One of the goals I lay out every year is to work for at least three new clients. While I have anchor clients in the Toronto Star, BBC News and Concordia Alumni News, and several brands, the journalism I file for new publishers is always thrilling. Motivating myself to go beyond the editors who favour my writing means finding pitches that work best for these new outlets, and I embrace the hustle of it all.
If you don’t hustle or grind as a freelancer, then you won’t move forward. It’s as stark as that.
I’m stoked to add Agriculture Dive and ForesightDK to my journalistic roster, and below are some details about my first filing for them as well as summaries of where else I’ve been published in the past few months:
Agriculture Dive
Lesson for freelancers: If a particular niche stumps you, widen the frame. So when I heard of Agriculture Dive, which covers all facets of the agribusiness sector, I thought at first, “Well, this isn’t my beat, I don’t have any insider take on agriculture.” But then I thought about the angles of tech I’ve often pursued, and read about: startup culture, VC investments, M&As, etc. I’ve been writing on tech and startups for more than 15 years, so I applied some of my experience to a pitch.
And voila, out came an idea to send to AD’s editor: Profiling the agtech investment space, especially in light of news that the once-hot field has cooled off recently. After finessing the accepted pitch with her, the editor commissioned me to write the piece and she was overjoyed with the result and now I’m on their freelance roster in case she has stories that require a deft hand.
Toronto Star
My go-to news daily handed me an assignment that piqued my interest: profiling the legendary Irish pub McVeigh’s, which has long been a fixture in downtown Toronto. I love on-the-ground reporting, especially when it intertwines with my interest in how family businesses retain their customer base for more than 40 years.
Warning: Reading this article may have you thirsty for a Guinness pint.
ForesightDK
When I spotted a call for pitches from this European news network reporting on climate change, I knew I had to send them a pitch at some point. I admired their strong roster of writers, the UX of their site, the audience they’ve built so far. I came up with an idea on how low-carbon transit is grabbing the attention of more North American municipalities and it didn’t take long for the editor to send my onboarding docs to get me working on the story ASAP.
I’m filing another story for them this month, and I hope to be a monthly contributor to this admirable outlet.
Alumni magazines
If you’ve been following this posts on my Blog, you know alumni pubs are my bread, butter and honey. I’ve always been skilled at writing profiles and alumni mags offer me the opportunity to have a platform for those pitches.
This quarter, I profiled a meal-alternative startup founder for McGill Alumni, a queer author with a new novel on bookshelves for Concordia Alumni News, celebrity designer William Sofield for Princeton Alumni Weekly, and a human rights activist in Africa for UC Berkeley.
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