How to Fact-Check a Media Contact Before You Pitch
A practical guide to verifying email addresses, social profiles and job titles before you pitch, so your...
A good media list is not a spreadsheet full of email addresses. It is a working map of who covers what, for whom, and how they prefer to be approached. Build it badly and you will spend your mornings apologising for irrelevant pitches and chasing bounce messages. Build it well — even a modest one — and it quietly earns its keep for years. Here is how to start from nothing.
“UK journalists” is not a list. It is a category, and a useless one. Before you open a spreadsheet, narrow the brief until you could explain it to someone in a lift.
Ask yourself four questions: which subject area does this cover, which part of the UK, which type of outlet, and what do you want the recipient to do with what you send? A small regional newsroom, a national desk and a niche trade title will want entirely different angles on the same story, so treat them as separate lists rather than one long column.
A sensible shape is a core list of thirty to fifty contacts you would genuinely pitch this quarter, plus a wider research list you add to as you go. Resist the urge to bulk it out. Fifty well-chosen names beat four hundred you know nothing about.
The most reliable signal that someone covers your subject is that they have written about it recently. Read the pieces you admire, note the byline, then find that person's author page on the outlet. Most national and regional titles keep one, and it usually lists their beat and contact details. Trade and B2B publications do the same, often with more specific job titles such as news editor or features editor.
Look for a contact or “about us” page. Radio and television desks publish duty contacts, and many programmes list a planning team. If there is a generic newsdesk address, use it to ask who handles your topic rather than guessing an individual's email.
Freelancers often write for several titles and can be quicker to respond than staff journalists. Trade magazines, regional business publications, sector newsletters and podcasts are also worth tracking — they tend to be hungry for well-researched material and rarely get the same volume of pitches as national desks.
Media directories save time, but treat them as a starting point rather than the finished article. Records age quickly when people change jobs, so anything you pull from a directory should be checked against a recent byline or the outlet's own staff listing before you rely on it.
Consistency matters more than volume. Decide your fields now and stick to them, so that filtering the list later actually works.
That last field is not optional. If someone asks not to be contacted, record it immediately and make sure the opt-out sits somewhere visible, not buried in a comment box.
Three quick checks will save you a lot of wasted effort. First, confirm the person still works there — a byline from last month is a far better indicator than a two-year-old listing. Second, confirm they cover your subject; a news editor may pass your story on, but a specialist reporter is more likely to use it. Third, check the address format against another contact at the same outlet, then send a short test to your own inbox to make sure nothing is mangled by a stray space or a typo.
Keep a note of hard bounces. If an address fails twice, mark it as unverified rather than deleting it outright, in case the outlet has changed its email domain.
A contacts list contains personal data, so treat it with the same care as any other business record. In the UK, the rules sit mainly in the UK GDPR and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, and they apply whether your list lives in a spreadsheet or a customer relationship management system.
In practice, this means knowing why you hold each record, keeping it accurate, retaining it no longer than you need, and being able to remove someone promptly if they ask. Keep a dated note of where each contact came from and what you have sent them. If you plan to send anything that looks like marketing rather than a genuine editorial pitch, the rules are stricter for individuals and sole traders than for corporate addresses, and the distinction is easy to get wrong. This is general guidance only — for your own situation, check current ICO guidance and take professional advice.
A list is a perishable thing. Set a review rhythm: check your core contacts every three months, and the wider research list once or twice a year. Journalists move often, especially in regional press and B2B publishing.
After every pitch, log what happened — replied, declined, no answer, bounced. That history tells you who is worth keeping, who needs a different angle, and which parts of your list are quietly going stale.
Start small and finish something. In week one:
Repeat that loop and the list builds itself, one honest entry at a time.
Photo: cottonbro studio / Pexels
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