Coffee with a Journalist: Susannah Snider, U.S. News

Written by OnePitch | Dec 3, 2024 11:36:16 PM

Susannah Snider is a managing editor for the money section of U.S. News.

In this episode, Susannah shares the importance of timing when pitching, her insights on what makes credible expert sources, and how PR pros should align pitches with upcoming editorial calendars.

Follow Susannah on LinkedIn and X/Twitter.

Click below to listen to the full conversation and read below for highlights from the interview:

Sharing Relevant Sources

[00:07:27] BB: Okay. Yeah. So there's some nuance to this. Okay, okay, got you. You touched on sources. The one who like told you to of course, get this advanced degree. Amazing. What are or who are the sources that are particularly of interest for you?

[00:07:40] SS: If at my beats, I would say we love experts. It's really helpful if you are an expert in your field. For the financial side, that might be a cfp, a cpa, you know, on the real estate side, maybe you're a realtor or a trades person who really understands a specific aspect of your practice. We're really looking for people who can demonstrate expertise, analysis, insights on the beat. And there are a lot of people out there who want to give quotes. We really want to find folks who understand what we're asking and can give really great advice. And that is, that's part of the challenge of sifting through all these sources.

[00:08:20] BB: I'm sure you get a number of like, I am an expert. What's a, what's a qualified expert versus not. Because it's does it. Do you want to see the letters behind the name, for example, or the years of experience or whatever it may be?

[00:08:34] SS: It's going to be dependent on the story and on the beat for sure. Letters after the name can certainly help if it's kind of like a hard financial topic, say taxes, you know, I'd really love to see a CPA or a CFP or an enrolled agent, somebody who works in this space. But if it were a design story for real estate, maybe they don't necessarily have letters after their name, but they're still very knowledgeable in the space. That's fine. So it's a case by case basis. But you know, anybody can start a website and say that they're an expert. So we want to make sure that that person really has, you know, experience in the field.

[00:09:10] BB: That's why I was asking. Yeah. Because expert is so broad these days, unfortunately. So. Yes. Okay, good. What about pitches then? While we go into that folder, that is, who knows how many are in there? What is standing out to you? Does it start with the subject line or do you actually open all the dang pitches?

[00:09:28] SS: A subject line is great. That's probably 90% of them all. I'm going to see preferably a very clear, concise, no spelling errors, you know, kind of Subject line, definitely the first hurdle.

[00:09:41] BB: Okay. Yeah, exactly. To get the open. So what? And further with that subject line, is it you're seeing like the name of the expert or is it tied to some. We've heard some people just have specific looks, specific ask of what they want to see in a subject line. So thought I would ask.

[00:09:56] SS: Dependent again on the beat in the story. Seeing a source name is great. We're not necessarily looking for like, what's the word I'm looking for, like celebrity interviews. In the same way maybe another publication would. So their expertise or who they are is probably just as important. We don't do breaking news, but if it were tied to maybe something happening in the next month, that would be of interest to me. So, you know, rate cuts, inflation data. If you can tie it to something that maybe we're going to be covering, that's helpful too.

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Inside Scoop on Editorial Calendars and Story Refreshes

[00:10:29] BB: Okay, good to know. And then how about the approval process for a story? And I love when we have editors on here because you're usually up the food chain in determining that. Tell us more about that

[00:10:43] SS: So I think of our editorial calendar a little bit like an old school magazine editorial calendar. Like, again, we're thinking four to six weeks out and we build out the month like, you know, in one or two meetings. So, you know, again, know if you're pitching for October in October, you know, that calendar is set from there. It's a collaborative process. We work with a lot of freelancers to assign things out. So again, it really helps for us to work in advance, to have a lot of advance notice of what we're doing so we can communicate with our team of writers.

[00:11:20] BB: Okay, and you're saying team of writers. How many is this team? Pretty much.

[00:11:25] SS: We work with many freelancers, many writers, you know, at least a dozen, maybe two dozen people.

[00:11:34] BB: Oh, okay. So that's. Yeah, that's another chunk of people to manage. Okay, got it. Okay, so this is good to know. You know, four weeks, six weeks out in advance. You got to be thinking about that. And is it, Is it. Tell us a little bit more. Is there like a meeting held with you and other people or the whole team? Or like, how does that go down?

[00:11:53] SS: Sure. I meet with each of my editors. We often have our homepage editor in that meeting as well. And we're talking through, you know, what's happening next month. We've got inflation data coming out. Say it's October, Halloween, maybe we'll tie some Halloween stories to real estate or personal finance or careers and then what are some evergreen stories that we need to refresh? What's due to be updated, Refreshed, looked at again, I think people might not understand how much we go back to our old stories and see if they need to be updated.

