How to attract or pitch coverage in The Economist?
January 17, 2019 11:45 AM   Subscribe

An ongoing indigenous rights & title dispute in Canada exploded in the media last week, involving plans to build new fossil fuel infrastructure. How could the attention of The Economist magazine be attracted to this story? Where to start?

In brief, the two main issues are:

* Dispute over which governments have what type of jurisdiction

* Resistance to new fossil fuel infrastructure

In this part of the world, the indigenous Wet'suwet'en government -- consisting of hereditary chiefs -- exists at the same time and place as the colonial Canadian government. There are competing perspectives, but some would go so far as to say that there are two distinct sovereign states, once of which is much older than the other. There is abundant anthropological and legal evidence that shows the Wet'suwet'en government, which has existed since time immemorial, continues uninterrupted even through the present period of colonization. There were never any treaties signed between the indigenous peoples and the colonial government, and the Canadian legal system acknowledges, at least, that what they call indigenous rights & title exists. (It gets more complicated after that.) The current position of the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs is that they have the final decision about what types of resource extraction activities may take place on their territory.

There are also two systems of indigenous government. To date, the companies have negotiated benefits agreements with various "band councils" consisting of "elected chiefs" in a system created by the colonial government last century. The band councils pertain to single communities called reserves, each of a few hundred members. If the jurisdiction of each band council within the Wet'suwet'en nation is comparable to that of a town, then the jurisdiciton of the various hereditary chiefs is, by that analogy, equivalent that of a province.

The present dispute revolves around a proposed pipeline carrying fracked gas to a proposed liquefaction and export facility on the coast. Investment in the pipeline and liquefaction facility arises predominantly from shell corporations owned by the national petroleum companies of China, Korea, Malaysia, etc. The provincial government of British Columbia backs both proposed projects, and last week requested a militarized police force to remove Wet'suwet'en people from their their land. This has been extensively covered by mainstream media.

Speaking to economics and geopolitics, there is good reason to believe that large forces are in play, due to trade agreements with China and the enormous amounts of money involved.

There is of course much more that can be said. I don't pretend to be unbiased in my summary of the situation, but I have done my best to present the preceding account based solely on reported facts.

If a person wished to attract coverage of this situation in, say, The Economist, where would you start? Are there other prominent venues reporting to an influential audience that might cover this story?
posted by Verg to Media & Arts (4 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
How about tweeting the America’s editor?
posted by laukf at 2:09 PM on January 17, 2019


Best answer: Flack here: the key to pitching media is figuring out the right person to pitch. In your case, I would look at who covers Canada for the Economist (Madelaine Drohan) or who has written about similar or related stories.

Then, find their contact information and reach out. I recommend a well written, concise email about what the story is and why they should care, followed up by a phone call if you can find their number. Reporters get dozens, sometimes hundreds, of pitches a day, so it is hard to get through to them, and even harder to get them to write. That said, the worst they can say is no. Go for it!
posted by matrixclown at 2:38 PM on January 17, 2019 [2 favorites]


I agree with Matrixclown. I would aim to summarize the point of the story (what the angle is that hasn't been covered already, and why the Economist is the right place for it) in a couple of sentences. And make your subject line explain the same point even more concisely. Journalists can get hundreds of pitches a day and don't have time to even open every email (I don't, at least), so if the subject line isn't clear and compelling, you've already lost them.
posted by pinochiette at 3:12 PM on January 17, 2019


It's not clear to me whether you're hoping to pitch a story (that you'll write) to The Economist, or to catch the eye of a journalist who already writes/freelances for them, in the hopes they'll write that story themself. If the former, MeMail me and I'll forward you some info on pitching.
posted by tapir-whorf at 7:15 PM on January 17, 2019


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