Nancy Scola is a veteran Washington D.C.-based reporter and journalist whose work often focuses on the intersections of technology, economics, politics, and policy for publications like New York, Wired, The Information, Washingtonian, and The Atlantic. She is a contributing writer at POLITICO Magazine.
Welcome to Season 3 of Coffee with a Journalist! In this episode, we’re joined by Nancy Scola, contributing writer at POLITICO Magazine, known for her deep reporting on Washington, D.C., tech, and policy. We dig into the ever-evolving dynamic between journalists and publicists—debunking common myths, sharing best practices, and offering real-world advice for stronger relationships. Nancy walks us through how she manages her overflowing inbox (spoiler: the Pomodoro technique and Superhuman play key roles), how publicist pitches—especially the ones she doesn't get—shape her stories, and what truly grabs her attention. Plus, she shares insights on sourcing, setting boundaries, and what makes a pitch stand out in the D.C. media grind.
Click below to listen to the full conversation and read below for highlights from the interview:
The Types Of Sources Nancy Is Looking For
[00:11:23] BB: What about sources right now, Nancy? Are you looking for sources? You were just talking about how D.C. is a tight little ball. Yes?
[00:11:31] NS: Yeah, absolutely. Especially again with the change administration. Even though in some ways it's a return to a past way of doing then this is our second Trump administration, but it's a whole new Batch of people. Um, so if it was. If it was President Harris, I probably would have known 80% of the people I should know in and around that administration. With the new Trump administration, it's a little bit tougher to build out sourcing. So absolutely. Always, always looking for sources.
[00:11:58] NS: Always looking for, you know, when you meet someone because they say, I saw this interesting thing happen, it seems up your alley, just drawing their attention to it. For me, next time their email pops up in my inbox and they're actually pitching something more relevant to them, you know, I'm human, I'm probably going to pay a little bit more attention. But I always say to, you know, the more, the better. Please, if you have. If you see something interesting, have a good idea. I am all ears.
[00:12:25] BB: Let's clarify what is interesting and some, like, titles. So like. Like be more specific.
[00:12:33] NS: Interesting. Very often what I do is report on what's happening in the world of politics, technology, politics, public policy, and knit it together into some picture of how the world's working right at this moment. The most useful press person, PR person for me is you saw this thing happen at a hearing last week. Here's what it really meant. Here's why it's meaningful. Right. So, like, what is the sort of the policy debate that's really at stake? And why was this particular line of questioning the thing that really should jump out to you? People are able to do that are enormously valuable for me. So interesting is it's not necessarily exclusive information and then that they're leaking something to me, which absolutely they should do at every opportunity.
[00:13:20] NS: It's helping me understand this world in a way I might not. Not being the person in the room when some of these conversations are happening.
[00:13:30] BB: Okay, good. I'm glad I asked that.
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Nancy Loves It When Publicists...
[00:15:12] BB: Yep, yep. One thing we were adding into our episodes now is just on the relationship building front as we're discussing. Fill in the blank. I love it when publicists.
[00:15:27] NS: Reach out with things they find interesting that don't benefit them. They see something happening in this world, they share that information with me, even if not for their client. They're certainly not working against their own interests or their client's interest.
[00:15:43] BB: Yes.
[00:15:43] NS: But it isn't necessarily going to pay off for them.
[00:15:47] BB: Yeah.
[00:15:47] NS: Today, the other, yeah, yeah. The other thing I find, you know, because I write often about policy, is a public who can speak on the policy on the table. They're enormously valuable. Right. If I can ask a question at a high level, they don't need to be policy experts. But at a high level, if they send over a report and I said, oh, how does this report fit into this debate, a particular policy debate? And they can say, oh, here it, you know, it's new because no one has ever said X before. That doesn't happen. It happens regularly in Washington, especially because often people come from the field where they're representing clients.
[00:16:25] NS: But if someone can very quickly situate for me, for me the new information in the broader world that is relevant there, that is, you know, that's a, that's a gold mine.
Rapid Fire Pitching Preferences
[00:18:11] BB: So you haven't done. Just to confirm, Nancy, our rapid fire questions if I'm correct?
[00:18:16] NS: No.
[00:18:17] BB: No. Okay, here we go. Let's do it. Let's do it. Okay, kind of quick answers. Let's see what you got.
[00:18:22] NS: Okay.
[00:18:23] BB: Video or phone interview?
[00:18:27] NS: Video. If you're a central character in a story and we haven't met in person, ideally, in that case, I'm not being quick at all. But ideally in that case, in person, actually. But video is a backup over the old school phone if you're a secondary source.
