How to pitch a tier one sustainable finance journalist

A major focus for Cognitians working in public relations is getting to know and understand how to work with journalists. We need to be able to get inside their heads so we can provide useful material and build relationships that benefit our clients.

It can be hard to describe exactly how this happens. These are, after all, private conversations. That’s why today’s post is a bit of a treat.

Holly Edwards, an account director focused on sustainability in London, spoke to one of her contacts, a UK-based sustainable finance journalist at a top international publication. We present that conversation – edited for clarity – here. We’re not able to name the journalist, but if you follow major stories around climate, you will be familiar with their work.

Here are insights, straight from the source, for businesses looking to engage with sustainability-focused financial press this year.

Tell me a bit about your beat and what you’re interested in right now?

We are doing a lot right now to understand whether the commitments people and companies make are material and stand up to analysis. I don’t tend to cover new fund launches or products unless they are over $500 million in value, or a billion even.

How do you interact with PR pitches and the stories you write?

We operate a bit differently to trade publications. We don’t tend to cover breaking news but look at a story through the lens of how it fits into a broader system – finance flows, UN commitments, capital allocation. When I look at a story, I ask, “how does this affect a system as a whole?” rather than viewing specific sustainable finance developments in isolation. We always tend to apply a broader focus.

And I always look at bullet points.

How do you work with other teams?

As sustainable finance reporters, we are in touch with most teams as our work touches on a lot of other desks.

Can you give me some examples of good and bad PR you have experienced?

The things that stand out are engaged PR teams and direct access to spokespeople. When I am writing a story, I need people quickly. The closer a comms person is to a company, the more they know about it – this is important.

Corporates always tend to be more suspicious, cagey…that makes things difficult. Don’t overstate the importance of something, and steer clear of speculative language such as “if,” “could,” or “would.” Avoid unsubstantiated numbers with no detail or data to back them up.

And don’t use journalists to PR or market your products for you. Journalists aren’t here to promote your products; they focus on storytelling and news that resonates with their readers.

What else helps you, from a PR perspective?

Scoop, data, surveys, big numbers. Both raw and visualised data – it’s good to have the detail from raw data, but also a clear visualisation of what it means.

Reports are good but we have a high bar for them. Whether we cover them really depends on what is happening in the global news agenda and if the report taps into that or not.

What are your top tips for PRS?

Understand what someone is writing about, where, and how your news fits into the bigger news flow (divesting, Israeli bonds, Trump, etc).
Exclusivity is important, it’s our bread and butter.
If you are providing analysis, you need a reveal – it shouldn’t be meandering commentary.
Use data well – hinge something off it, make it relevant and mean something.

What do you personally read? Where do you get your news?

I read the FT edit, BBC, Reuters for nationals. For trades, I go to Environmental Finance, ESG Investor, Global Capital for finance-specific breaking news. Trades inform me of the news flow, updates on regulation (they are particularly good on regulation) and industry changes.

How did you interact with COP this year? Was it different to previous years?

This year, the editors didn’t want to cover the main deals at COP. Sometimes they do, but this year they didn’t. It varies.

There was less coverage than usual of COP this year in general, largely due to geopolitics, so there was less coverage of COP from individual desks. Stories that I would have covered in London, I didn’t at COP – they just didn’t cut through.