Episode #3: Alan Henry, Service Editor
“The New York Times doesn’t exist to be PR. If I’m going to talk to my readers about a company, I need to explain why they should care.”
- Alan Henry
We chatted with Alan Henry during his time as the Editor of the Smarter Living section at New York Times. Alan began his new role at Wired on April 20th as their Service Editor!
Alan is such a wonderful conversationalist and that’s exactly why this episode is a bit longer than the previous ones.
As Alan simply puts it, "The New York Times doesn’t exist to be PR for a company." So, if you're going to try to pitch your story and/or client to Alan or his colleagues, how do you convince them to care enough to do so? Alan says that it is all about having a “sweep” and references this story to help explain what that means: The Medical Tech That Helps You When Your Doctor Can’t.
Along with this, we discuss the art of following up, how to be persistent (without being creepy!), and other tactful strategies that will help your pitch stand out in Alan's and other journalist's inboxes.
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Timestamps
00:55 — Alan gives an overview of his career as a journalist (he got started at LifeHacker) and how he landed his role as the Editor of the Smarter Living Section at The New York Times.
3:00 — Alan spills the tea on what it was like to experience the Bollea v. Gawker saga that happened while he was at LifeHacker.
04:22 — Alan tells us what he was doing before he got into journalism (spoiler: he is hella smart and has degrees to prove it!).
05:55 — Jackie and I are nosey so we ask Alan to tell us more about the Bollea v. Gawker saga again.
07:02 — Jackie asks Alan if going through that experience changed his views on journalism.
10:05 — Alan tells us about his first experience visiting NYC (before he moved there from DC).
12:20 — Alan begins discussing a story he assigned to a Smarter Living writer that features a product that Keith Swiader, a Senior Account Manager at Moxie Communications Group, told him about. Here’s the story for reference: The Medical Tech That Helps You When Your Doctor Can’t
16:28 — Alan what it means when a story has a “sweep” and why every pitch should have this element incorporated into it.
19:27 — Alan describes how his team at Smarter Living works (who comes up with story ideas, how does he assign the stories, stuff like that).
22:23 — We talk about Alan’s working relationship with Keith, which goes back to his time at LifeHacker.
27:43 — Alan shares what he finds most helpful and how you can increase your chances of success when pitching him.
30:10 — We talk about the subject line and whether or not Alan opens every email he receives.
31:38 — Does Alan ever check his spam folder?
33:30 — How does Alan organize all of the contacts and sources he is able to reference?
35:40 — What’s the best way to build a relationship with Alan (outside of our inboxes)?
41:00 — Alan tells us how often (and when) you should follow up with him.
44:55 — Alan encourages us to build relationships with freelancer writers more often because he has seen that so many of their story ideas come from PR folks.
49:49 — One last shout out to Keith!
50:50 — Keith also gives a shout out to Lise Keeney, Director of Day One Ventures.
Connect with Alan
Connect with Jackie & Britt
podcast@weearnmedia.com
