Valley PR Blog

How to pitch Republic Calendar, A&E sections

By Len Gutman on February 11th, 2009 In Pitching

Last week I was a breakout discussion leader at “Jolt: A Mid-Season Does of PR Energy” sponsored by the Alliance for Audience held at Childsplay’s Sybil B. Harrington Campus for Imagination and Wonder at Mitchell Park. The keynote speaker was Stacy Sullivan, editor of the Republic’s Thursday Calendar section and he offered up some important nuggets about how to best pitch him as well as provided news about some new products.

Perhaps the most important thing Stacy said was that he really just serves as a conduit for the various products — an arts and entertainment bureau chief if you will. He said he likes short e-mails with no attachments and he typically reads the first few lines and then forwards them to the appropriate editor/reporter. For example, a theater-related pitch would go straight to Kerry Lengel and a general arts pitch would likely go straight to A&E editor Laura Trujillo. He also said it’s fine to go straight to the beat reporter and for events it’s best to pitch directly to listings@azcentral.com and/or fill out the online form here.

Stacy and his team also supply most of the arts and entertainment stories for the community sections, so if you do have a community-related pitch it’s good to pitch his team as well. Finally, he said not to send him photos, but rather to send them to repphotos@arizonarepublic.com where they are filed for present and future use.

Two of the Republic’s new products he mentioned were MetroMix and CityLife. MetroMix is an online product with a focus on nightlife. CityLife is a new print publication that focuses on news along the Light Rail line.

Stacy said he’d provide the entire audience with a contact list so when I receive that I’ll post it.

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