Steve Rhodes, editor and publisher of the Beachwood Reporter, talked with CMW about what benefits nonprofit communicators and agencies could gain from pitching to smaller news outlets.

Pitch Steve by emailing him at srhodes@beachwoodreporter.com or calling him at 773-235-8986.

Find more people to pitch your story by subscribing to our Getting On Air, Online & Into Print Media Guide!

From 600words (by Esther Cepeda) and arteyvidaChicago (by Amor Montes de Oca) to This is Hell, US Catholic, We The People Media and Windy City Media Group, more than 75 online news sites have filled out the second annual Chicago New News Survey so far.

The survey is open until May 7 and if you produce an online news site, be it outpost for a major metro news outlet or a blog, online-only news service or aggregator, we’d like to hear from you. If you think you belong, we think you belong–but sites should focus on or be based in the Metro Chicago region.

Here’s a list, with links and a brief tagline or descriptive sentence, of who has filled out the survey so far (long list below the fold, fair warning!)

…And That’s My Opinion ~ various essays on a variety of subjects
600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda ~ opinion journalism on news, politics, culture with a Hispanic bent
“Going Public” blog ~ Blog about CTA news and issues
Adentro de Pilsen ~ Primarily to serve the Pilsen community with vetted news and info. The project also strives to create a passion for high school and college journalists to examine niche news coverage.
AREA Chicago ~ “AREA Chicago supports the work of people and organizations building a socially just city. AREA actively gathers, shares, and produces knowledge about local culture and politics. Its newspaper, website and events create relationships and sustain community through art, research, education, and activism.
Arte y Vida Chicago ~ A calendar of Hispanic art and culture in Chicago Read the rest of this entry »

by Mike Doyle

Pitching a story to a blogger on the Internet is a different animal than pitching to a print or broadcast reporter. Unlike the “traditional” media world, on the blogosphere you don’t get to leverage your verbal agility to establish a relationship with a reporter over the phone first, and then ask if they’d like to see your press release. And you certainly can’t spam World Wide Web bloggers with a single, impersonal press release that you’ve already emailed to the whole wide world.

While traditional media and the blogosphere both rely on the integrity of honestly forged personal relationships, on the blogosphere more than anywhere reputations are built around endorsements by others: specifically, vouching from supportive bloggers and positive comments submitted by a community of interested readers. If your blogger pitches hit the mark, a buzz of third-party vouching can develop, where bloggers and their readers begin to debate your message among each other, with little additional effort needed by you. When that happens, you can even start pointing print and broadcast reporters to the hubbub around your message on the Internet, if they haven’t found it already. Read the rest of this entry »