[00:12:28] BB: I'm glad you touched on this. Someone from Wirecutter who was on was saying, hey, like, we update the reviews and stuff because the SEO value is so high. Tell us a little bit more about the

[00:12:39] SS: So it depends on the piece and what it needs. It could involve going back to former sources. It could involve going to new sources. It could involve putting in new data, new graphical or visual elements. It could be a light review, or we could be totally rewriting and adding whole new sections. So it's really, again, going to depend on the story. But it's great to sometimes have new sources to go to for those upda

[00:13:07] BB: Okay. And I'm thinking, just what's the volume of those stories that need updating? Is it like a tenth of all the stuff you work on, or is it like, oh, no, it's like 20% of our content. I don't know.

[00:13:19] SS: Like, a lot of our stories are updates, you know, at least half.

[00:13:24] BB: Oh, at least half. Wow. Oh, Never heard.

[00:13:28] SS: And again, that doesn't mean that there isn't any reporting, but it's worth, I think, noting that we're not always looking for new story ideas. We're looking for the data, the source, the analysis.

[00:13:37] BB: Yeah, this is good to know, I think, for publicist to go like, okay, could I have something to update to this piece and maybe you reference that in your pitch?

[00:13:49] SS: Sure. Although I have a caveat about that.

[00:13:49] BB: Oh, tell us. Tell us now.

[00:13:50] SS: One of my pet peeves is we write a story and somebody pitches us...

[00:13:54] BB: I know what you're gonna say.

[00:13:55] SS: "You just wrote this story. Write it again and quote me this time." And that's not how it's going to work. It's going to be, you know, six months or a year later when we would revisit it.

Rapid Fire Pitching Preferences

[00:17:23]: BB: Oh, man. Difficult, difficult. Okay, Susanna, we talked about how to make publicists make it easier for you. Okay, great. I do have my rapid fire questions if you want to play that.

[00:17:37] SS: Let's play.

[00:17:38] BB: Let's do it. Okay. Video or phone interviews. Phone all the way. Bullet points or paragraphs in a pitch.

[00:17:48] SS: It doesn't matter as much as long as it's kind of easy to read. Brief to the point.

[00:17:54] BB: Great. We're going with short pitches versus long pitches. Next question. Images attached or a Dropbox zip file?

[00:18:01] SS: I don't know if this is what you typically hear, but I'd say you don't really need to attach anything. If we need a headshot or a data visualization or something from you later. Let's definitely collaborate, but I think my tech team will be happy to hear that. I try not to click on downloads and attachments from emails from outside sources.

[00:18:23] BB: Oh, good point. Oh, increasingly. Good point. We haven't talked enough about that. Probably on the show of just. Hey, there's a lot. Especially bigger outlets like security filters, all types of things. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[00:18:37] SS: I try not to click on anything unless I know I'm working with the person that I think I am.

[00:18:44] BB: Email or a DM of any sort.

[00:18:46] SS: 100% email. And I'd say the big reason for that is because you have to think about how I'm communicating with my editors or my writers. Way easier to forward an email than. I don't even. I don't even know how you forward. Like a DM. Yeah. Or a LinkedIn message.

[00:19:01] BB: Yeah, just email. Just email. Oh, text. You ever want people... No. No. Yeah.

[00:19:06] SS: No.

[00:19:07] BB: No. Everybody. Do not text. No. Okay, clarify. Okay. You said the five follow ups. Do you ever want to follow up, though?

[00:19:14] SS: A follow up is okay, but okay. Again, it's not. I think sometimes people feel like they have to be doing something. It's really not going to make a difference. Either we're covering it and reaching out to you or we're not.

[00:19:25] BB: That is another question to bring to our community. Who. Who is telling you will do Those follow ups. And they're like sending the fourth follow up. And I think it's coming from maybe junior publicists who are just like, okay, but my boss told me I had to like do it, you know, is. But. But it's gets you nothing.

[00:19:41] SS: So, yeah, it feels like you're doing something, but really, truly, it's probably been sent to spam. It's just not. Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:50] BB: Direct or creative subject lines. You mentioned this before. Direct.

[00:19:53] SS: I say direct. The topic can be fun and creative, but what it says should be easy to understand.

[00:19:59] BB: Easy to understand. Press release or media kit?

[00:20:02] SS: Oh, press release.

[00:20:04] BB: Okay. And then the next question is what time do you read pitches? But I think your answer is when I want. When I want. At the end of the week, maybe, or whatever. Yep.

[00:20:13] SS: When I'm looking for ideas.

[00:20:15] BB: Oh, that's some freedom here.

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