Matt Glassman has read through thousands of pitches during his more than 25 years in the news business. Today, the vice president of regional editorial at NBCUniversal News Group looks for ways the 200-plus NBC stations and platforms around the country can collaborate on original reporting. But for most of his career, he was the news director of NBC News 4 in Washington, fielding story ideas about politics, education, local happenings and more. He’s also taught journalism students how to formulate a pitch as an adjunct professor at American University.
“The biggest question that a pitch should answer is, ‘Why?’” said Glassman. “Why this story, and why am I doing it?”
Glassman sat down with NBCU Academy to discuss what makes a good pitch, how he evaluates one and how to get your next idea greenlit. Watch the video above and read Glassman’s interview below for his best tips.
How do you define what a pitch is?
There’s a big difference between a pitch and an idea. We all have ideas. “This would make a great story,” but what is the story and what are the elements involved in that story? If you’re coming to me and saying, “I want to do a story on something because I’m wondering about this,” versus, “I want to do a story, and here’s what the story is,” that’s a lot different.
What should someone do before delivering a pitch?
When you’re pitching a story, do some pre-interviews. You want to find out what people think about the story you’re doing. You want to find out what elements there are. You want to find out who the good characters are. Somebody might look like a great character on paper, but you might talk to them on the phone, and they might be very flat and monotone and not really bring the story to life.
How important is having a good character included in a pitch?
Characters are important to a pitch because we want anybody watching television, when they hear a strong character, to look up from their cooking, or their crossword puzzle, or playing with the kids, or their work, and pay attention to the story. A character can tell the impact and the perspective in a way that a reporter can’t necessarily always do.
What are some of the other elements you want to make sure to include in your TV news pitch?
You want to know what your visuals are going to be. We obviously need to see something. There are some fantastic stories out there, but if there’s nothing to show, then we’re just basically showing the reporter or rerunning B-roll.
Also, what’s the credibility of the story? Are there statistics to back it up? Is there something new that you’ve seen in the studies? Is there an expert who has been looking at this for a long time and can say, “Yeah, this is a big trend,” or, “Hey, I’m hitting a big red button here because we all need to pay attention to this, and here’s why.”
There are some considerations like cost, like how much time you’re going to need to do this. Is there travel involved? All those kinds of elements in a pitch help someone decide if this is right for a show, for a broadcast, for a website, for a platform, and all of those go into consideration.
What is the most important question your pitch should answer?
Obviously, we know there’s going to be a “who, what, where” and all that, but “why” has become so important in our industry. This story happened, and here’s why it’s important to you. What is the context, what is the relevancy, what is the perspective, what is the impact? All those are important words when you’re writing a pitch, because you have to make sure that you’re telling your viewers or your readers, your consumers, something that is going to benefit them or that they’re going to learn from.
How do you know when a pitch is a “good” pitch?
The strongest pitches are when somebody reads it and says, “Oh, I didn’t know that,” or hears it and says, “Wow, that’s interesting.” If there’s something that’s new or you didn’t know before, or if you have a new way of doing an old story, that’s the stuff that’s really great.
I think that when some people send in pitches, they’re thinking about things that interest them, and they’re trying to explain what interests them to the person that’s reading the pitch, and they’re basically putting down all the ideas and the reasons why this might be a good story because they’re interested in it. But I think that they really have to turn that around and think, “What will the audience of this particular platform or broadcast be interested in this for?”
