Valley PR Blog

Pitch Me: Ashlea Deahl

By Charlotte Risch on September 23rd, 2008 In ValleySource

Name: Ashlea Deahl
Title: Editor
Outlet: PHOENIX magazine
Phone: 480-664-3960
Email

1. What are your main daily duties? Planning editorial for our monthly magazine, editing copy, writing stories, meeting with various PR agents, writers, photographers, etc.

2. What kinds of stories are you looking for? Phoenix-specific stories on a number of topics – news, environment, immigration, business, shopping, history, people, crime, restaurants…. Because we’re a general interest magazine, we cover a variety of topics, but we do look for stories that have a unique twist or never-before-told angle to them.

3. What’s the best way to approach you with a pitch? E-mail, and never in the last few days or first few days of the month – this is when our “ship weeks” occur, and we have no time to attend to anything but our pages!

4. What recommendations do you have for PR professionals? Know the publication you’re pitching and pitch to a specific section of it. For instance, a pitch that says, “Great idea for your Environment page of Phoenix Files” will catch my eye because it says that person has at least looked at the magazine or is familiar with it. Also, double-check the spellings of names before sending out pitches (I get pitches for “Ashley” all the time, which also tells me they’ve never seen the magazine.) Finally, don’t send high-res images unless requested!

5. What’s the strangest/weirdest pitch you’ve ever received?
I think someone who was pushing a hair restoration clinic pitched a story about the history of male-pattern baldness. We get plenty of strange pitches, though, so it’s hard to narrow them down!

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