[00:18:47] BB: Okay. Bullet points or paragraphs in a pitch?
[00:18:50] NS: Paragraphs.
[00:18:52] BB: Paragraphs?
[00:18:53] NS: Okay. Why again, writing about policy, politics, it's, you know. Yeah. It's not necessarily this.
[00:19:01] BB: It's not pithy.
[00:19:03] NS: What's that?
[00:19:03] BB: It's not pithy.
[00:19:05] NS: It's not pithy. The interesting bit is the context and not going on and on in paragraphs. But generally it needs a little bit of context to convey why something's important.
[00:19:17] BB: Got you. So then short or long pitches?
[00:19:21] NS: Medium.
[00:19:22] BB: Medium. Oh, connect. No one's usually says long enough.
[00:19:26] NS: Long enough, not too long.
[00:19:27] BB: Yeah. Okay. And like eight sentences, something like that or.
[00:19:33] NS: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah.
[00:19:35] BB: Okay, I like it.
[00:19:36] NS: Yep.
[00:19:37] BB: What about images attached or A Dropbox zip file?
[00:19:41] NS: I generally. The stories I work on generally have an art team involved, so it's up to them to get art. So it doesn't sort of matter for me. The one thing I will say is when, say I'm profiling someone, the art team reaches out to their representatives to schedule a photo shoot, and they're not super responsive. Sometimes I get pulled in to kind of bridge that gap. So ideally they're responsive to the art team and I don't even have to know what's going on on that front.
[00:20:11] BB: Okay, good to know. So really? Yeah. Don't be sending you a Dropbox file. You don't need it. You got a whole. Okay. What about email versus a DM of.
[00:20:20] NS: Some sort if we know each other? A DM for sure.
[00:20:25] BB: Okay. Oh, okay. I rarely hear that.
[00:20:27] NS: So I can ask questions. Right.
[00:20:29] BB: Okay.
[00:20:29] NS: I can very quickly try to get more context.
[00:20:34] BB: Direct or creative subject lines?
[00:20:37] NS: Direct.
[00:20:39] BB: Direct. Oh, we didn't answer this before. We didn't ask this before, but is there a pitch that you've seen lately that you love, like, or in the subject line, what you love?
[00:20:51] NS: One that jumped out to me is a press person on Capitol Hill reached out and said, I'm going to use an alias here, but said Congress Smith doing a town hall In New Jersey's 7th district, for example, and I knew enough to know that's a Republican district, that Congressman Smith is a Republican. And that was an interesting California. Excuse me. It was a Republican district, Congressman Smith is a Democrat, and this was a Republican Democrat appearing in Republican district doing a town hall. So that immediately, to me, they knew enough to know that I would know that and say, oh, that's an interesting thing. And they didn't have to belabor.
[00:21:33] BB: Oh, I see. Oh, because you're so in the know and therefore. Oh, I see what you mean. Okay. You were like, connect the dots. Well.
[00:21:41] NS: And. And obviously I don't. Don't. Wouldn't be able to connect the dots on every topic. But in that particular topic and just very quickly scanning the inbox, say, okay, that's, you know, where you would. There are certainly other cases where somebody in that same job would have a pitch saying, Congressman Smith is being bold and brave and facing Trump voters head on in a district 3,000 miles from his own. His own district. So I like that that was shortened to the point.
[00:22:11] BB: Okay. I still have a couple of rapid fire. But then we're going to zoom out even on the DC Front. Okay.
[00:22:16] NS: Okay.
[00:22:17] BB: We talked about creative. Okay. Subject lines et Cetera. Do you ever want to press release or of a media kit? I.
[00:22:27] NS: Press releases tend not to be super useful. Media kits can be useful where there's context around the debate or policy question. If there's a legislative history that would be useful for me to know and they're packaging it up with the new bit of information, that can be useful for sure.
[00:22:44] BB: Okay. And then we already talked about sources, so how about you now? We talked about. I, I guess this would fit in. But just to clarify, is there a time you read pitches or are you doing that at that every five, you know, at the end of the 25.
[00:22:56] NS: Yeah, pretty much, unfortunately. Pretty much all day. Yeah, pretty much all day.
[00:23:00] BB: Okay, that's good.
[00:23:01] NC: Probably. Probably goes without saying, but late in the day on Friday, yesterday, same.
[00:23:08] BB: Well, no, my favorite thing is to get, like, get to the zero inbox. Oh, my God. By Friday. Oh, it is the most out of the. Why? It's such a great feeling. Oh, it really is. And especially if it's like 2pm and you're like, yes, better. Oh, my God.
[00:23:23] NS: Yeah, absolutely.
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