
[00:01:44] ES: Absolutely. There's a place for, you know, kind of that personal essay about parenting. Lots of parenting sites out there do that, but we do that a little bit less. So we're kind of going to give you a lot of information answering questions that you might google in the space of your pregnancy. What medications can you take while pregnant?
What are things that are safe for toddlers to eat? Kind of that more informative type of thing. Obviously, we do, if you go on the site, we do a lot of fun stuff, like I said, responses to news and things like that. But it is going to be more of that kind of research and expert back to material, which is great.
[00:02:22] BB: Don't we all need that? Yes. By the way, are you a parent?
[00:02:26] ES: I am.
[00:02:27] BB: I can hear the kids in the background. I was like, I hear somebody. Okay.
[00:02:31] ES: Yes. I have a two and a half year old and you. She's in the living room right now watching Cars, so you may hear her.
Elisabeth's Freelancing History and Diving Deeper into Her New Role
[00:02:37] BB: That's, love it, love it. Okay, so you just got there, Elisabeth, so I'm sure, or at least I'm going to hope your inbox is not too busy. But how is it?
[00:02:47] ES: I would say my inbox is pretty wild at all times. It is.
[00:02:55] BB: God, you didn't even have a day where you're like, oh, one email?
[00:02:58] ES: No.
[00:02:59] BB: Wow. Okay. By the way, how, how did people already find you?
[00:03:02] ES: What happened was I was freelancing as a commerce writer, and so when I started at Parents, pretty much everyone who had been pitching me when I was a freelancer just started pitching me immediately for this new position. There wasn't really any lag time there. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm pretty public about my contact info, and I sort of like to be transparent. So, yeah, it just kind of started right back up again. Yeah.
[00:03:30] BB: Wow. Okay. So because of your history freelancing, you already were getting those pitches. Now people are like, oh, holy cow, she's full time somewhere. Okay, so. Oh, I don't think we've had this before, necessarily.
[00:03:43] BB: So when you're a hot take, you just got there. What are the pitches of the people who have previously been pitching you as a freelancer now? Like, is there any difference of like, hey, heard you got the new job. Congrats. And here's my pitch. Or business like usual. No one even cares.
[00:03:59] ES: I think it's definitely a mix. I think when I did start, and I had waited a little bit to say anything on social, I did get a few very kind and polite people reaching out and saying, hey, I saw that you started this new position. Are you ever open to grabbing coffee? Sort of that kind of thing. But then a lot of people were just back in my inbox, like, hey, business as usual, you know?
[00:04:21] BB: Okay, business as usual. They have not missed a beat. They are doing that. Okay, so then do you have, I'm sure as a freelancer you had to have such a system, but maybe it's changed. So let's get into it. How do you organize then, the pitches?
[00:04:37] ES: Yeah, that's such a great question. I think my strategy for a long time was just folders in my email that would be like, publicists I want to work with, and I would actively filter folks that I thought down the line I might want to reply to. That didn't necessarily mean they were going to get a reply the day that they emailed me or even the week that they emailed me, but they were going to be there if an appropriate story came up.
I would also, if a publicist, pitched me a story on a product that I really wanted to try or learn more about, I would save that until it became appropriate. And so I would sort of, like, search for certain brand names in my inbox and see who popped up that way and save those kind of in a separate folder for publicists who represented certain brands that I wanted to maybe explore more. But I'm not necessarily amazing at organization.
I would say, like, once a week, I'll sit down and take an hour and just go through my inbox and dedicate some time to that, to clearing it out and responding to what I want to respond to.
[00:05:44] BB: Oh, okay. So you can. Now. I don't hear that too often. Like, a once a week cleanse.
[00:05:48] ES: A cleanse.
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Rapid Fire Pitching Preferences
[00:16:57] BB: Noted. Thank you for telling us that. Okay, I have a quick fire list of questions, Elisabeth, that I'm ready to give you, if you're ready.
[00:17:07] ES: Absolutely.
[00:17:07] BB: Let's do it. Video or phone interview?
[00:17:11] ES: Oh, phone. Every time.
[00:17:13] BB: Yes. Where is the art of the freaking phone? I cannot tell you how, like, relieving it is just to have, like, a voice? Oh, it's so good. I'm with you on that. I'm with you. Okay. Bullet points or paragraphs in a pitch?
[00:17:26] ES: Oh, my goodness. I'm going to go with bullet points, but I will say I don't see that very often. Most people give paragraphs. If more people want to send me pitches with bullet points, I would love that.
[00:17:38] BB: Yes. Bullet points are coming back. Okay, then I imagine short or long pitches. Short.
[00:17:43] ES: Short, yeah.
[00:17:44] BB: Email or a dm of any sort.
[00:17:46] ES: I'm going to go with email. So everything is centralized. But I do get pitched on instagram and I don't hate it.
[00:17:53] BB: Ooh. Oh, really? Okay. That's the unique answer. Okay. Okay. Noted. Direct or creative subject lines?
[00:18:02] ES: Direct.
[00:18:03] BB: Okay. Press release or media kits?
[00:18:05] ES: Oh, I would say, if you're an expert and you have, like, a wide range of interests and expertise, like, if you're a pediatrician or a lactation consultant.
Great. Because then I can get a sense of, like, all your publications and, you know, what books you've written and where you've spoken before.
So even though that kind of goes against what I just said about short and sweet, if you're an expert, a media kit is totally fine with me. Otherwise, press release.
[00:18:33] BB: If it's a product, anytime that you specifically read pitches.
[00:18:37] ES: All day. I'm doing it all day.
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